So we can cover as many films as possible, we thought we’d give you these quick updates on some of today’s smaller film announcements…
Rashida Jones, star of I Love You Man and TV’s Parks & Recreation has signed up to appear in David Fincher’s The Social Network, which is shooting now. The film is about the founding of Facebook, with Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg as the young men who set up the site, but who fell out over money. There’s no news yet on who Jones will play. The film is due out late next year. (Source: Variety)
20th Century Fox has bought a pitch called Jackpot from Alan Yang. Described as a teen version of 21, it’s about a group of friends in high school who win the lotto, although not much more is known about it than that. (Source: Variety)
Tim Daly is the latest person to join the cast of the live-action/CG Yogi Bear movie, which has just started filming in New Zealand. He’ll play Mayor Brown in the film, who uses the city budget for his personal fun, drives the city into bankruptcy and comes up with the idea of selling Jellystone Park to fix his mess. It sounds like this is what Anna Faris’ documentary filmmaker and Tom Cavanaugh’s Ranger Smith will have to sort out with the help of Yogi (Dan Aykroyd) and Boo-boo (Justin Timberlake). (Source: Variety)
Mandalay Pictures has picked up the right to the upcoming book The Lonely Hearts Club, written by Elizabeth Eulberg. The author made her name as a publicict and is credited with working with Stephenie Meyer to turn the Twilight books into a publishing sensation. The book is about a heartbroken teen, who decides boys are jerks and sets up the club of the title, which is founded on promising not to date until after graduation. As more and more people join, it sends the high school into an uproar. The book will be published in the US at the end of the month, with Mandalay currently in the early stages of development on the film version. (Source: Variety)
The low-budget indie sci-fi flick Scavengers has found its lead actors in the form of Louise Linton and Sean Patrick Flanery. The movie is about crews of space scavengers competing for supplies, energy and treasure. When the crew of the Revelator, led by Emerson (Linton), comes across the alien-created Chaos Generator, they must fight to keep it out of the hands of her former shipmate, the sinister Captain Jekel (Flanery). The directorial debut of production designer Travis Nicholas Zariwny, Scavenger starts shooting today. (Source: THR)