Emma Watson replaces Scarlett Johansson in Napoleon and Betsy
Emma Watson (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II) is attached to star in Napoleon and Betsy, a period drama being written and directed by Benjamin Ross, say The Hollywood Reporter.
Watson will play Betsy Balcombe, a young, impetuous noblewoman trapped on the isolated British Isle of St. Helena who falls in love with Napoleon, who is in exile on the island.
Watson is filling the shoes recently vacated by Scarlett Johansson, who stepped aside as the part skewed younger.
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 "Juno" opens door for Diablo CodyDiablo Cody has a tough-chick reputation the tattooed, punkish sex blogger wrote a book about her year as a stripper, and the name of her blog is too risque for family newspapers.
"Juno," a sardonic comedy about a pregnant 16-year-old who becomes a "cautionary whale" for her classmates, is rolling out to more and more theaters, picking up rave reviews and Oscar buzz along the way. And Cody is in demand, with several projects including one with Steven Spielberg pending. Read Details
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Another Garcia Marquez book being filmed
The director of the latest Spanish adaptation of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, "Love and other Demons," is hoping for a better reception than the English-language "Love in the Time of Cholera."
"I thought that `Love in the Time of Cholera' was a good film, even though the criticism of it was very tough," said Hilda Hidalgo. "Maybe what will help us is that we are filming actors from the same regions as the characters in the book, which will strengthen our credibility."
Already the Costa Rican director has been treated more generously by the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author; while Garcia Marquez sold the rights to "Cholera" to Hollywood for $3 million, he was rumored to have given away the rights to "Of Love and Other Demons" to his fellow Latin American artist.
"We agreed on a symbolic figure, an amount I'm not going to reveal," said Hidalgo.
"Of Love and Other Demons" tells the story of a 12-year-old girl, Sierva Maria de Todos los Angeles, born to a wealthy family in 18th-century Cartagena, but raised by a family of black slaves. "A daughter of the aristocracy but with an African soul," Hidalgo said.
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 Keri Russell to tell "Bedtime Stories"Actress cast alongside Sandler for Disney comedy
Keri Russell has landed the female lead opposite Adam Sandler in Disney's "Bedtime Stories."
In the comedy, Russell will play a potential love interest for Sandler's character, a harried real estate developer whose life is suddenly turned upside down when the lavish bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew become real.
Adam Shankman ("Hairspray") is helming the pic, scripted by Matt Lopez, that's set to start lensing in February, and will get a holiday 2008 release under the Walt Disney Pictures banner. Read Details
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 New Line lands on Planet 51Animation feature written by Stillman.
Venturing for the first time into toon pic distribution, New Line Cinema has taken U.S. domestic rights to "Planet 51" one of Europe's most ambitious CGI animation movies, penned by "Shrek" and "Shrek 2" screenwriter Joe Stillman.
Budgeted at $60 million, alien planet spoof "Planet 51" is produced by Madrid's Ilion Animation Studios and London's Handmade Films, and sold by Handmade Films Intl.
It turns on a lantern-jawed U.S. astronaut, Capt. Charles "Chuck" Baker, whose shuttle touches down on a supposedly uninhabited planet. But he discovers a civilization whose banana-haired denizens live a 1950s lifestyle in a world that looks like "Pleasantville" meets Cuba's Havana.
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 Ellen Page discuss her role in JunoOur full interview with the star of Juno and Hard Candy. You won’t believe what she has to say about Sarah Silverman!
When did you start acting?
Ellen Page: When I was ten, a local casting director came to my school, and picked me for a part, because I had brown hair and was short, I guess.
Anything early roles you’d rather forget?
Everything that I’ve done has led to something else, which has led to something else. It’s kind of fun when people try to label me a cool, indie girl, and I’m like, “No, I’m pretty sure I was in a movie called I Downloaded a Ghost, which is about a girl who downloads a ghost.” Read Details
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Cage, Buscemi, Morgan enlist in "G-Force"
Nicolas Cage, Steve Buscemi and Tracy Morgan will provide three of the lead voices in "G-Force" for Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Bill Nighy and Will Arnett have joined the ranks of the on-screen actors in the live-action/CG film, which marks the directorial debut of Oscar-winning visual effects innovator Hoyt Yeatman.
The story follows a group of ultra-intelligent animal commandoes who work for a government agency trying to prevent an evil billionaire from taking over the world. Cage will play Speckles, a mole; Buscemi will portray Bucky, a hamster; and Morgan will voice Blaster, a guinea pig. Nighy will portray an industrialist, and Arnett will play an FBI agent.
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Bruce Willis to star in "Surrogates"
Jonathan Mostow to direct the sci-fi thriller
Bruce Willis will star in "The Surrogates," a sci-fi thriller that Jonathan Mostow will direct for Disney. The studio is eyeing a February production start in Boston.
A Willis deal comes just as United Artists unplugs "Pinkville," the My Lai massacre drama in which Willis was going to star for director Oliver Stone next month.
Movie is expected to be released through Touchstone, and becomes the eighth picture slotted for an early 2008 production start by topper Oren Aviv. Read Details
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Writing team built fast for 'Transformers 2'
"Transformers" scribe Ehren Kruger and the writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are in negotiations to team to write the screenplay for DreamWorks / Paramount's "Transformers 2."
Director Michael Bay, star Shia LaBeouf and producers Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Don Murphy are back in their respective chairs, as is exec producer Steven Spielberg.
The teaming of A-listers to write such a huge project might be an industry first and could have been necessary because Kurtzman and Orci -- who wrote the $315 million-grossing first "Transformers" movie -- also are busy writing J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" movie for Paramount and producing "Eagle Eye" for DreamWorks. Read More
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 Sean Penn dismayed by `Wild' discoverySean Penn made a disheartening discovery on his latest trip to Alaska this summer: Someone had walked off with a pair of boots that had sat in an old bus in the wilderness for almost 15 years.
The bus had become something of a shrine for Christopher McCandless, the subject of Penn's latest movie, "Into the Wild," a young man who died of starvation there in 1992 after four months of trying to live off the land.
McCandless had taken shelter in the bus, which still held pots, pans and other artifacts he left behind after all those years. His boots had remained on director Penn's previous trips to scout locations and film the movie, which opens Friday, starring Emile Hirsch as McCandless. Details
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Sienna Miller does the `Hippie Hippie Shake'
Sienna Miller hangs out with her pet pooches Porgy and Bess while on a film break on the London set of her latest movie Hippie Hippie Shake.
The comedy is an account of counterculturalist Richard Neville's misadventures in London at the end of the 1960s. Hippie Hippie Shake also stars Cillian Murphy and Max Minghella (director Anthony Minghella's son).
Sienna and Cillian also star together in the Dylan Thomas biopic The Edge of Love (Keira Knightley also stars).Details
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Disney delays third 'Narnia' into 2010
Disney and Walden Media have postponed the start of production on "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," the third "Narnia" movie, from January until summer 2008.
As a result, the film's release has been pushed back one year to May 7, 2010. Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer Films' "G-Force" is moving into "Dawn Treader's" original May 1, 2009, release date.
The companies blamed the delay on "the challenging schedules for our young actors."
Michael Apted is helming "Dawn Treader."
The second film in the franchise, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," is scheduled to open May 16. "Caspian" originally was set for release in December, but the companies postponed its original release date by five months after Sony decided to release "The Water Horse," in which Walden is also involved, in that month.
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