Making the leap from writing movies to directing them is a big step, but with scripts for "Iron Man 3" and "Mission: Impossible 5" under his belt, Drew Pearce is now ready to call the shots on set. Chernin Entertainment and Fox have snagged "The Long Run," a spec script by Pearce, which he is lined up direct as well. There are no plot details available just yet, but it will be an action comedy, which sounds about right. And in case you forgot, Pearce has already dipped his toes into directing with the Marvel short "All Hail The King." [Deadline]
The gifted Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland ("Somersault," "Lore") is getting a new movie together. She’s going behind camera for "Berlin Syndrome." Penned by Shaun Grant, the story will follow "a photojournalist trapped in an apartment after a holiday romance." [The Sydney Morning Herald/The Australian]
If going from writing to directing is hard, then going from blogging/reporting to filmmaking might be even more challenging. But that’s what Latino Review scooper Umberto Gonzalez (aka El Mayimbe) is doing to do with "Breakneck." The micro-budget action thriller "follows a New York City bodega clerk who must go on the run from a corrupt private militarized company after discovering incriminating information and being framed for murder." Production is aiming to start by the end of the year. [THR]
"Predestination" and "Daybreakers" duo Michael and Peter Spierig have been tapped to rewrite and direct "Winchester" for Hammer Films. The movie "revolves around heir Sarah Winchester who in 1884 began 38 years of construction on the 24,000 square foot, 160-room Gothic mansion. It was after the sudden deaths of her husband and child that Winchester began to believe she was cursed by the family legacy, and she was instructed to build the mansion by a spiritualist medium, to appease the spirits. She never stopped building." Filming will begin next year.
