It seems all the pieces are now falling now into place. Just two days after we broke the news that Channing Tatum had joined the already pretty exciting cast of Steven Soderbergh’s “Knockout” (which includes Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and Dennis Quaid), The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Michael Angarano is in talks to sign on. He will play “a teen who sees [Gina] Carano (playing a spy for special-ops) in trouble and decides to help, unwittingly ending up as her partner.” This is a strong addition to an already great cast and marks a good stepping stone for Angarano, who until this time has largely been toiling away unrecognized with strong performances in otherwise unremarkable films.
At a press junket for the forthcoming “When In Rome,” Will Arnett said the feature film version of “Arrested Development” will go in front of cameras this year. “We don’t have a completed script yet, but it’s forthcoming and we’re going to make the movie this year,” said Arnett. Yeah, right. Frankly, we’re kind of getting tired about hearing about this movie (and we are big fans of the show). Can we put a moratorium on asking/talking/thinking about this thing until a script is done and a release date is set? And to Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and the rest of the cast: We know you’re being polite answering these questions but it’s ok to say ‘no’ to them and every time you drop some little morsel of information it ends up being blown all out of proportion.
Paramount has given the go-ahead for a sequel to “G.I. Joe: Rise Of The Cobra,” with “Zombieland” writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick penning the script. The duo seem to cashing in their “Zombieland” cred for big paychecks having also recently signed on to write the “Deadpool” movie. There is no word on yet on which members of the cast will back, but given that a fairly big cliffhanger was left in last summer’s trainwreck, we imagine there were some kind of sequel obligations in their contracts. And given Stephen Sommer’s very public headbutting sessions with the studio prior to the release of “Rise Of The Cobra”, we don’t think he will be back in the director’s chair.
Antoine Fuqua has been tapped to direct the spy thriller “Consent To Kill” for CBS Films. Based on the novel by Nick Flynn, it’s about “counterterrorism agent Mitch Rapp” who battles “a vengeful Saudi billionaire, an ex-East German Stasi spy and a husband-and-wife team of assassins — all while dealing with a knee injury.” It was adapted by Jonathan Lemkin (“Shooter,” “Lethal Weapon 4”) which doesn’t bode well. What this means for “Prisoners,” the Hugh Jackman thriller that is supposed to be coming out on October 22, 2010 remains to be seen. In related news, Fuqua’s delayed, though supposedly gritty cop drama “Brooklyn’s Finest” hits theaters on March 5th.
The French, sort of NSFW trailer for Atom Egoyan’s latest erotic thriller (what else?) “Chloe” has landed. The rather ludicrous sounding plot involves a doctor who suspects who her husband of cheating and in order to prove that he can’t be faithful, she hires an escort to seduce him and bad things happen. The film stars Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried.