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Reese Witherspoon and Ben Stiller Are Cameron Crowe’s New Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom
As the Crowe Flies: After a bidding war, Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon will headline the new top-secret Cameron Crowe romantic comedy at Columbia. Odds are this story features a Tom Cruise–impersonating Stiller as a fast-talking sports agent from Elizabethtown who wanders through an emptied Times Square holding a boom box over his head blasting “Fever Dog.†[Variety]
Leo 2600: The King of Kong fallout is officially upon us. Leonard DiCaprio is attached to star in Atari as Nolan Bushnell, the eighties video-game mogul who went from fixing pinball machines to distributing a little game called Pong. Sure, the guy made some heroic mistakes — delving into the uncanny valley with Chuck E. Cheese pizza comes to mind — but he ended up selling his company for $28 million (or roughly 112 million quarters). [HR]
Ford Races for Cure: Harrison Ford will star in CBS Films’ Crowley, and Tom Vaughan is in negotiations to direct. True story follows John and Aileen Crowley, whose children have a rare genetic disorder that only one researcher (Ford) can potentially cure. For simplicity sake, let’s name the researcher Lorenzo and call the cure Oil. [Variety]
The Time of Weinstein’s Life: The Weinstein Company has picked up the rights to Allison Winn Scotch’s novel, Time of My Life, the wish-fulfillment tale of a thirtysomething housewife who goes back in time to see what life would be like had she not settled into domestic bliss. She wouldn’t be so damn excited about Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, that’s for sure. [Variety]
One Small Step for Mazeau: Up-and-coming writer Dan Mazeau (Johnny Quest!) is the latest in a series of writers to get the nod from DreamWorks to write Jake Gyllenhaal’s untitled action movie about lunar colonization, with Doug Liman still attached to direct. If this movie revolves around werewolves trying to blow up the moon, you owe us 100 bucks, Gyllenhaal (on top of the $12.50 you still owe us for Bubble Boy). [HR]
The Seagull Has Landed: After a robust run in London, Ian Rickson’s production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull will come to Broadway in the fall. As the casting notice seeks only understudies, it seems likely the London cast will reprise their roles on this side of the pond. This reminds us of the old joke: Why do seagulls live by the sea? Because if they lived by the bay, they wouldn’t be bleak plays filled with Russian despair! Hey-o! [Playbill]