It’s been a while since we heard the name Alejandro Amenábar. After a terrific run of films including “Open Your Eyes,” “The Others” and “The Sea Inside,” the filmmaker stumbled slightly with his epic “Agora.” But it looks like he’s ready to return with a new film “Regression,” which will star Ethan Hawke. Plot details are being kept secret for now, but it’s being called an “elevated genre project,” according to Variety, and one that will play with “our deepest primal fears.” Production will begin next spring.
Though he made his directorial debut last year with “Quartet,” Dustin Hoffman will be heading back in front of the camera in his first film appearance since 2010’s “Little Fockers.” Variety reports Hoffman will join Alfred Molina and Kathy Bates in the indie “Boychoir.” The film, written by “Source Code” scribe Ben Ripley and directed by Francois Girard, will focus “on a troubled and angry 11-year-old from the wrong side of the tracks who finds himself at an East Coast school, where he engages in a battle of wills with a demanding choir master who recognizes a unique talent in the boy.” Hoffman will play the choir master with Molina as one of the school’s teachers and Bates landing the school headmistress role. The boy has yet to be cast, but production is set to start next February in New York and Connecticut, so the role should be filled pretty soon.
Despite a complete lack of fervor or need, 2011 sleeper hit—and your parents’ favorite movie—“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” will indeed get a sequel. Deadline is reporting that Richard Gere is being courted to star in the followup, which will start shooting early next year with Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilson and Maggie Smith all expected to reprise their roles. Where this leaves the rumored involvement of Helen Mirren and Colin Firth is anyone’s guess.
Last seen this past summer as Richard Nixon in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” John Cusack will star in a film inspired by more recent true events. Cusack, per Deadline, will star alongside Ryan Phillippe, Rachelle Lefevre, Jacki Weaver and Luis Guzman in the thriller “Reclaim.” Written by Carmine Gaeta and Luke Davies, the film will find Phillippe and Lefevre playing “an American couple who head to Puerto Rico to finalize the adoption of their new 7-year-old daughter, a Haitian orphan named Nina. When [they] take the time to explore the idyllic coast to bond as a new family, [Phillippe] clashes with an intimidating local (Cusack), and Nina disappears from her bed one night.”
“Nebraska” screenwriter Bob Nelson is set to make his directorial debut with “The Tribe” and he’s caught the attention of “Community” star Joel McHale. The LA Times reports the film, which follows “a Native American high-school girls softball team,” will star McHale as “the new coach who arrives to helm them.” If the premise seems a little treacly and hackneyed, don’t worry, Nelson explains that he avoided “the easy story: the coach comes in and teaches the kids a thing or two, or they teach him.” Either way, we’re fans of McHale and hope he can translate his talents to a large role on the big screen.
