Brooke Bunny
1. Warner Bros has snapped up the distribution rights to “The Intern”, Nancy Meyers’ new comedy, set to star Robert De Niro and Reese Witherspoon. Film stars Witherspoon as “the founder of a highly successful fashion website who is prompted to take part in her company’s Senior Intern Program. She is assigned a 70ish widower who shows up with a suit and a briefcase. Turns out he ran his own successful business before retiring. What starts initially as a clash between old-world and new-world business values grows into something more as the intern becomes a mentor to the young entrepreneur.”
2. Former “King of Queens” star Leah Remini will recur on TVLand’s “The Exes”.
3. Giancarlo Esposito will direct ”Patriotic Treason”, set to star Ed Harris as radical abolitionist John Brown. ”Adapted by Oscar nominee Jose Rivera (Motorcycle Diaries, On The Road) from Evan Carton’s 2006 book Patriotic Treason: John Brown And The Soul of America, the film centers on the controversial figure known for his 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry. Brown hoped the attack would ignite a slave uprising. Instead it left 11 dead and led to Brown’s capture, after which he was found guilty of treason and hanged. Political enemies considered Brown a madman and a terrorist but the notoriety of his violent attacks are credited with sparking the Civil War.” Esposito will also have a role in the film, playing “Frederick Douglass, the freed slave-turned-abolitionist and orator who declined to join Brown’s Harper’s Ferry attack.”
4. Michael Chiklis is developing a TV series based on his own comic book “Pantheon”.
5. “Man of Steel” star Laurence Fishburne is set to star in and produce a HBO drama based on Walter Mosley’s ”Socrates Fortlow” novels. Called “The Right Mistake”, it is based on the series of novels by Mosley featuring Fortlow: ”an ex-convict who seeks redemption — while battling inner demons and external forces — after serving 27 years in prison.”
6. Jason Bateman is producing an NBC comedy series called “Two to Go”, about ”the last two singles in a group of friends moving into marriage and parenthood, navigating life and love as they Friday night barhop then Saturday morning moon bounce surrounded by kids — none of whom are their own.”
7. Bill Murray has joined the cast of the mini-series “Olive Kitteridge”, playing “Jack Kennison, a local widower whom Kitteridge befriends”
8. “Warlock” star Julian Sands will recur on NBC’s “Crossbones”, playing “William Jagger, an aristocrat-turned-privateer and governor of Jamaica who dispatches Tom Lowe (Richard Coyle) to accompany inventor-mathematician Benedict Nightingale and his Marine Chronometer to England by way of a secret convoy.”
9. Paramount is threatening legal action over plans to sequelize “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
10. Scott Cooper is no longer directing the feature film version of “The Stand”.
