Here is the special thread completely devoted to all film casting and development updates. Please feel free to comment and add the lastest information for November, 2009.
Julia Roberts moves to 'Neighborhood' Red Om acquires screen rights to book
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Julia Roberts' production shingle Red Om Films has acquired screen rights to "In the Neighborhood," a nonfiction book by Peter Lovenheim to be published next April by Perigee.
Deal marks the fifth property Red Om has set up through its first-look pact with Reliance Big Entertainment; Red Om's is one of the 10 accords the India-based giant made with production companies of A-list stars and directors. Reliance Big's hope is to nurture 30 star-driven films it can co-finance with studios.
"In the Neighborhood" starts with Lovenheim's realization of a lack of community in his suburban hometown. In an effort to get to know his neighbors better, he asks if he can come to their homes for sleepovers. His goal: to facilitate something more than the feeling of strangers living with strangers in modern suburbia.
Red Om sparked to the Capra-esque element, and Reliance Big agreed.
Philip Rose and Lisa Gillan as well as Roberts will produce for Red Om.
Roberts, who's currently shooting "Eat, Pray, Love" for Columbia Pictures, hasn't had a first-look studio deal since her alliance ended with Joe Roth's Revolution. Reliance Big Entertainment has set four other ambitious projects for her:
"My Mother the Cheerleader," based on Robert Sharenow's Civil Rights-era novel about a 13-year-old girl whose mother is part of a group of women who harass the first black student after court-ordered integration.
"Jesus Henry Christ," written and to be directed by Dennis Lee, who collaborated with Roberts on "Fireflies in the Garden."
"Mallory," a script by Matthew Faulk and Mark Skeet on the life of George Mallory, the English mountaineer who was part of the first three British expeditions up Mount Everest in the 1920s.
"The Journey of the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon," an adaptation of a book that tells the tragic story of a fast-rising photographer who chronicled the deadly famine in Somalia until, at 22, he was chased down and brutally murdered by a Somali mob. Project is being undertaken in collaboration with Eldon's mother, Kathy, who edited the compilation of her son's journals.
'Romantics' hot for Katie Holmes Actress replaces Liv Tyler in comedy
By TATIANA SIEGEL
Katie Holmes has replaced Liv Tyler in the independently financed comedy "The Romantics."
The actress has come aboard to topline and exec produce the pic, which also stars Anna Paquin, Josh Duhamel, Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, Adam Brody and Jeremy Strong.
Team Todd, Plum Pictures and Benaroya Pictures are producing.
Project, which had originally been scheduled to lense in the summer, begins shooting this week in New York.
Film revolves around eight friends from college who reunite for a wedding. Holmes, fresh off her role in Miramax's "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," will play Laura, the maid of honor to Anna Paquin's Lila, the bride. Laura and Lila are best friends who both have a past with the groom (Duhamel).
Screenplay was adapted by Galt Niederhoffer from her novel; she will also direct.
Team Todd's Jennifer and Suzanne Todd will produce alongside Plum Pictures' Daniela Taplin Lundberg and Benaroya's Michael Benaroya and Taylor Kephart.
Celine Rattray, Pam Hirsch and Riva Marker are also exec producing.
Simon Crowe from SC Films Intl. is selling foreign distribution.
Team Todd is in post-production on Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" for Disney.
Warner Bros. is pre-emptively picking up an untitled comedy spec by Josh Cagan and Greg Coolidge to which Morgan Freeman is attached to star and Peter Segal is eyeing to direct.
Lori McCreary, Freeman's producing partner at the duo's Revelations Entertainment banner, will produce with Segal and his producing partner, Callahan Filmworks' Michael Ewing. Freeman will exec produce.
The script, which had a working title of "Dirty Old Men," revolves around an aging playboy who finally meets the love of his life and his best friend and wingman for the past 40 years (Freeman) who does everything to break up the new couple. The tone is described as similar to "Wedding Crashers" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."
The studio would love to have Jack Nicholson reteam with Freeman on the film; the pair starred in Warners' 2007 hit comedy "The Bucket List." Nicholson is not attached to the project but is aware of it.
Cagan penned Summit's "Bandslam," and Coolidge last year sold a high-profile pitch to Paramount titled "****blocker" with Seann William Scott and Topher Grace attached. They are buddies though a six-man writing troupe dubbed the Job Factory.
The comic scribes cooked up the "Dirty" idea and brought it to Revelations, which developed the project further and enlisted Segal. The team then brought it to Warners, where Revelations is based and for whom Segal made 2008's "Get Smart." Callahan also is based at Warners.
Kevin McCormick and Jesse Ehrman are overseeing for the studio. Tracy Mercer and Joe Rosenberg are overseeing for Revelations.
CAA-repped Freeman will next be seen in Warners' "Invictus," which sees him portraying Nelson Mandela for director Clint Eastwood. He begins shooting Summit's action thriller "Red" in January.
Segal, who is developing the DC Comics title "Shazam," is repped by CAA. Cagan is repped by WME and H2F; Coolidge, who also wrote and directed "Employee of the Month," is repped by CAA and H2F.
Clooney in talks for 'Descendants' Payne directing family dramedy for Fox
By TATIANA SIEGEL
George Clooney is circling the lead in the Alexander Payne-helmed family dramedy "The Descendants" for Fox Searchlight.
The actor, who is currently shooting Anton Corbijn-directed thriller "The American," is in talks to topline "Descendants," which centers on a wealthy landowner who takes his two daughters on a search for his wife's lover in the hopes of keeping his family together.
Project, which marks Payne's first feature in five years, is scheduled to begin lensing in February in Hawaii. "Descendants" would rep the first collaboration between Clooney and Payne.
Screenplay, which is based on Kaui Hart Hemmings' debut novel of the same name, was penned by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.
Payne, Jim Burke and Jim Taylor are producing through their shingle Ad Hominem.
Clooney, who last starred in "Burn After Reading," has three films set for release in the coming weeks: "Fantastic Mr. Fox," "The Men Who Stare at Goats" and "Up in the Air."
Joins Judy Greer and Lee Pace in live-action/CG movie
By Borys Kit
Owen Wilson has signed on to voice the rascally Great Dane "Marmaduke," Fox's adaptation of the long-running comic strip.
Wilson's boarding is the last piece of the puzzle for the live-action/CG movie, which has shades of Fox's surprise smash "Marley & Me" and follows a family named the Winslows who move from Kansas to Orange County with their dog Marmaduke, a slobbery pooch who creates chaos wherever he goes.
In adapting the strip created in 1954 by Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming, the script by Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio sees Marmaduke navigate a volatile Mutts vs. Pedigrees turf war, woo the purebred of his dreams and overcome a fall from grace.
Judy Greer, Lee Pace and William H. Macy play the humans, while Fergie, Emma Stone, George Lopez, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Steve Coogan, Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans supply the voices.
Tom Dey is directing, and John Davis is producing the family comedy, which has a June 2010 release date.
Wilson, repped by UTA, starred opposite a rambunctious lab in Fox's "Marley" and did voice work in the studio's upcoming animated Wes Anderson pic "The Fantastic Mr. Fox." He is following the steps of Bill Murray, who voiced another famous comic strip animal, the lasagna-loving cat "Garfield," also from Fox.
'United States of Tara' co-star nabs lead in Focus' film
By Borys Kit
Keir Gilchrist has nabbed the lead role in "It's Kind of a Funny Story," Focus' coming-of-age film from writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.
Gilchrist, who appears on Showtime's "United States of Tara," joins a cast that includes Zach Galifianakis, Emma Roberts and Viola Davis. Also coming aboard are Zoe Kravitz, Aasif Mandavi, Lauren Graham and Jim Gaffigan.
The comedy-drama adaptation of Ned Vizzini's 2006 novel centers on 16-year-old Craig (Gilchrist) who, stressed out from the demands of being a teenager, checks himself into a mental health clinic. He learns that the youth ward is closed and finds himself stuck in the adult ward.
Galifianakis plays a patient who becomes the boy's mentor and protege, Roberts is another patient, and Davis plays a psychiatrist. Kravitz is the boy's crush, Mandvi another psychiatrist; Graham and Gaffigan are the parents.
Shooting begins in New York in early December.
Focus holds worldwide rights to the project, which it is co-financing with Wayfare Entertainment.
Kevin Misher is producing through his Misher Films with Wayfare's Ben Browning. Wayfare's Michael Maher and Peter Rawlinson are executive producers.
Gilchrist, repped by ICM and Thruline Entertainment, plays Toni Collette's son on Showtime's "Tara." He stars in "Hungry Hills," a drama that bowed at Toronto and recently wrapped indie feature "Just Peck."
Helen Mirren joins Summit's 'Red' Freeman, Willis star in espionage thriller
By DAVE MCNARY
Helen Mirren has joined Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis in Summit Entertainment's espionage thriller "Red," based on the WildStorm/DC comicbook.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian are producing, with DC exec Gregory Noveck as exec producer. Robert Schwentke's directing the script by brothers Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber.
Summit acquired rights to "Red," originally written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Cully Hamner, last year. The three-book series, published in 2003 and 2004, follows a former black-ops CIA agent who lives a quiet life in retirement until the day a high-tech assassin shows up intent on killing him.
"Red" is set to go into production in January in Toronto and Louisiana. Summit's set a domestic launch of Nov. 19, 2010.
Mirren will next be seen opposite Christopher Plummer in Michael Hoffman's "The Last Station," a German-Russian co-production about the tumultuous final year of novelist Leo Tolstoy's life.
Signed on to star opposite first-time director Ralph Fiennes
By Stuart Kemp
SANTA MONICA -- Gerard Butler is the lure for buyers at AFM eyeing a deal for rights to Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut "Coriolanus."
Butler has signed to star opposite Fiennes in what is billed as a contemporary version of Shakespeare's Rome-set political and family drama.
Butler will play Tullus Aufidius, commander of the Volscian army from Shakespeare's play. He joins a cast that includes William Hurt, Eddie Marsan, Jessica Chastain and Vanessa Redgrave.
The project is being repped by Icon Entertainment International at AFM.
Set to begin shooting in Serbia in March, the movie is produced by Julia Taylor-Stanley (Artemis Films), Gabrielle Tana (Magnolia Mae Films) and Colin Vaines (Synchronistic) from a script penned by John Logan ("The Last Samurai").
Patrick Dempsey will find himself in the middle of a couple of stick-ups in an untitled bank-heist comedy written by "The Hangover" team of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore and to be directed by Paul McGuigan ("Lucky Number Slevin").
Peter Safran and Foresight Unlimited's Mark Damon are producing with Dempsey, with Joannie Burstein serving as an executive producer.
Foresight will fully finance the film and is handling worldwide sales at AFM.
Dempsey ("Grey's Anatomy"), who last appeared onscreen in 2008's "Maid of Honor," will play a man caught in the middle of two different robberies at the same bank who tries to protect a bank teller with whom he's secretly in love.
Production will begin in April.
Dempsey, repped by UTA and manager Burstein, next appears on the big screen in Warner Bros.' ensemble comedy "Valentine's Day," directed by Garry Marshall, to be released in February.
Weaver, Reilly brave 'Rapids' Duo join Helms, Heche in Fox Searchlight film
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Sigourney Weaver, John C. Reilly and Alia Shawkat are joining Ed Helms and Anne Heche in "Cedar Rapids," the Fox Searchlight comedy to be directed by Miguel Arteta. Shooting has begun.
Script's by Phil Johnston, who developed the comedy with Helms, who plays a sad-sack insurance agent who goes to an industry convention to try and save the jobs of his colleagues.
Weaver plays Helms' former seventh-grade teacher. She next appears in the James Cameron-directed "Avatar" and also wrapped "You Again" for Disney and "Paul" for Universal. Reilly just wrapped "The Extra Man," and Shawkat recently finished "The Runaways."
My homeboy Michael Fassbender will star in 'A Single Shot'
Fassbender takes aim with 'Shot' Pic also stars Whitaker, Macy, Church
By ALI JAAFAR
LONDON -- Rising star Michael Fassbender has boarded helmer David Jacobson's thriller "A Single Shot" opposite Forest Whitaker, William H. Macy and Thomas Haden Church.
Pic is set to start lensing in Ontario in January next year.
Hanway Films is selling international rights, with CAA co-repping the project's North American distribution rights.
CAA and WME are arranging financing for the project, in which Fassbender plays a poacher who finds himself on the run from a gang of hardened killers.
Chris Coen is producing for London-based shingle Unanimous Pictures alongside Brad Arseneau. Kevin Hicks is exec producing for Northern United Film and Media, which is financing the pic.
Hanway's slate includes helmer David Cronenberg's "The Talking Cure," Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page and Liv Tyler starrer "The Super" and Jon Amiel's Charles Darwin biopic "Creation."
Fassbender, whose bravura turns in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds" and Andrea Arnold's "Fish Tank" are generating awards season buzz, is repped by Michael Cooper at WME and Conor McCaughan at Troika.
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Gleeson, Cheadle join 'Guard' Irish-set drama also stars Liam Cunningham
By ALI JAAFAR
LONDON -- Brendan Gleeson is teaming up with Don Cheadle to star in helmer John Michael McDonagh's "The Guard." Pic follows an unorthodox Irish policeman who joins forces with a strait-laced FBI agent to take on an international drug smuggling gang in Ireland.
Pic, which is lensing on location in the west of Ireland, also stars Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, Fionnuala Flanagan, David Wilmot, Pat Shortt and Katarina Cas.
"The Guard" is produced by Reprisal Film's Chris Clark and Flora Fernandez Marengo and Element Pictures' Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe.
McDonagh, Cheadle, Lenore Zerman, Tim Smith, Paul Brett, Ralph Kamp and David Nash all receive exec producer credits.
Metropolis Intl. Sales and Timeless Films, the new joint venture launched in September by former Odyssey topper Kamp and Prescience managing director Smith, are handling international sales, with Optimum Releasing and Element Pictures taking U.K. and Ireland rights respectively.
Metropolis and Timeless are also selling international rights on a feature-length 3-D version of Brit kid fave "Postman Pat," which begins filming in February next year, as well as German-language hit "Wickie the Mighty Viking," 3-D animated German pic "Animals United," as well as "Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Bank."
20th Century Fox will release "Space Chimps 2" in the U.S. next summer.
Garcia Hooks Hopkins, Bening for Hemingway Cuban Pic By: Mike Fleming Published: Wed, November 04, 2009, 2:11 PM
Andy Garcia has landed Anthony Hopkins and Annette Bening to star with him in “Hemingway & Fuentes,” the period drama that Garcia will direct next summer from a script he wrote with Hilary Hemingway, granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway.
The drama chronicles the two decades that Hemingway spent in Cuba fishing with his best friend Gregorio Fuentes, where he fell in love with the beautiful Italian girl who inspired him to write “The Old Man and the Sea.” Garcia will play Fuentes, and Bening will play the author's third wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway.
Garcia will produce, and Mark Amin of Sobini Films is executive producer. Garcia’s CineSon and Paradigm Motion Picture Finance Group are shopping the film to international buyers at AFM with Sobini Films.
For Garcia, the project has gathering momentum since the 1970s, when his passion for offshore fishing brought him in contact with some of the grizzled anglers who bent a rod alongside the author and Fuentes in the 1940s and 50s, where they chased giant marlin.
“I was specifically most interested in Hemingway's connection to Cuba, where he spent the last 20 years of his life, and his relationship with his last captain, Gregorio,” Garcia said. “As an avid fisherman, I got to know older Cuban fisherman who knew Gregorio from the fishing culture of the 40s and 50s, and who would compete in tournaments outside the city of Havana, which was really the beginning of competitive fishing.” Garcia wrote a script, then put it down to direct the 2005 pic “The Lost City.” He was introduced to the author’s granddaughter by a mutual friend, saw a documentary she made about Hemingway, and began collaborating on a script that is squarely set in the fishing adventures Hemingway and Fuentes had aboard Pilar, the modified 34 foot Wheeler Playmate craft.
Garcia has been hoping for months to land Hopkins, and the actor recently committed to do the film after he completes "Thor" for Marvel Entertainment.
Now, Garcia believes he's got the right bait to hook the financing to make the picture next summer, mostly in the Caribbean rim, and a location to replicate Ketchum, Idaho, where Hemingway moved and committed suicide shortly after.
“Anthony is one of the greatest actors, and I’d heard he’d been interested in playing the character in the past,” Garcia said. “I’m blessed that he responded. The marketplace is ever changing in the film world, so you’re trolling many baits at many times, waiting to see where the strikes are. Officially, we are going out with the movie and starting conversations with all foreign distributors. I’ve done about six movies that way, and sold domestic later. When I worked with Francis Coppola on `The Godfather 3,’ he said the way you make a movie is, you begin. We’ve begun.”
Johnny Depp in talks for 'Tourist' Thesp may costar with Angelina Jolie in film
By MICHAEL FLEMING
Johnny Depp is in talks to star with Angelina Jolie in "The Tourist," a film that is undergoing another major shift of elements as it heads toward a February production start.
Graham King's GK Films is financing and distributing through his multipicture output deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Depp is negotiating to play an American tourist drawn into a web of intrigue by a female Interpol agent (Jolie) who is attempting to locate a criminal who was once her lover.
The move comes after "Avatar" star Sam Worthington exited along with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, both over creative differences.
Directors including Alfonso Cuaron are already circling.
King will produce with Tim Headington, Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum and Jonathan Glickman. Julian Fellowes penned the originally script; Christopher McQuarrie and Jeffrey Nachmanoff did rewrites.
The prospect of a Depp-Jolie teaming is tantalizing in what's just the latest turn for a project that has seen some of Hollywood's top talents come and go.
Spyglass initially set up the remake of the 2005 French thriller "Anthony Zimmer" with Bharat Nalluri directing and Tom Cruise and Charlize Theron circling. Worthington came into focus with Theron after Cruise took "Knight and Day" at Fox. Von Donnersmarck then came into the picture with Jolie.
Depp was brought into the mix by King, with whom he has a close relationship, most recently collaborating on "The Rum Diary" and the Gore Verbinski-directed animated pic "Rango."
The emergence of Depp is surprising, since he was expected to make his next film at Disney: a fourth installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean" or "The Lone Ranger."
Negotiating to voice Humpty Dumpty in 'Shrek' spinoff
By Jay A. Fernandez and Borys Kit
Zach Galifianakis has had a great fall.
Following his big splash with summer's $461 million grosser "The Hangover," Galifianakis has scooped up a batch of film roles. Now, he's entered negotiations to voice the Humpty Dumpty character in "Shrek" spinoff "Puss in Boots."
Tom Wheeler is writing the screenplay for the prequel, which will feature the voices of Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek in a story about the events leading up to the feline assassin's first meeting with Shrek & Co. in the second film.
Chris Miller, who co-directed and co-wrote "Shrek the Third," wrote an earlier draft of the "Puss" screenplay and is directing the DreamWorks Animation movie.
"Puss" is set to unspool in Nov. 4, 2011. The character Puss in Boots also co-stars in DWA's fourth installment of "Shrek," May 21 opener "Shrek Forever After."
Repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, Galifianakis recently joined the casts of the Jay Roach-directed Paramount/DreamWorks/Spyglass comedy "Dinner for Schmucks"; Warner Bros.' Todd Phillips-helmed laugher "Due Date," opposite Robert Downey Jr.; the Ryan Fleck-Anna Boden-directed drama "It's Kind of a Funny Story" from Focus Features; and a sequel to "The Hangover," which Warners has tagged for summer 2011.
The HBO series "Bored to Death," on which Galifianakis appears, recently was renewed for a second season.
BEIJING -- Zhang Ziyi is joining Wendi Murdoch and Florence Sloan in producing "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," an English-language drama starring Zhang. Wayne Wang has come aboard as director.
Set in 19th century remote China, the film revolves around the lifelong friendship of Lily and Snow Flower and their imprisonment by rigid cultural codes of conduct for women.
Producers were scheduled for talks during the coming days with potential backers and distributors at AFM.
Although it would be Zhang's second feature as producer, "Flower" would be the first in partnership with Murdoch, the China-born wife of News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch. Sloan, who is Malaysian-Chinese, is married to MGM chairman Harry Sloan.
The nascent partnership appears to have Zhang -- perhaps China's most exportable female star -- following the practice of big Hollywood talent: establishing her own production company to pull in projects for herself and control a greater share of revenue.
The "Snow Flower" script, based on the novel by Lisa See, was penned by Wang and screenwriter Michael Ray, collaborators on Wang's 2007 film "The Princess of Nebraska." Shooting is expected to begin early next year in China.
Zhang is coming off a Chinese boxofffice success with the contemporary urban romantic comedy "Sophie's Revenge," her first film as producer.
Her most recent big international project was Rob Marshall's 2005 film "Memoirs of a Geisha," also an English-language Asian period piece based on a novel. That performance drew best actress noms from BAFTA, SAG and the Golden Globes.
"Memoirs" cost $85 million to make and grossed about $162 million worldwide for Sony/Columbia.
"Snow Flower" will be Wang's first film made in China. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he moved to the U.S. when he was 17. His 1985 film "Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart" put him on the critics' radar, but it wasn't until 1993's "The Joy Luck Club" that Wang gained wider recognition.
His 2002 romantic comedy "Maid in Manhattan," starring Jennifer Lopez, grossed $94 million in North America and $61 million internationally.
Hawkins, Macy to get 'Dirty' Salt Co. shopping around foreign rights at AFM
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK
Sally Hawkins and William H. Macy have boarded Abe Sylvia's feature directorial debut, "Dirty Girl," a 1980s-set coming-of-age comedy that's being shopped at the American Film Market.
London-based international sales firm the Salt Co. is repping foreign rights, while WME is handling domestic. Pic also stars Lisa Kudrow, Juno Temple and Jeremy Dozier.
"Dirty Girl" is being financed by Ideal Partners and produced by Rob Paris' Paris Films and Christine Vachon's Killer Films.
Sylvia, a Broadway performer and choreographer, will begin lensing from his script in March.
Story revolves around a high school tramp who pairs up with a shy and overweight gay teen. Together, they set off to find her real father in California.
Producers are Paris, Charles Pugliese, Jana Edelbaum and Rachel Cohen. Vachon, Pam Koffler and Michael Lesser are exec producing.
Thesps bear down on 'Yogi' Faris, Aykroyd, Timberlake in talks for film
By DAVE MCNARY
Anna Faris, Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake are heading to Jellystone Park as part of Warner Bros.' live-action/CG animated "Yogi Bear."
Donald De Line and Karen Rosenfelt are producing and Eric Brevig ("Journey to the Center of the Earth") is directing from a script by Brad Copeland.
Shooting's expected to start in New Zealand next month.
Faris is in negotiations to portray a documentary filmmaker in "Yogi." She recently voiced a role in "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" and toplined "The House Bunny."
Aykroyd is in negotiations to voice Yogi and Timberlake's in talks to voice Boo-Boo, Yogi's sidekick.
Yogi's character, inspired by Art Carney's portrayal of Ed Norton on "The Honeymooners," first appeared in Hanna-Barbera cartoons in 1958 and was voiced by Daws Butler.
DeLine exec Andrew Haas is exec producing. Original script for "Yogi" was penned by Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia.
Bradley Cooper 'Fields' film offer Burger to direct suspense thriller for Relativity
By TATIANA SIEGEL
"The Hangover" star Bradley Cooper has signed on to star in Relativity Media suspense thriller "Dark Fields."
Neil Burger ("The Illusionist") is onboard to direct.
Project is described as a what-if story about a designer drug that can make you rich and powerful. Eddie (Cooper) is a down-and-out New York writer until he possesses a pill that gives him the ability to access the full capacity of his brain. He soon realizes that his newfound intelligence and success come at a hefty price as mysterious forces begin to pursue him.
Film, which will begin lensing in late spring 2010, is based on a novel by Alan Glynn. Leslie Dixon ("Hairspray") adapted the screenplay.
Dixon and Scott Kroopf ("Breach") are producing alongside Relativity's Ryan Kavanaugh. Relativity's Tucker Tooley is exec producing.
Universal will distribute through Relativity's Rogue Pictures.
Cooper can be seen onscreen in "New York, I Love You." His upcoming credits include the Garry Marshall-helmed "Valentine's Day" and 20th Century Fox's "The A-Team."
