Some directing news to get y’all over that midweek hump. Screen Daily has two pieces of intriguing news for us: first up, Tobias Lindholm, director of the absolutely stellar “A Hijacking,” has announced his new project, “The War,” about Danish soldiers in Afghanistan. Lindholm likes simple titles, it seems, and simple set-ups: “The War” will form the third part of a thematic trilogy about “desperate men in small rooms”, following on from “A Hijacking” and the even simpler “R” from 2010. This third film will also feature “Borgen” star Pilou Asbaek, as the previous two did. (Lindholm is a writer on that show).
In more Danish directing news, Bille August, of “Night Train To Lisbon” and “Goodbye Bafana” fame has announced his new project, “Beware of Pity,” based on the Stefan Zweig novel of the same name about a young lieutenant in the 1930s who falls for a paralyzed aristocrat. Greg Latter will write the script, as he did for ‘Lisbon’ and ‘Bafana.’
And for a Danish triple (if you happen to know that Lego is a Danish invention, that is), The Hollywood Reporter has word that Charlie Bean, director of Disney’s “Tron: Uprising” series, has been handed a new project by the house of mouse: a film adapting Lego’s kung-fu-ish “Ninjago” line. This will be the second Lego movie, after “The Lego Movie,” which is arriving in February. Insert your own “building blocks of a franchise” pun here.
Returning to high European literary culture, sort of, Deadline has news of a new adaptation of “Dante’s Inferno”: not the Renaissance poem, mind you, but the EA videogame in which Dante hacks and slashes his way through the demons of hell to rescue his love, Beatrice. What it lost of the original’s poetry, the game more than made up for with demonic babies. Universal will be producing and Fede Alvarez directing: he of the recent “Evil Dead” remake. Maybe it’s time to dig out that copy of Dante you never opened.
Screenwriter Etan Cohen (“Tropic Thunder,” “Men in Black III”) , while yet to make a feature directorial debut, is lining up his options with pal Will Ferrell. He’s already slated to helm “Daddy’s Home,” and now Variety reveals he’ll get behind the camera for “Get Hard.” As previously reported, the film will team Ferrell with Kevin Hart, and center on a rich, soft-handed investment bank manager who is sentenced to a maximum security prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He then hires a streetwise guy who normally washes his car, to get him ready to do hard time in the 30 days before he has to report to prison.
Lastly, if you were a fan or read that 40 Days Of Dating blog earlier this year, well guess what, it’s going to be a movie now according to Deadline. Warner Bros. has optioned the rights to the blog which found two people detailing their lives together in an experiment that forced them to see each other every day, go on three dates per week and see a couples therapist once a week…right from the start. Can you guess how their relationship ended? Lorene Scafaria (“Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” “Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World“) will write the script with “The Vow” helmer Michael Sucsy directing.