Wednesday, October 14

• Captain Kirk to Play Jack Ryan and Counterfeit Money

  

  Though we don't see him much these days, for a few years Tom Clancey's Jack Ryan had a great run onscreen. Alec Baldwin was the first actor to play the role in The Hunt for Red October. Then Harrison Ford had a good run as Ryan in Patriot Games and A Clear and present Danger. It all came to an end, though, when Ben Affleck's The Sum of All Fears finished off the franchise.

  But since Clancey's books and video games are still selling strong, Variety reports that Paramount Pictures wants to reboot the franchise and is negotiating with Star Trek's Chris Pine to play the Ryan role. Hossein Amini wrote the script for the reboot based on an original concept. No director has been named since Sam Raimi left the project.

  Before Pine starts work on a Ryan movie or Star Trek 2, he'll be busy with another movie he is negotiating with Paramount to star in, The Art of Making Money. Money will follow Pine as a master counterfeiter in Chicago and is set to start production early next year.

  
  

  Posted 10/14/2009 by Ryan

  Related: Chris Pine | D.J. Caruso | Hossein Amini | A Clear and Present Danger | Star Trek 2 | The Hunt for Red October | Patriot Games | The Sum of All Fears

Tuesday, June 23

• Shia LaBeouf as Y: The Last Man -- Not a Question of "Will?" but "When?"

  Last time Shia LaBeouf spoke about comic adaptation Y: The Last Man, it seemed he was not interested in the project, saying the character of Yorick in Y was a little too similar to his character of Sam in Transformers.

  The character similarity is still an issue for LaBeouf, but that doesn't mean the movie won't happen, especially since Y is his "favorite comic book." LaBeouf told Collider that the movie is just on hold for a little while.

  We DO want to make it. [Brian K.] Vaughn and [Carl] Ellsworth and D.J. [Caruso] are writing the script now. The script is not ready to be shot. DJ is making a different movie right now. He's making Jack and the Beanstalk. There's just other things going on with DJ and I wouldn't want to make the movie with anybody else because he loves it like I do. But I don't think Vaughn is trying to give it to anybody else. I think that it is something that's very realistic, it's just not in the pipe for the next year.

  If not next year, when? LaBeouf is already set to make the Wall Street sequel Money Never Sleeps and a fifth Indiana Jones.

  
  

  Posted 06/23/2009 by Ryan

  Related: D.J. Caruso | Carl Ellsworth | Shia LaBeouf | Y: The Last Man | Transformers | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Tuesday, June 9

• LaBeouf Is Currently "Not Willing to Make" Y: The Last Man

  

  Director D.J. Caruso's big screen adaptation of the critically-acclaimed graphic novel series Y: The Last Man seemed like the perfect vehicle for rising star Shia LaBeouf, especially since the two had already worked together on Eagle Eye and Disturbia. However, LaBeouf, rumored to have been offered the role of title character Yorick Brown, recently told Wizard magazine that the role is too similar to his Transformers character, Sam Witwicky:

  You take Sam and you put a monkey on his shoulder. I don't know if it's that big a differential. It seems like he's the ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation again.

  The "monkey" LaBeouf refers to is Ampersand, Yorick Brown's pet Capuchin monkey. In Y: The Last Man, Yorick and Ampersand are the only two mammals possessing a Y chromosome to survive a mysterious plague that sweeps the planet.

  It's unclear why the film adaptation, originally scheduled to begin filming in the fall of 2008, has been delayed, but LaBeouf said:

  I'm not willing to make that movie currently and may be too old to play the role by the time it does come around.

  LaBeouf's next film, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, opens nationwide June 24.

  
  

  Posted 06/09/2009 by BrentJS

  Related: D.J. Caruso | Shia LaBeouf | Eagle Eye | Disturbia | Transformers | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | Y: The Last Man

Tuesday, December 30

• Y: The Last Man Having Script Trouble

  It's been awhile since there's been much to report about the big screen adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn's hit comic about an apocalyptic plague that kills all but one male, until director D. J. Caruso (Eagle Eye, Disturbia) finally told to ComingSoon what's been keeping the movie from getting off the ground.

  "I think it's one of those that the source material is fantastic stuff, it's great, but it's a tough one to lick into getting into a screenplay," said Caruso, who has been working with screenwriters Carl Ellsworth and David Goyer as well as Vaughn on the project for a few years now to create a trilogy of Y movies, "When you're telling the story -- yes, the fanboys and all the people who love it will go and see it -- but if you're just seeing the movie from a filmgoers' perspective and you're not familiar with the source material, you have to make sure you make the movie that they understand and they love, too. And we're almost there."

  Caruso has a familiar choice in mind to play Yorick, the last man on earth: Shia LaBeouf. After making two movies together, Caruso clearly is a fan of LaBeouf. "I would like him to do it if our schedules work out," Caruso told SciFi Wire that LaBeouf is interested, and will be shown the script once LaBeouf is done taking time off after finishing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

  
  

  Posted 12/30/2008 by reelz

  Related: D.J. Caruso | David S. Goyer | Y: The Last Man | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Thursday, August 9

• Casting news: Walken, Hurt, Defiance, and Eagle Eye

  Variety is reporting several casting deals today.

  Christopher Walken and Alessandro Nivola (Junebug, Face/Off) will be teaming up in Five Dollars a Day, a road movie in which Walken plays a conman and Nivola the son who's been jailed for his crimes. Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls, A Lot Like Love) will direct...

  ...Liev Schreiber (The Painted Veil, Kate & Leopold) and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, King Kong) will be joining Daniel Craig in Defiance, the Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) written and directed drama about Polish brothers who join the Russian resistance during the Holocaust...

  ...Director D.J. Caruso will be re-teaming with Shia LaBeouf after their blockbuster turn in Disturbia for another thriller, Eagle Eye. Michelle Monaghan (Mission: Impossible III, North Country) has just been cast opposite Shia as a single mother who must infiltrate a cell plotting a political assassination after they are wrongly accused of being terrorists. MTV.com recently reported that Rosario Dawson has also signed onto the movie...

  ...MTV is also reporting that William Hurt has a juicy role coming up in a new Julie Delpy drama/romance. The Countess, which Delpy wrote and will star in and direct, is about Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian countess who lived during the 16th century and also happened to be a serial killer. Radha Mitchell (Melinda and Melinda, Finding Neverland) and Vincent Gallo (The Brown Bunny, Buffalo 66) are also confirmed. 

  
  

  Posted 08/09/2007 by reelz

  Related: Alessandro Nivola | Christopher Walken | Liev Schreiber | Michelle Monaghan | Rosario Dawson | William Hurt | Nigel Cole | D.J. Caruso | Radha Mitchell | Vincent Gallo | Jamie Bell | Julie Delpy | Five Dollars a Day | Defiance | Eagle Eye | The Countess

Tuesday, July 24

• Y: The Last Man and Jonah Hex coming to the big screen

  Fanboy alert! Two major comic book adaptations are in the works.

  Vertigo's Y: The Last Man--about an escape artist named Yorick who, along with his pet monkey, are the last surviving male mammals after a mysterious plague--is making its way to the silver screen.

  The force behind the surprise hit Disturbia, director D.J. Caruso and writer Carl Ellsworth are working on the adaptation of the Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's popular comic.

  Not to be slighted, DC Comics' Jonah Hex is also slated for movie adaptation. Hex, the Confederate-army-uniform-wearing-part-time-bounty-hunter/gunslinger with a partially disfigured face, will be made into a a comic/Western with "supernatural overtones."

  Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the team behind Crank, are heading up the project. 

  Source: The Hollywood Reporter.

  
  

  Posted 07/24/2007 by reelz

  Related: D.J. Caruso | Carl Ellsworth | Mark Neveldine | Y: The Last Man | Jonah Hex