‘Star Trek 2’ Wraps, Russell Out of ‘Django Unchained,’ Polanski Takes ‘D,’ Del Toro Tackles ‘Pinocchio’ and More

Zachary Quinto tweeted out the picture you see to the right noting principal photography on Star Trek 2 has wrapped. If you check out his Twitter pics here you’ll see more pics, many of him, Simon Pegg, Benedict Cumberbatch and Chris Pine hanging out in various locations and occasionally a few fans. Star Trek 2 hits theaters on May 17, 2013. [source]

Roman Polanski will direct D as his next project. Written by Robert Harris, the film centers on Captain Alfred Dreyfus, one of the few Jewish officers on the General Staff of the French Army, who in December 1894 was subjected to a secret court martial for passing secrets to the Germans. Found guilty, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Devil’s Island.

The independently financed film will begin casting shortly and currently plans to be in production in Paris by the end of this year. Lionsgate/Summit International will represent the film’s international sales. ICM will represent North American rights.

Exclusive Media has come aboard to produce and finance the action/comedy Agent: Century 21 with Cameron Diaz and Benicio Del Toro attached to star for first time director Adam Hashemi from a script written by Stuart Little scribe Greg Brooker. The plot goes a little something like this:

Crushed by her recent divorce, Mary Kay Curly (Diaz) cannot catch a break. Desperate to protect the two most important things in her life, her kids and her real estate agent job, Mary Kay agrees to take on an unpleasant task for her boss that accidentally gets her kidnapped and tossed into the center of a Mexican drug war. Armed with little more than her maternal instincts and a streak of pure dumb luck, Mary Kay must overcome incredible odds and outsmart the FBI, various underground crime lords and an international terrorist organization in time to make it home for dinner.

The film is set to start shooting in September 2012.

Principal photography on Therese is underway with Charlie Stratton directing the erotic thriller based on Emile Zola’s novel “Therese Raquin”. The film is set in the lower echelons of 1860s Paris where Therese Raquin (Elizabeth Olsen), a sexually repressed and beautiful young woman, is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille (Tom Felton), by her domineering aunt, Madame Raquin (Jessica Lange). Therese spends her days confined behind the counter of a small shop and her evenings watching Madame play dominos with an eclectic group. After she meets her husband’s alluring friend, Laurent (Oscar Isaac), she embarks on an illicit affair that leads to tragic consequences. Filming is taking place in Belgrade, Serbia and Budapest, Hungary. Shirley Henderson, Mackenzie Crook and Matt Lucas round out the cast.

Marion Cotillard spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about her role as Miranda Tate in Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises, which many speculate is actually villainess Talia al Ghul, estranged daughter of Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson), but Cotillard insists Tate “is fascinated by Wayne Enterprises. They go through difficulties, and she wants to help provide the world clean energies. She’s a good guy.” [source]

Jean-Luc Godard is preparing Goodbye to Language, his next film which will be shot in 3-D. Wild Bunch is taking the pic to the market at Cannes where it will be sold with French actors Heloise Godet, Zoe Bruneau, Kamel Abdelli, Richard Chevalier and Jessica Erickson attached to star. There are no plot details as of yet. [source]

The Scribbler, an adaptation of the UK graphic novel, began production this week in downtown Los Angeles under the direction of John Suits. Written by Daniel Schaffer, the film centers on Suki (Katie Cassidy), a young woman confronting her destructive mental illness using “The Siamese Burn”, an experimental machine designed to eliminate multiple personalities. The closer Suki comes to being “cured”, she’s haunted by a thought… what if the last unwanted identity turns out to be her? The cast also includes Garret Dillahunt, Michelle Trachtenberg, Eliza Dushku, Gina Gershon, Michael Imperioli, Billy Campbell, Sasha Grey, Ashlynn Yennie, Kunal Nayyar and T.V. Carpio.

CBS Films is doing a little release date shuffling moving the Coen brothers’ penned remake Gambit starring Cameron Diaz and Colin Firth from January 11, 2013 to October 12, 2012 where it will face off against Ben Affleck‘s Argo, Paul Thomas Anderson‘s The Master and Here Comes The Boom. Additionally, the Takashi Shimizu airplane thriller 7500 is now looking for a release date after relinquishing its planned August 31, 2012 date. [source]

Matthew McConaughey will be featured in The Paperboy at Cannes for director Lee Daniels (Precious) and while that’s taking place Daniels’s next film The Butler will be shopped around the Cannes marketplace and it just so happens McConaughey is attached to that as well. The film, based on a Washington Post report by Wil Haygood follows Eugene Allen (Forest Whitaker), the White House butler whose career started with Harry Truman in 1952 and ended in 1986 with Ronald Reagan. Along with McConaughey and Whitaker, the film will star Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Alan Rickman, Oprah Winfrey, John Cusack and Jane Fonda. [source]

Guillermo Del Toro will co-direct Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio with Mark Gustafson as a 3D stop-motion animated production of the Jim Henson Company with plans to begin shooting in the summer of 2013. The story will be set in Italy between WWI and WWII. “It was when everyone was behaving like a puppet, except for puppets,” Del Toro told Variety. [source]

Well, you can add Kurt Russell to the list of actors that have exited Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained with rumors circulating saying Russell “was unhappy with his role saying it wasnt Western enough.” Russell was playing Ace Woody, a vicious underling of Leonardo DiCaprio‘s villainous Calvin Candie.

As reported yesterday, Sacha Baron Cohen also recently departed the picture following previous exits from Kevin Costner and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The Russell rumor linked to above also says Russell’s departure was “part of the reason Sacha Baron Cohen [left].”

Ain’t It Cool News, however, says those rumors are false and is reporting Russell’s character won’t be replaced, but will instead be “absorbed” by Walton Goggins. [source]

Kyle Chandler will join Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in Martin Scorsese‘s The Wolf of Wall Street, the adaptation of the Jordan Belfort memoir in which DiCaprio plays Belfort, who experiences a dramatic rise on Wall Street, and gets lost in the drugs and other excess of a hard partying lifestyle that comes hand in hand with all that money. His downfall is precipitous, and he spent 22 months in jail before straightening out his life. Chandler will play FBI agent Coleman, who built the case against Belfort and took him down. Hill plays Belfort’s close friend and business partner who’s persuaded by Belfort to quit his job in the furniture business to jump into volatile world of stocks. [source]

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