– Gael Garcia Bernal is in negotiations to star alongside Kate Hudson in the romantic drama “Earthbound,” as a doctor that a terminally ill woman (Hudson) falls for. Nicole Kassell, director of the underrated Kevin Bacon drama “The Woodsman,” takes the helm, and it’ll start filming January 18th. Buying shares in companies that make tissues is probably a good move at this point.
– We were all over this story weeks ago, but Variety has confirmed that Sam Mendes and Christopher Hampton are teaming up to adapt Joseph O’Neill’s brilliant novel “Netherland.” Focus Features, where Mendes’ company Neal Street Productions has a first look deal, will distribute, and CEO James Schamus says, “This project’s emotional power has resonated with us all.”
– John Ridley (“U-Turn,” the upcoming “Red Tails”) is developing a new drama series for Showtime, which will be executive produced by Spike Lee and Robert De Niro. “Alphaville” (unconnected to the Godard movie, presumably…) will be set in Alphabet City in the 1980s, showing an ensemble cast of struggling artists and musicians living alongside Puerto Rican and black families, before the area’s gentrification into the East Village. Count us in.
– Josh Lucas will play the husband of “Mad Men”‘s Christina Hendricks in “Life as We Know It.” The love story, to be directed by TV whiz Greg Berlanti (“Brothers & Sisters”) stars Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel as two people brought together when their best friends, a couple (Lucas and Hendricks), die in a car crash and name them as guardians of their daughter.
– Regina Spektor is to write the music for a new Broadway musical adaptation of the Sleeping Beauty story, entitled “Beauty,” for director Tina Landau, collaborating with lyricist Michael Korie (“Grey Gardens,” “Finding Neverland”). It’s expected to hit Broadway sometime in 2011-2012, by which time Bono’s Spider-Man musical will still not have broken even…
– Romain Duris (“The Beat That My Heart Skipped”), a favorite in these parts, has signed on for thriller “L’Homme qui voulait vivre sa vie” (The Man Who Wanted To Live His Life), directed by Eric Lartigau (“I Do”). The picture, an adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s novel “The Big Picture,” is about a sociopathic lawyer who kills his wife’s lover and assumes his identity.