Missionary Impossible New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell and retired rapper Mark Wahlberg are teaming up to make a spy drama for HBO. It will be about a missionary who becomes involveed with the CIA cold war Berlin, and the other two executive producers will be Stephen Levinson, who worked on Boardwalk Empire, and screenwriter Charles Randolph (The Interpreter). Most blogs will probably report this news by including some easy wordplay; those that don’t will be outliers. [Deadline]
New Engagement: Warner Brothers has picked up a pitch that would reunite Sandra Bullock with The Proposal director Anne Fletcher. The untitled project will be written by Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis, the same pair that wrote The Wedding Planner, and will be “in the vein of the 1978 Paul Mazursky film An Unmarried Woman and Saturday Night Fever,†although it will be set in present day. Bullock is also in talks to star in Extremely Loud and Incredible Close and as the female lead in Alfonso Cuaron’s upcoming Gravity
More Loot: Tower Heist, the Brett Ratner caper starring Alan Alda, Ben Stiller, and Eddie Murphy just added two new members to its supporting cast: Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Michael Pena, who will join Stiller and Murphy as luxury high-rise employees seeking revenge on the Madoff-esque Alda character, a resident who emptied their pension funds. [Deadline]