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Natalie Portman Set for New ‘Heights’
Portman the Friendly Ghost: Natalie Portman will play Catherine in a new film version of Wuthering Heights, penned by Girl With a Pearl Earring’s Olivia Hetreed. The question on everyone’s mind is, of course, will this be based on Brontë’s original source material or the Monty Python semaphore version? [Variety]
Farrell Balkanizes: Avid wearer of wool hats Colin Farrell will star in Triage, a dark drama from Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic. Farrell joins Paz Vega and Christopher Lee in the story of a photojournalist who leaves his buddy behind on a dangerous assignment. So far, Farrell’s been admirably true to his word about staying away from “horseshit†Hollywood movies — it looks like the guy might really mean it. Respect. [Variety]
TAG Finds Its Groove: Vying for the award for Most Egregious Product Placement award, Proctor & Gamble and Island Def Jam records have created a hip-hop label to promote TAG Body Spray. Jermaine Dupri will unironically head up the label. “My goal is to find artists that have longevity written all over their face,†said Dupri, presumably before breaking into hysterical laughter. [Billboard]
Brody Not Scared of Giallo: Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Elsa Pataky will star in Giallo, the newest horror movie from Italian director Dario Argento. Story follows an American flight attendant searching for her sister who’s been kidnapped by an Italian serial killer known as Giallo (meaning yellow in Italian, but also referring to the Italian pulp-horror genre). The kidnapping may or may not be Giallo’s revenge for having to spend ten dollars on an in-flight turkey sandwich. [HR]
Moritz Heads Into Battle: Columbia has snatched up Battle: Los Angeles, a sci-fi script from Chris Bertolini, for Neal Moritz to produce. Pic follows one Marine platoon’s story during an alien invasion, described as small in scope à la Cloverfield, but large enough in scope to use traditional camerawork, thank goodness. [HR]
Broadway Hearing Country: Tired of musicals based on movies? You’d better not be, because spring ‘09 will mark the premiere of Pure Country, a new musical based on the 1992 film with George Strait. Yes!!! Sure, you remember Pure Country: It’s that movie you never saw or heard of because it’s terrible and oh dear God why would you do this to us do you hate us make it stop pleasemakeitstop [Playbill]