Matronly Leo: Melissa Leo will play Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg’s mother in David O. Russell’s The Fighter. Wahlberg plays Boston boxer “Irish†Mickey Ward and Bale plays his half brother, Dickey Eklund, who helped Ward train for and win the lightweight championship. For the record, Leo is fourteen and eleven years older than Bale and Wahlberg, respectively — maybe if she had won the damn Oscar, she would have gotten to play their older sister. [Variety]
MLK Issues: Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks’ major MLK biopic, announced just yesterday, is already seeing the threat of legal action. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III — the siblings of Dexter King, who legally controls the King Estate — were previously involved in a legal dispute with Dexter over who controls Coretta Scott King’s papers, and have now said “This is a deal that Mr. Spielberg and his people … have entered into believing that they have the blessing of the King Estate. They don’t have the blessings of Bernice and Martin King.†They should settle this like they did when they were kids — pillow fight!!! [Variety]
Fox: Respect Women: David Russo will direct the first Blue Man Group movie. Written by Lisa Robinson and featuring all three original Blue Men, it will be an IMAX 3-D-only release (rest easy, Aziz — it’ll only hit the old-school museum and science-center IMAXs). Taking a page out of The Magic Schoolbus, the movie will follow the Men as they go inside the brain of a creatively congested person and help him alter his life. What’s the word on a Tobias Fünke cameo? [Variety]
Fox: Respect Women: David Russo will direct the first Blue Man Group movie. Written by Lisa Robinson and featuring all three original Blue Men, it will be an IMAX 3-D-only release (rest easy, Aziz — it’ll only hit the old-school museum and science-center IMAXs). Taking a page out of The Magic Schoolbus, the movie will follow the Men as they go inside the brain of a creatively congested person and help him alter his life. What’s the word on a Tobias Fünke cameo? [Variety]
Parkes Back: Walter Parkes, the guy who wrote WarGames, is adapting a novel that apparently sort of sounds like WarGames. Along with David DiGilio, Parkes will tackle David Suarez’s Daemon, a techno-thriller about an iconic gamemaker who, before his death, sets up a program to fight mankind. Other than WarGames, Parkes’ only screenwriting credit is 1992’s Sneakers; he’s been spending his time producing random stuff like Gladiator, Minority Report, and Catch Me If You Can. [Variety]
Rad: Blur might play U.S. dates! Reunited with original member Graham Coxon, the band is currently scheduled for festivals in England, but may tack on U.S. and European shows. Okay, that’s all for now; we’ll let you know if this ever happens. [Billboard]