Leo DiCaprio must be a real Dennis Lehane fan, as it was Leo who got Martin Scorsese to take on Shutter Island (with him in the starring role, of course) and now he’s got Warner Bros. to pick up the film rights to Lehane’s upcoming novel, Live By Night. DiCaprio plans to both star in the film version and produce it through his Appian Way production company.

The book takes characters from the author’s novel, The Given Day, and follows them into the Prohibition Era (The Given Day was set in the late 1910s and early 1920s). The Given Day had been set up at Columbia Pictures back in 2008, for Sam Raimi to direct. However, the option expired on the project and was acquired by Warner Bros., which now controls all rights to this novel trilogy. Live By Night will be published later this fall and it appears at the moment DiCaprio is more interested in getting this new book on the screen than starting off with The Given Day.

The film will now go onto Leo’s ever growing pile of possible projects, and we’ll have to wait and see when it’ll get made. (Source: Variety)

Considering Tina Fey never really intended to be an major on-camera talent, having started out as a writer, she’s had an astonishing career. Now she’s so in demand that she’s signing on for movies that probably won’t start shooting for over a year! According to Deadline, Fey has signed up to play the lead in The Intern from writer/director Nancy Meyers.

Paramount Pictures is finalising a deal to finance and distribute the comedy, but as Fey already has her films for this summer scheduled in, it’s likely The Intern will have to wait until summer 2013, after the next season of 30 Rock has wrapped.

The actress will portray a successful e-business owner, whose company starts a community outreach initiative to bring in ‘senior’ interns. While the businesswoman thinks she’ll have a high school or college senior assistant, she discovers her intern is a senior citizen, a 70-year-old man who finds retirement boring. They quickly form a bond of friendship, as the intern proves to be invaluable in many ways.

Nancy Meyers commented on setting this new project in the world of e-commerce, “It seemed more interesting than having to see yet another thing set at an ad agency. Tina’s character is much younger than me, but I was attracted to the pressures the character feels with her business, her husband and kids, and seeing all this from the point of view of a man who has been through it.”

I still think Ben Affleck should only be allowed to act in movies that he directs, but thanks to the likes of The Town, his fading acting career is on the rise again. He’s now planning to team up with the also ascendant Justin Timberlake for Runner Runner, according to Variety.

The thriller is set in the world of illegal online gambling, although at the moment no other plot details are being released. The script is from Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who have a bit of a speciality in writing about the gambling world, as they wrote the screenplay for Rounders, and created the short-lived TV series Tilt.

Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) will direct the $30 million movie, although it isn’t certain when it will shoot.

Danny McBride’s film career hasn’t quite hit the heights that many expected it to, but he’s had huge amounts of deserved kudos for the series Eastbound & Down, which will finish its three season run on US TV this weekend. That’ll give him time to concentrate on his movie career, and he’s now joining forces with producer Todd Phillips for a remake of the Danish comedy Clown.

The Eastbound & Down actor will write, produce, and star in the movie. The original Scandinavian movie spawned from a TV series, and follows Casper and Frank who are planning a party-heavy vacation. Their plans are thrown asunder when Frank has to take his girlfriend’s 11-year-old son with them on the trip. He’s supposed to be proving he’s a good father, but continues to party even with the young boy in tow.

The Hangover helmer Todd Phillips is only attached to produce at this point, and is not set to direct. Danny McBride will start writing the script immediately, but it isn’t know when it might shoot. (Source: Deadline)