THE COMEDIAN (Cast News)

•  ROBERT DE NIRO IS ACTUALLY A COMEDIAN

Robert De Niro

FilmNation Entertainment announced today that they willhandle international sales for The Comedian. The drama will be directed by SeanPenn (Into the Wild) and will star two-time Academy Award winner Robert De Niroand Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids). Written by Art Linson with Jeffrey Ross, themovie will be produced by Art Linson (Into the Wild), John Linson, Jon Kilikand Robert De Niro. Shannon Costello will be associate producing.

In the film, Jackie Burke (De Niro) is a raging comic who ispast his prime. A once loved TV character in his hey day, he clings to anyrecognition of his former fame in the hope of reviving his now stagnant career.After being sentenced to community service for hitting an audience member inthe head with his microphone, Jackie meets Harmony (Wiig), a dazzling anddefiant redhead who turns his life sideways.

"We're so excited to be working with such an amazinglytalented group of filmmakers on this movie. It simply doesn't get much betterthan this, especially for us New Yorkers!," said FilmNationEntertainment's CEO Glen Basner.

Production is slated to start in the spring of 2012.

THUNDER RUN (Cast News)

•  THUNDER RUN FINALLY MOVING FORWARD

Simon West's Thunder Run was first announced for developmentfour long years ago, but we happy to say that the film is finally movingforward. With this new good news, came better news, with Freedom Films alsoannouncing that Gerard Butler, Matthew McConaughey and Sam Worthington havejoined the project.

Based on David Zucchino and Mark Bowden's nonfiction book"Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad," the film willbe shot using motion-capture technology and rendered as a 3D CGI adventure. Thebook itself is officially described as follows:

      Matthew McConaughey                  Gerard Butler                        Sam Worthington

“In one of the boldest gambles in modern military history,just three battalions and fewer than a thousand men launched a violent thrustof tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles into the heart of a city of 5 millionpeople and, in three bloody days of combat, ended the Iraqi war. Thunder Run isthe story of the surprise assault on Baghdad—one of the most decisive battlesin American combat history—by the Spartan Brigade, the Second Brigade of theThird Infantry Division (Mechanized).

Facing Iraqi forces dug into bunkers and firing fromrooftops, the brigade punched a hole through the heart of Baghdad with ahigh-speed charge to Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace and military paradegrounds. Many Iraqi soldiers fled or surrendered during the onslaught, butthousands of Republican Guards, Fedayeen militiamen, and Arab mercenaries stoodand fought, challenging seventy-ton Abrams tanks in Toyota pickup trucks,school buses, taxicabs, Chevrolet Caprices, ambulances, and garbage trucks.

Iraqi forces destroyed the brigade’s command center, cuttingoff communications and burning a fleet of signal vehicles. The Iraqis alsoambushed the brigade’s resupply column, killing two sergeants and setting fueland ammunition tankers ablaze in an attack that nearly cut off the main assaultcolumn. And even as it appeared that the brigade was seizing control of thecapital on the battle’s third day, a fierce counterattack across the TigrisRiver trapped an American tank company under withering fire and forced aretreat. With the shadow of Mogadishu hanging over every member of the SpartanBrigade, the capture of Baghdad was a brutal and terrifying three days of urbanwarfare.”

PRIDE PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (Director Quits))

• PRIDE, PREJUDICE ANDZOMBIES BUT NO DIRECTOR

It's been a troublesome road so far for Lionsgate's Prideand Prejudice and Zombies. Deadline reports that director Craig Gillespie hasleft the project, making him the third attached helmer to do so.

Based on Seth Grahame-Smith's re-interpretation of JaneAusten's "Pride & Prejudice," the story features the literaryheroine Elizabeth Bennet going up against hordes of ravenous zombies.

Originally, David O. Russell was to direct the project, buthe exited late last year. He was replaced last November with Mike White, wholeft in turn in January. Gillespie came aboard the film in April and, thoughrumors hit of his departure hit in August, they were denied by studio reps.

There is been a number of leading ladies that have been intalks but has ultimately decided not to sign on, such as Rooney Mara, EmmaStone, Blake Lively & Natalie Portman (However she is still producing thefilm). This just makes us wonder is Mash-up of Romance and Zombies, really asgood as we think it is, or is the story really rubbish?? You decide…

CITIES (Cast News)

• KIRSTEN DUNST & ORLANDO BLOOM TO VISIT CITIES

Kirsten Dunst & Orlando Bloom

Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom have have just signed on toappear together in the international thriller Cities. They join thepreviously-announced Clive Owen and Anil Kapoor in the new project from writer/directorRoger Donaldson (The Bank Job, 13 Days).

The film is set to go before cameras in Spring 2012 and willshoot in multiple cities that will include London, Mumbai and New York. Theofficial description is as follows:

“‘Cities’ is a cautionary tale about greed and ambition thattakes place in the exuberant months leading up to the Dow Jones all-time stockmarket high. Fortunes, both big and small are put at risk as people around theglobe gamble that the financial market’s meteoric rise will continue. In NewYork, a hedge fund manager (Owen) has everything he wants – money, sex andpower, but he wants more. In London, a young couple just want to buy theirfirst home, but it seems impossibly out of reach. In Mumbai, a cop fightsagainst corruption between property speculators and his villainous colleagueSeth (Kapoor). These stories will all dramatically collide in a world where thefortunes of individuals are interwoven with the lives of others across theglobe they have never even met.”

INDIANA JONES V & JURASSIC PARK 4 (Both in Development))

• INDIANA JONES V &JURASSIC PARK 4

Steven Spielberg

In an Empire interview with The Adventures of Tintin and WarHorse director Steven Spielberg, talk turned to whether we'll see Jurassic Park4 and Indiana Jones 5 any time soon.

About Jurassic Park 4, he said, "The screenplay isbeing written right now by Mark Protosevich. I'm hoping that will come out inthe next couple of years. We have a good story. We have a better story for fourthan we had for three..."

Good news for Jurassic Park 4 but what about Indiana JonesV?

"You have to ask George Lucas. George is in charge ofbreaking the stories. He's done it on all four movies. Whether I like thestories or not, George has broken all the stories," he said, adding,"He is working on Indy V. We haven't gone to screenplay yet, but he's workingon the story. I'll leave it to George to come up with a good story."

He also addressed some of the criticism of Indiana Jones andthe Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, "I sympathise with people who didn'tlike the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin, he explained."George and I had big arguments about the MacGuffin. I didn't want thesethings to be either aliens or inter-dimensional beings. But I am loyal to mybest friend. When he writes a story he believes in - even if I don't believe init - I'm going to shoot the movie the way George envisaged it."

STEVE JOBS (In Development)

Steve Jobs

•  STEVE JOBS SOCIAL NETWORKS

Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography just hit the shelves thispast week, but Sony Pictures is already moving forward on the feature adaptationof the book. Word has it that Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) is now beingcourted to write the screenplay.

An insider at The LA Times' 24 Frames claims that Sorkin isconsidering the project but has yet to make any final decisions. On the one hand,character-driven dramas based around intelligent, complex figures like Jobs arecertainly in Sorkin's wheelhouse, but a project like this also runs the risk ofretreading Silicon Valley ground already covered in The Social Network. Rightnow, it's hard to say what will become of Sorkin's involvement, but a pair ofAcademy Award-winning hands probably wouldn't hurt.