While Vince Vaughn is best known for his motormouth in a wide array of comedies, he’s been desperate to do something a bit more gritty. Over the past while, he’s been lining up no shortage of more serious-minded fare like the the thriller “The Risk Agent,” the Randall Wallace-penned “Gunslingers” and road adventure “Triple Time.” But it looks like another project has the momentum to cast the actor in a whole new light.
Vince Vaughn and Hailee Steinfeld will star in “Term Life.” Penned by A.J. Lieberman (and based on his own graphic novel) and set to be directed by Peter Billingsley (“Couples Retreat,” and also attached to “Triple Time”), the twisty plot finds Vaughn playing a man who “plans and sells heists to the highest bidder but finds himself hunted by mob bosses, contract killers and dirty cops. To help his estranged daughter Cate (Steinfeld), he takes out a life insurance policy on himself with her as the beneficiary — but he has to stay alive for 21 days, and takes his daughter on the run.” It’s certainly a big step beyond wedding crashing, and it has been forever since we’ve seen Vaughn put away his perma-smirk so we’re intrigued. [The Wrap]
Noah Baumbach‘s “While We’re Young” keeps on casting, this time adding rising talent and “Simon Killer” star Brady Corbet. Featuring Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Driver, Charles Grodin, Adam Horovitz and Ryan Serhant, the film will chronicle the story of an older, forty-something couple (Stiller, Watts) who crosses paths with a younger, carefree couple (Driver, Seyfried). Production starts this fall and Corbet has also nabbed in a role in the HBO miniseries “Olive Kitteridge,” the Lisa Cholodenko directed project about a New England town boiling over with secrets. [Deadline]
What do Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, “Gossip Girl” beauty Leighton Meester and “Will & Grace” star Debra Messing have in common? They make up the improbable cast of “Like Sunday, Like Rain,” that will tell the tale of “a struggling musician (Meester) who becomes the guardian of a 12-year-old music prodigy one summer.” All you need to know is that Meester’s boyfriend in the movie is Billie Joe. Really. Frank Whalley directs and wrote the script. [Deadline]
Jacki Weaver will star in the Aussie drama “Last Cab,” based on the true story of “a terminally ill cab driver who drove 3,000 km from his home in Broken Hill to Darwin in the early 1990s in hopes of taking advantage of the Northern Territory’s voluntary euthanasia laws.” Michael Caton co-stars with Jeremy Sims directing. Production will get underway next spring. [Inside Film]
Lastly, Charlotte Gainsbourg is reteaming with her “Do Not Disturb” co-star Asia Argento for “Misunderstood.” But instead, Argento will be directing her first effort since “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things,” with details on the project being kept under wraps. Filming is currently underway, but if you need more Argento sooner, she stars in her father’s terrible looking “Dracula 3D,” which opens October 4th. Trailer below. [Radio Cinema]