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Doctor Dolittle is making a comeback with none-other-than Robert Downey Jr. attached to play the title role!
Universal has nabbed the rights to “The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle” which has Stephen Gaghan directing, based on the character from the 1920s series of children’s books by Hugh Lofting.
Doctor Dolittle has made a few big-screen appearances over the years, with Rex Harrison playing the part in a 1967 musical before Eddie Murphy took on the role in 1998. The Dolittle story follows the eccentric Dr John Dolittle, a former physician who lives with and treats animals, claiming that he can communicate with them (via THR.)
Penélope Cruz is set to play Donatella Versace in the third instalment of Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story”.
Cruz’s Donatella is the sister of murdered fashion designer Gianni Versace.
From Murphy, Nina Jacobson and Brad Simps, production on “Versace: American Crime Story” will kick off in April.
Chris Evans and Haley Bennett are in negotiations to star in “Red Sea Diving Resort”, with Gideon Raff writing and directing.
Previously titled “Operation Resort”, the film is based on the 1981 rescue of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. The story picks up in 1977, when Israel’s Mossad spy agency was given an assignment far different from its usual cloak-and-dagger activities. It was ordered by then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin to rescue thousands of Ethiopian Jews in Sudan and deliver them to the Jewish state. No stranger to action in enemy countries, the agency established a covert forward base in a deserted holiday village in Sudan and deployed a handful of operatives to launch and oversee the exodus to the Promised Land, by sea and by air, in the early 1980s (via Variety).
Collin Farrell is set to reteam with his “Lobster” director Yorgos Lanthimos for a new Amazon limited series about decorated US marine Oliver North and his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.
Farrell will play North and Lanthimos will direct. The script is still in development from Enzo Mileti and Scott Wilson.
North, a decorated U.S. marine who’s currently a political commentator and host of the Fox News show “War Stories With Oliver North,” is best known for his time on the National Security Council during the Iran-Contra affair. He claimed partial responsibility for the sale of weapons through intermediaries to Iran, with the profits being channeled to the Contras in Nicaragua (via Variety).
Peter Sarsgaard has also locked in a small screen project, joining the cast of Hulu’s upcoming “The Looming Tower” series.
From Legendary Television, the drama adapts Lawrence Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning 9/11 expose. The series aims to explore the threat of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, and takes a controversial look at how the rivalry between the CIA and FBI may have inadvertently set the stage for the tragedy of 9/11 and the war in Iraq.
Sarsgaard will play Martin Schmidt, a CIA analyst who invariably believes he’s by far the smartest person in the room. Under orders to share intelligence with John O’Neill (Daniels) and the FBI, Schmidt opts instead to horde information under the misguided notion that the CIA is the only agency equipped to battle potential terrorist threats.
Sarsgaard joins Jeff Daniels, Tahar Rahim, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bill Camp, Virginia Kull, Louis Cancelmi and Sullivan Jones in the cast.
“Fences” actor Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell will star in Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures’ period war thriller “Overlord”.
Written by Billy Ray and Mark Smith, the film is being directed Julius Avery and produced by J.J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber.
On the eve of D-Day, American paratroopers are dropped behind enemy lines to carry out a mission crucial to the invasion’s success. But as they approach their target, they begin to realize there is more going on in this Nazi-occupied village than a simple military operation. They find themselves fighting against supernatural forces, part of a Nazi experiment.
