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Denzel Washington No Longer Unstoppable
13 July 2009 9:14 PM, PDT
The trades are reporting that Denzel Washington has dropped out of Tony Scott’s Unstoppable, an action thriller that would have been the actor and director’s fifth collaboration, behind Crimson Tide, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. The film, which is loosely inspired by real events, centers on an experienced train engineer and a newbie conductor who end up in a race against time to stop an unmanned, half-mile-long freight train carrying enough combustible liquids and poisonous gas to wipe out a nearby city. Mark Bomback (Live Free or Die Hard) wrote the script. Chris Pine (Star Trek) is still attached to play the newbie. Washington’s departure isn’t a surprising one. At the end of June Fox put the film on hold while it focused on its escalating budget. Washington formally withdrew from the film after the studio offered a lower rate. Apparently,
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James Cook
Natalie Portman Confirmed for Thor!
13 July 2009 11:47 AM, PDT
Rumored to be up for the role for the past few months, Marvel has now officially confirmed that Natalie Portman has landed the female lead in the upcoming Thor. Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek) stars as the title character and Tom Hiddleston is Loki, the god of mischief who serves as the movie's villain. Portman has been cast to star as Jane Foster, who in early comic book lore was a nurse who became Thor's first love. The studio said the character will be updated for the feature adaptation. Thor is an epic fantasy adventure, spanning from present-day Earth to the realm of Asgard. The story centers on Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. As punishment, Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans but once here, he learns what it takes to be a true hero when the
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James Cook
Paramount Developing Max Steel Movie
13 July 2009 11:44 AM, PDT
Paramount Pictures is teaming with producer Joe Roth (Hellboy II: The Golden Army) turn Mattel's Max Steel toy into a big screen action flick. The property revolves around a 19-year-old extreme sports junkie recruited by a secret agency after an accident infects his body with nanobots, making him superhuman. Mattel wants to use a movie as a way to relaunch the toy line in the U.S. and the rest of the world. The company and Roth are currently looking for a screenwriter and director, who will work closely with the toymaker to develop the film's characters and storyline to match the company's plans for the franchise. Mattel was keen on pairing with Roth, considering the Max Steel character has similarities to the xXx franchise he launched while head of Revolution Studios. The Xander Cage character in the first film was an extreme sports athlete turned spy. Although Mattel introduced the character in the U.
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James Cook
Jason Statham to Star in Blitz
13 July 2009 11:40 AM, PDT
Jason Statham is in final negotiations to star in Blitz. Lionsgate U.K. is developing the project, which is an adaptation of Ken Bruen's bestseller of the same name about a serial killer targeting police officers. The London-set thriller will see Statham play a tough, uncompromising cop assigned the task of tracking down the killer. Paddy Considine, whose credits include Hot Fuzz and The Bourne Ultimatum, will play Statham’s partner. Elliott Lester (Love Is the Drug) is directing from a screenplay by Nathan Parker, who previously wrote the screenplay for Duncan Jones’ indie sci-fi thriller Moon. Blitz will be Lionsgate U.K.'s first British project since it announced its plans to beef up its local production last year. It will also mark the first collaboration between Statham and Lionsgate U.K. since last year's The Bank Job, which was a hit at the international box office. Statham,
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James Cook
Goodman and Sarandon Don’t Know Jack
13 July 2009 11:35 AM, PDT
John Goodman and Susan Sarandon, who recently starred together in 2008’s Speed Racer, have joined Al Pacino in You Don't Know Jack, HBO Films' biopic of Jack Kevorkian, which is being directed by Barry Levinson (Wag the Dog). Kevorkian, known as Dr. Death, assisted in more than 130 suicides. After willingly sending a videotape of himself euthanizing a terminally ill man to 60 Minutes, he was convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder and spent eight years in prison before getting paroled in 2007. Loosely based on Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie's book "Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia," the HBO film follows Kevorkian's (Pacino) rise as he builds his infamous Mercy Machine and sets out to perform assisted suicides while waging an epic legal battles defending a patient's right to die. Goodman will play Nicol, a friend and co-worker of
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James Cook
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