JOSH GAD GOES BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE FROZEN MERCHANDISE
Josh Gad, also known as the guy Jonah Hill bumped into at auditions for years, or the snowman from Frozen to your children, has signed on to play Roger Ebert in a comedy also starring Will Ferrell. Where often actors go through extensive exercise routines to get in shape for a role, Gad will presumably be engaging in a lot of thumb wars with his personal trainer to get those thumbs ready to go.
The film, Russ & Roger will be about the beloved critic’s team up with smut peddler Russ Meyer to produce Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, one of the first X-rated films to be put out by a big studio. The film is described as a ‘debaucherous comedy’, though probably not quite as debaucherous as the films Russ and Roger put out themselves. The resemblance of Gad and Ferrell to Ebert and Meyer is pretty good, and hopefully they’ll have the comedic chemistry that will help critics avoid obvious writing about how they hated, hated, hated Russ & Roger.
KENNETH BRANAGH’S NEXT MOVIE IS FOWL
At a time where even whatever on Earth The Maze Runner is is doing well enough with the YA crowd to justify a sequel, studios would nearly be crazy not to green light basically anything that involves young people, secret worlds of magic/technology/magic technology and the potential for a part two, part three, part four part one and part four part two. Eoin Colfer’s series of Artemis Fowl books, the stories of a young criminal mastermind who extorts and later teams up with the secret world of the fairies, has been ripe for adaptation for years now-I was literally in primary school when I first started hearing about an Artemis Fowl movie-but now it seems that the ball is finally rolling, thanks to the heavy push of Disney.
Kenneth Branagh, continuing his curious transition from Shakespearean traditionalist to studio gun-for-hire, has signed on to develop and direct an Artemis Fowl film for Disney, with Irish playwright Conor McPherson in talks to write the screenplay. This pairing could mean the film will keep Artemis Fowl’s Irish origin alive, instead of taking the all-too-often adaptation route of a slathering in red, white and blue paint. With YA focus having shifted from whimsical magic to vampire romance and again to dystopian future in the time it’s taken for Artemis Fowl to get off the ground, who knows if the audience is there, but the books were good for blockbuster fun and if I could tell my 12 year old self, I’m sure he’d be stoked. Not sure how he’ll take the news that he’s no longer fit to star as Artemis though, these days I’d be more likely to be cast as Roger Ebert.
THE CIRCLE ADDS TO ITS WELL-ROUNDED CAST
And speaking of book adaptations, upcoming sci-fi film The Circle, an adaptation of a 2013 book about a powerful Internet company and technologies effect on our privacy is assembling quite a cast, with the announcement that Karen Gillan has joined Tom Hanks, Emma Watson and John Boyega.
Gillan will be in one of the lead roles as a ‘goofy but intelligent’ employee at Internet company The Circle, which links up people’s personal emails, social media, banking and purchasing with a universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a ‘new age’ of civility and transparency. Nothing can possibly go wrong there then. Gillan, Watson and Boyega is a lovely and talented trio and anchored by the stalwart that is Hanks, this sounds quite interesting. Let’s just hope this sci-fi film with a talented young cast and one older big name doesn’t end up with Tom Hanks as an evil floating computer head. The film will be helmed by James Ponsoldt, director of dramas such as Smashed and The Spectacular Now.