– So-hot-right-now funnyman Zach Galifianakis and Emma Roberts (“Hotel For Dogs”) are in negotiations to star in “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” an adaptation of a young adult novel by Ned Vizzini, from “Half Nelson” and “Sugar” c0-writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Nelson. The semi-autobiographical book focuses on a depressed upper-middle-class 15 year old New Yorker, who admits himself to a psychiatric hospital. Roberts will play his love interest, a self-harmer, while Galifianakis will be one of “a number of offbeat adults”. In the wrong hands, this might be awful, but Fleck and Nelson sound like the right hands to keep it from slipping into triteness and sentimentality. It’s also good to see Galifianakis taking on a more dramatic role – although both “Due Date” and “Dinner With Schmucks” are set to film this fall – is one not happening? [photo credit by Elizabeth DeCicco]
– Bafflingly successful director Shawn Levy is set to direct “Real Steel,” a futuristic robot boxing movie. Yes, a robot boxing movie. “Bicentennial Man” meets “Cinderella Man.” Peter Berg had been circling the project, but, as we reported yesterday, has opted instead for two pictures at Universal, so Levy has stepped in. Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis are executive producing, which would have been comforting ten years ago.
– In between his recurring role on TV’s “Bones,” John Francis Daley, star of beloved Apatow sitcom “Freaks & Geeks” is banging out a pretty lucrative career as a screenwriter, alongside partner Jonathan Goldstein. Having sold comedy scripts like “The $40,000 Man” and “Cal of the Wild,” they’ve been brought on to rewrite “Horrible Bosses” for New Line. The pitch, which sounds like a darker version of “9 to 5,” is about three friends who decide to kill their employers.
– John Logan (“The Aviator”) will adapt the upcoming novel “The Passage”, by Jordan Ainsley (a pseudonym for author Justin Cronin), for Fox 2000. The 1200 page novel (1200 pages? Really?) focuses on secret government tests to cure illnesses that result in a vampire plague, and joins the long list of projects that Ridley Scott is attached to, but will never, ever make. Can we please, please call a moratorium on vampire movies? Just for a year or two?
– Some guy called David Henrie, who apparently stars in a show on the Disney Channel called “Wizards of Waverly Place,” is teaming up with Platinum Studios to turn their comic book “The Weapon” into a movie. The series follows a young inventor who develops a machine that can make objects appear out of thin air, and becomes the target of an order of assassins. Henrie tells The Hollywood Reporter “‘The Weapon’ is so awesome, and my Disney audience will enjoy the empowerment and action-filled journey my character experiences. I’m a huge fan and student of MMA, and I hope to bring that to the character of Tommy.” Yeah, cause there’s nothing Disney Channel viewers like more than people getting punched in the throat.
– Spain’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has narrowed down their shortlist to submit for the foreign-language category at the Oscars. The three films are Fernando Trueba’s “The Dancer and the Thief”, a love triangle between, well, a dancer and two thieves, Daniel Sanchez-Arevalo’s “Gordos,” about a group of overweight characters in group therapy, and Isabel Coixet’s “Map of the Sounds of Tokyo,” about a contract killer in Japan, and starring Sergi Lopez and Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”). Of course, the big news here is that Pedro Aldomovar’s “Broken Embraces” has missed out – not the first time that the director’s been snubbed. The Academy will make their final decision on September 29th.