Ridley Scott is busy finishing up his latest Alien movie, Covenant, and while he’s promised there’s another trip into world of xenomorphs coming in the future, he’s planning something rather different before he completes his Alien prequel trilogy. Variety reports he’s set to direct a movie about the real-life kidnapping of the grandson of billionaire John Paul Getty, with Natalie Portman possibly starring.
The film will be about, ‘the 1973 kidnap in Italy of J. Paul Getty III — the rebellious teenage grandson of oil billionaire J. Paul Getty, who was reluctant to pay the $17 million ransom demanded by the kidnappers… The kidnappers sent a lock of hair and the teen’s severed right ear to the family to convince them pay the ransom. Harris and the boy’s father eventually convinced the elder Getty to pay a $2.9 million ransom, resulting in the teenager being freed after six months. He had been chained to a stake in a cave in Italy.’
Natalie Portman is circling the role of John Paul Getty III’s mother, Gail Harris, a role Angelina Jolie was recently offered, but turned down due to scheduling issues. Scott is planning to start shooting almost immediately after he’s completed publicity duties on Alien:Covenant, with filming set to begin in Italy in late May.
Never one to do the conventional thing, director Terrence Malick shot Song To Song (until recently known as Weightless) back to back with Knight Of Cups. While that movie came out in 2015, Malick decided to work and rework Song To Song, while also working on his documentary Voyage Of Life.
Following its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, many suggested that Natalie Portman could be looking at at least a Oscar nomination for playing the title in Jackie. Fox Searchlight picked up the movie after its festival debut, and has now released the first teaser trailer.
With the Toronto International Film Festival only weeks away, trailer for some of the movies that will be debuting there are starting to arrive. We just posted one for Lion, and now we’ve got Planetarium.
Starring: Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor, Boyd Holbrook
Back in 2014 Jessica Chastain, Kathy Bates, Susan Sarandon and Kit Harington all signed up to star in the first English-language film from Canadian writer/actor/director Xavier Dolan. It’s taken longer to get it going than originally planned (largely because he slotted in the upcoming It’s Only the End of the World beforehand), but Dolan has managed to hang on to his cast, along with previously announced actors such as Michael Gambon, Bella Thorne, Chris Zylka and Emily Hampshire.