1.) While the rest of the core cast has already been confirmed to return for Thor: The Dark World, Kat Dennings remained the lone holdout. That likely had a lot to do with her schedule and working around her sitcom, “2 Broke Girls.” But all has been resolved and the actress is officially set to reprise her role as Darcy Lewis. The report even suggests the character’s role has expanded. So while Dennings was good in purely a comic relief role, I’m glad she might actually actually contribute something to the story this time around. [Deadline]
2.) News about Sean Penn‘s next directing gig broke a few weeks ago when it was reported he would direct Crazy For The Storm for Warner Bros. The story is based on the memoirs of Norman Ollestad, who was 11-years-old when he was in a plane crash that killed three people, including his father. He was stranded on a mountaintop, but managed to escape using the survival skills instilled in him by his father. Penn had considered playing the father himself before deciding to focus solely on directing, and now Josh Brolin is in talks for the role. They’re looking to film in the beginning of 2013, so I’m curious to see if they’ll have it out by the end of next year since it seems to have Oscar bait written all over it. Either way, it has the potential to be a nice companion piece to Penn’s previous feature, Into the Wild. [Variety]
3.) A few years ago, I never would have guessed that the biblical epic would become the hottest Hollywood trend by 2012. But that’s exactly what’s happening. You can now add one more to a list that already includes Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah, Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg‘s rival Moses projects and Will Smith‘s proposed directorial debut on The Redemption of Cain. Warner Bros. has acquired a Vera Blasi‘s script for Pontius Pilate, which follows the title character’s evolution from the sensitive son of a Roman Knight to a ferocious soldier. The film will culminate with Pilate’s decision to go ahead with Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
While I’d much rather see a bunch of money go towards building elaborate sets than pumped into special effects, that was ultimately the demise of the sword-and-sandals revival of a decade ago. So much money was spent on the sets for movies like Troy and Alexander that it made it really difficult for them to be financially successful. That said, I’m hoping for nothing but success from this movement as I’d like to see old-school filmmaking and storytelling make a comeback. [Deadline]
4.) Disney is planning a reboot of The Rocketeer, the 1930s-set superhero that saw his big-screen debut in a 1991 feature from eventual Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnston. Disney will have their hands full with marketing the film as anything but an Iron Man rip-off, as both the character’s red-and-gold look and the story are strikingly similar. The Rocketeer follows a stunt pilot named Cliff Secord who uncovers a rocket-pack prototype created by Howard Hughes and, you know, uses it to fly and fight the bad guys. We’ll see how it goes, but you’d think Disney would have learned their lesson after all the Avatar and Star Wars comparisons certainly didn’t help John Carter‘s chances at the box-office. [Vulture]
5.) Bobby Farrelly revealed in an interview that the Dumb and Dumber sequel will shoot this coming spring when Jeff Daniels is freed up from his “Newsroom” commitments. That would put it on track for a fall 2013 release. He also offered the following plot description:
I can tell you that there is no growth out of either one of them and it’s 20 years later. What is funny about the original is that they’re grown men who are complete losers and when the studio came to us about a sequel, we were like, ‘Loads of kids are losers and they’re dumb.’ We didn’t see any value in the sequel so we backed out of it, but now these guys are in regular life and they’re still basically children at heart.
“The story revolves around the fact that one of them may have sired a child. They want to go and find the child because he’s having a kidney problem and he wants to ask him for one of his kidneys.”
