Here’s the latest smaller stories coming out of Hollywood.
Only a few years ago, TV was where movie stars headed when their career was on the skids, but recently it’s become quite popular for stars to make a television show, due to the growing feeling that the small screen is where many of the most creative things are happening. Although few might have expected it, Dustin Hoffman is the latest to try out a TV show, as he’s been cast in the HBO series, Luck, which centres on people in horse-racing. Hoffman will play a man just out of prison, whos heavily involved in gambling. Dennis Farina will be his driver and companion. The show has been created by David Milch, who was also behind Deadwood and John From Cincinnati, and it’s believed it’ll hit US TV screens in January. It’s an interesting move for Dustin, but could give him something far more meaty to sink his teeth into than the lightweight film roles he’s had in the last few years. (Source: Variety)
Fresh from Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Brandon T. Jackson has signed up to star alongside Martin Lawrence in Big Momma’s House 3. Quite why anyone would agree to appear alongside Lawrence in the fat suit comedy I don’t know, but Jackson has. In the new film, Lawrence will once more go undercover dressed as a fat old woman, this time bringing his young nephew along with him to pose as a woman after he witnesses a murder. Hmm, I’m not smelling a masterpiece here. (Source: Variety)
It appears the Oscar nominated star of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Taraji P. Henson, is set to headline the movie Baggade Claim, based on David E. Tabert’s book. The story follows incurable romantic Montana Moore who, after her mother gets married for a fourth time, and with her sister about to get wed, decides to show up at her sister’s Christmas Eve engagement party with a man if her own. So she sets out on a thirty-day, thirty-thousand-mile trek in search of the right man. Fox Searchlight is behind the movie. (Source: Black Voices)
Milk writer Dustin Lance Black has been hired to write a biopic of J. Edgar Hoover for Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment. It’ll be interesting to see Black’s take on the material as he’s been a passionate gay rights advocate, and Hoover is known for being a cross-dresser, with some claiming he was gay. The film will cover the career of the FBI Director who founded the organization in 1935 and remained director until his death in 1972. While he revolutionised US law enforcement, he was also a rather controversial figure, harassing dissenters and using underhanded tactics against those who opposed his ideas. (Source: Pajiba)
Sean Bean, Charlotte Ramping, James Fox and and Ruth Wilson have started filming Cleanskin in London. According to the official synopsis, “Cleanskin tells the gripping story of a secret service agent chasing a suicide bomber and his cell in modern day London.” It will also tell the story of how the man tasked with being the suicide bomber became radicalised in the first place. It sounds a bit Bourne and a bit Bond, but could be very interesting. (Source: Press Release)