It can be puzzling how A-list actresses make their choices, but you just have to remember that most of them get paid a lot of money to make movies that aren’t very good. Take Reese Witherspoon. Since her well-deserved Oscar for “Walk the Line” in 2005 her box office record has been up and down, as for every “Four Christmases” or “Water For Elephants,” there was a “Rendition” or “How Do You Know” — and none of them have exactly been a critical darling. She keeps finding employment because her movies bring in the bucks, even if nothing she’s made in the last few years has had any real substance.
She’ll next be seen in McG’s “This Means War,” also starring Chris Pine and Tom Hardy. Again, it probably will be a box-office smash with nothing intelligent to say (like most of McG’s undertakings), and it doesn’t seem that she’ll be changing that streak anytime soon. Deadline reports that she’s signed on to Disney‘s “Wish List,” a romantic comedy hoping to cash in on the same audience that made “Enchanted” a hit.
The film will focus on a young career woman who made ten wishes when she was a child at a magic fountain. Her wishes don’t come true because her coin never reaches the bottom, but once she’s grown up her wishes magically start to happen all at the same time when her coin happens to fall to the bottom after all this time. Didn’t we see a version of this movie already called “When In Rome” with Kristen Bell?
The script is being handled by Randi Mayem Singer who wrote “The Tooth Fairy” (need we say more?). Oh, and don’t even mention that it was supposed to be for a male star à la “Big,” but is now being reconstructed for Witherspoon. Doesn’t anyone remember how poorly “Salt” turned out? Producers Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray, who most recently were behind “Secretariat” for Disney, will be in charge of this one. There’s no telling how this sort of project will turn out, but who knows? It could turn out like a mix between the aforementioned “Enchanted” and “13 Going on 30,” if we’re lucky.
