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…
Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter has joined the cast of Hungry Rabbit Jumps, alongside Nicolas Cage, Guy Pearce, January Jones and Harold Perrineau. She will play the best friend of Jones’ character, and supports have after she’s brutally attacked. Cage, who plays Jone’s husband, then gets involved with an underground vigilante organisation. Filming on the Roger Donaldson (The Bank Job) directed movie, has already begun. (Source: Variety)
A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Ben Barnes and Robert Sheean were set to star in I Was Bono’s Doppelganger. Well, now the film’s title has changed to Killing Bono (a sentiment many will sympathise with) and has added Breaking Bad star Krysten Ritter to its cast. The film, which will be directed by Nick Hamm, is about two friends in the late 70s who set up a band in Dublin at the same time U2 are starting out, but who certainly don’t achieve the same kind of success. (Source: Variety)
Dreamworks has won a bidding war for the romantic comedy pitch, I Saw You. The studio beat out the likes of Screen Gems and New Line for Andrea McCloud’s pitch, which is based on Julia Wertz’s anthology of comics ‘I Saw You … ,’ which culls vignettes from missed romantic connections ads in newspapers and on Craigslist. The possibility of film based on the book was announced a few weeks ago when Slate Screen Pictures bought the screen rights, but studio backing brings it a lot closer to actually making it to the big sceen. George Tillman (Notorious) is slated to direct. (Source: Variety)
Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Hero, House Of Flying Daggers) certainly has big plans for his next movie, which is likely to be The Thirteen Women On Jinling, about the World War II Nanjing Massacre. The big budget movie is expected to go into production next autumn, and the director is approaching major Hollywood names for the film. He has apparently talked to Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt’s representatives, although all for the same role, which will probably be a pastor. Although at the moment it seems more like a wish-list than a reality, it certainly appears the director has big plans for his politically contentious epic movie about Japan’s action in China during WWII. (Source: China.org (via /Film))