With his time in the districts of "The Hunger Games" now nearing an end, Francis Lawrence is looking to his next projects, and one of them takes him out of the future and into the past. The director is attached to helm an adaptation of "The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France" by Eric Jaegar, which "details the true story of the last legal trial by combat in France. Knight Jean de Carrouges and the squire Jacques Le Gris were in a dispute, with de Carrouges accusing Le Gris of raping his wife. The wrangling went up the flagpole to King Charles VI, who decided that a duel would be the best way to handle the matter. Whoever was still alive at the end of the duel would be declared the winner as a sign of God’s will. The stakes were high: If de Carrouges lost the duel, Marguerite de Carrouges would be burned at the stake as punishment for committing a false accusation." Take that, ‘Hunger Games.’ [THR]
Albert Hughes is going olden times too, and is now lined up to helm a movie "set in the era of 25,000 BC and centering on a young caveman and his wolf-dog." Uh, okay. [THR]
Terry Jones, his son Bill Jones, and Ben Timlett, have all co-directed the economics doc "Boom Bust Boom." Featuring John Cusack, journalists Paul Mason and John Cassidy, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman, Robert J Shiller, and Paul Krugman, and many more, the film uses "live action, animation, puppetry and songs" to help explain how everything is basically terrible. Look for it on the festival circuit next year. [Screen Daily]
Jon S. Baird ("Filth") is set direct a biopic about legendary comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, focusing on their farewell tour of Britain in 1953. “It’s really a love story between two guys who come to realise they can’t live without each other. It’s a really, really beautiful tale,” Baird said. “It also tells the story of their off-screen personas, which were quite different to what people would imagine knowing their on-screen ones. Stan was very much the driving force, Ollie was more relaxed, he just loved golfing and betting on the horses. Once he’d finish for the day, he’d be off, and though he would be consulted on the script ideas when they were rehearsing, he didn’t write the stuff, Stan wrote everything, I think he was a real tortured genius." Jeff Pope ("Philomena") penned the script, and casting is underway. [The Scotsman via The Dissolve]