EXCLUSIVE: Here’s a hot project heading out to the European Film Market in Berlin next month. Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway are in negotiations to star in sexy noir Serenity, written and directed by Steven Knight. Greg Shapiro (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) and Guy Heeley will produce.
IM Global will finance and produce and is launching the project at the EFM, making it the third time the company has teamed with Knight: The company previously produced, financed and sold Tom Hardy-starring one-man thriller Locke and also fully financed Redemption from the writer-director. CAA is repping domestic rights for Serenity.
We’re hearing the project is a mysterious tale of a fishing boat captain whose past is about to crash up against his life on a small island in the Caribbean, ensnaring him in a new reality that might not be all it seems. A number of U.S. studios are said to be circling the project already. Filming is expected to begin this summer.
This is a reteam for Oscar winners McConaughey and Hathaway after 2014’s Interstellar.
McConaughey currently has adventure drama Gold in release and is voicing the lead character in Illumination/Universal’s Sing. He’s up next as the Man in Black in Sony’s Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower.
Hathaway’s in upcoming sci-fi actioner Colossal and stars in Warner Bros’ Ocean’s Eight which is out next year.
This will be Knight’s third directorial feature effort following 2013’s critically-acclaimed Locke and Jason Statham starrer Redemption. The in-demand writer-director is the brains behind BBC Two’s hit gangster drama Peaky Blinders and the Tom Hardy BBC/FX series Taboo. Season 4 of Peaky begins shooting in March.
Knight was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for 2002’s Dirty Pretty Things. Further writing credits include Bradley Cooper-starrer Burnt; Robert Zemeckis’ WWII drama Allied with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard; and The 100-Foot Journey with Helen Mirren. His upcoming projects include Susanna White’s Woman Walks Ahead and November Criminals. He’s also scripting World War Z 2.
Knight, McConaughey and Hathaway are repped by CAA.
Category: News & Announcements
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has firmed an October start date in New York for Ocean’s Eight, the female-driven caper spinoff directed by Gary Ross, and the studio is closing with its principal cast. Aside from the previously identified Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett, deals are close with Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling and Awkwafina. The latter is the hip-hop moniker of Asian-American rapper and actress Nora Lum, who most recently had a role in Neighbors 2.
The picture is still casting — the firmed roster so far falls one shy of the title — and there is every possibility for cameos from the stars of the original trilogy, which grossed a collective $1.12 billion worldwide. Ross discussed the possibility of Bullock, Blanchett, Carter and Kaling while he was out promoting his most recent film, the Matthew McConaughey starrer Free State of Jones. Village Roadshow Pictures is co-financing and co-producing with Warner Bros.
The film will be produced by Ocean’s Eleven director Steven Soderbergh, and Ross wrote the script with Olivia Milch. Ross and Soderbergh are longtime informal collaborators, serving as second unit director on each other’s films and as sounding board on scripts and projects.
They have been planning this film with Warner Bros President of Creative Development and Worldwide Production Greg Silverman long enough that the initial conversations included Jerry Weintraub, the venerable producer of the original Ocean’s Eleven trilogy whose star-studded cast included George Clooney, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt. Weintraub died last summer. Susan Ekins is executive producer and production senior veep Jesse Ehrman is overseeing the film with Silverman for Warner Bros.
For Rihanna, this becomes another high profile entry into movies for the singing star who most recently shot the summer 2017 Luc Besson-directed Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Silverman has been trying to find a vehicle for her since seeing Rihanna at a House of Blues appearance early in her career. The film first galvanized around Bullock, who starred in Gravity and has a long relationship with the studio, and then Blanchett.
Both of them have won Oscars and so has Hathaway, with Carter nominated twice. This is turning out to be quite the prestige ensemble as Warner Bros moves aggressively to continue the caper franchise hatched way back in 1960 with a film that starred Frank Sinatra in the title role of Danny Ocean.
He was surrounded by his Rat Pack pals Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, along with Angie Dickinson. Clooney, who inherited that title role and helped architect the remake with his then-partner Soderbergh, and Weintraub, always said that when he watched the original with his buddies, it didn’t hold up as well as he remembered the film. But he and Soderbergh loved the ensemble caper concept, and who could have imagined the staying power this franchise would have?
Anne Hathaway is adapting a movie version of George Brant’s celebrated play “Grounded,” Variety has learned exclusively.
The Oscar-winning actress will star in and produce the picture. In 2015, she appeared in a New York production of the single-actor drama (directed by Julie Taymor) at the Public Theater. But Hathaway was so enthusiastic about the material that she locked up the film rights before signing on for the play.
“Grounded” tells the story of a conflicted American Air Force pilot tasked with operating an unmanned drone. Brant is adapting his script for the screen. The stage portrayal earned Hathaway a nomination for a Critics Circle Award.
Hathaway is producing “Grounded” with Entertainment 360’s Suzan Bymel and Ben Forkner; and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, which is financing the movie. The company’s president of production Carla Hacken has previously worked with Hathaway on 20th Century Fox’s “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Bride Wars” and “Love and Other Drugs.”
“Grounded” received strong reviews off-Broadway. At the time, Variety theater critic Marilyn Stasio wrote: “Hathaway masterfully navigates her terrifying dive from high-flying heroics to the appalling reality of guiding drones.”
Hathaway can next be seen reprising her role as the White Queen in Disney’s “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” which opens later this month.
Anne Hathaway will star in “Grounded,” an Off Broadway play directed by Julie Taymor, at New York’s Public Theater this spring.
Hathaway will play a fighter pilot assigned to remote-control drone duty in an Air Force trailer in the suburbs. The 70-minute monologue by George Brant won the Smith Prize for Political Theater, and was previously mounted in New York in a different production from Page 73 Prods.
Hathaway starred in the Public’s 2009 staging of “Twelfth Night” as part of the Shakespeare in the Park program. Taymor, the director of “The Lion King” and “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” has begun to reclaim her mojo post-“Spider-Man” with Off Broadway work including the well-received 2013 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“Grounded” runs April 7-May 17 at the Public.
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The “Song One” star, who won the best supporting actress accolade for “Les Miserables,” will present an award for first time since she hosted the ceremony with James Franco in 2011.
Anne Hathaway will present at this year’s Oscars ceremony, it was announced Tuesday. After accepting the award for best supporting actress at last year’s Oscars for her performance in Les Miserables, she will most likely present the Oscar to this year’s best supporting actor winner, as the Academy typically arranges.
This marks the first time that Hathaway will present an Oscar since her displeasing turn as co-host of the ceremony in 2011 with James Franco. She joins previously-announced presenters Jennifer Lawrence and Daniel Day-Lewis, who also won Oscars last year.
Hathaway was previously nominated for her leading role in the 2008 film Rachel Getting Married. She made her feature film debut in 2001’s The Princess Diaries, and has since also starred in Ella Enchanted, The Devil Wears Prada and The Dark Knight Rises.
The 86th annual Oscars will be presented Sunday, March 2, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center and televised live on ABC. Ellen DeGeneres will host the ceremony, which is being produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron.
Anne Hathaway is in talks to replace Reese Witherspoon in The Intern, the workplace comedy to be directed by Nancy Meyers.
Warner Bros. has the domestic rights to the project, which was a hot title at 2013’s AFM.
Robert De Niro is also starring in the project , which tells of an owner of an Internet company who gets assigned an intern who’s a retiree (De Niro). He becomes a valuable resource and the two develop a relationship.
Witherspoon was involved with the film when it was selling at AFM but left the project mid-January. Scheduling was blamed at the time.
Scott Rudin, who is producing, and Meyers then quickly zeroed in on some key names with Hathaway doing a table read with De Niro and Meyers last week that went well.
Hathaway will next be seen in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and is coming off the Sundance premiere of the drama Song One.
She is repped by CAA, Management 360 and Sloane Offer.
Elyse Walker’s ninth annual Pink Party isn’t until Oct. 19. But there already is guaranteed star power in Anne Hathaway, who has been named host of this year’s glittery party and runway show at Santa Monica Airport’s Hangar 8.
“One of the reasons that The Pink Party has been successful is because we have always had incredible hosts, and this year is no exception,” Walker tells THR of the fundraiser (previous hosts have included Jennifer Garner and Michelle Pfeiffer). “We are all thrilled that Anne has chosen to support and help raise awareness, as she is an incredible talent, and we are honored that she has committed to help our efforts.”
Walker, who started the event in honor of her mother who was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer at age 40, has raised more than $8 million dollars for the Cedars-Sinai Women’s Cancer Program to date. Her namesake Pacific Palisades boutique routinely attracts Hollywood’s A-list, and her event host committee is no different with J.J. Abrams, Leslie Mann, Judd Apatow, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and DreamWorks’ Stacey Snider among those lending their names and support to the cause.
The evening, which is expected to draw a crowd of 800, will feature a fashion show with designers including Chloe, Barbara Bui, Valentino, and J Mendel, and a live auction where contemporary street artist RETNA will be donating a piece of his work (last year’s piece went for more than $70,000).
