Jason Segel Considers Collateral Beauty

In talks to join Jackman

Following Joe Wright's Pan, Hugh Jackman and Rooney Mara are already both set to work together again on Collateral Beauty, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's follow-up to his Sundance hit Me And Earl And The Dying Girl. Now it's looking as if they'll be joined by Jason Segel, who's in talks to take on an as-yet unspecified role.

Allan Loeb wrote the screenplay, which revolves around a New York advertising agency, and a man - presumably Jackman's character - struggling with depression after a tragedy that turns his world upside down. Loeb has recently been churning out comedies like Here Comes The Boom, Just Go With It and The Dilemma, but his earlier work on dramas like Things We Lost In The Fire and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is probably a more relevant touchstone here...

Gomez-Rejon, meanwhile, got his start on television with Glee and American Horror Story. He also directed this last year's clever remake of '70s slasher The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but told Empire recently that he's keen not to be pegged as "a horror guy". Me And Earl And The Dying Girl and Collateral Beauty look set to get him off that path at some velocity.

Collateral Beauty scored its finance set-up from PalmStar Media at Cannes, after attracting a good deal of interest. Segel's own deal isn't quite done yet, but if he signs on the line, he'll start shooting with everyone else in the autumn.

Source Empire News http://ift.tt/1feiQzi

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First Look At The Good Dinosaur

Revealed: Pixar’s not-at-all terrible lizards

Armed with early footage, character art, storyboards and even a brilliant on-screen flick-book of his own life story, director Peter Sohn arrived in London yesterday to reveal how 2015’s second Pixar movie, The Good Dinosaur, is shaping up.

“We’re trying to create something you’ve never seen before,” he told Empire — though the premise of The Good Dinosaur might feel familiar to Pixar fans. Like every other Pixar movie, the creative start point is a 'what if?' scenario. But this time it’s a huge one: what if, all those millions of years ago, that asteroid had missed Earth, and dinosaurs had not only avoided extinction, but continued evolving well into the era that humanity first appeared?

The story’s hero is a young Apatosaurus named Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), described by Sohn as “a little goofy kid” who works with his family on their farm (yes, as well as being able to speak, these dinos know agriculture), until tragedy strikes and he’s whisked miles away by a raging river. On his long journey back, he befriends a strange little creature — a human boy named ‘Spot — and together they must face the many dangers that the wilderness throws at them.

“It’s a boy and dog relationship,” Sohn explained, except the ‘boy’ is a dinosaur and the ‘dog’ is a boy. While they face feathered velociraptors, a ravenous flock of pterodactyls (one of which is voiced by Steve Zahn) and a family of T-Rexs (Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin and A.J. Buckley), the prime antagonist of this tale is Mother Nature herself. “It’s a place that can eat him up,” Sohn said, but which is also capable of “blowing him away” with its sheer beauty.

The audience was certainly blown away by the footage, which revealed Arlo’s frantic river-ride, and a gorgeous, inventive scene in which Arlo and Spot share their tales of grief and woe... Without a single word spoken between them. A major influence on Sohn was Dumbo, and that’s certainly apparent here in what the director summed up as “an emotional coming of age story.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was little talk of The Good Dinosaur’s long and difficult production, during which it suffered various setbacks and saw its original director, Bob Petersen, replaced by Sohn. Only last Friday came the announcement that most of the voice cast (except Frances McDormand, who plays Arlo’s mother) had been replaced. The director did admit that storytelling at Pixar could be “a kind of violent process; you build something and tear it down, then build it again. It’s not easy, but you find a way to get through. It was a tough thing, but at the same time it is like a family at Pixar.”

The Good Dinosaur is out on November 27.

Source Empire News http://ift.tt/1feiNnj

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Bradley Cooper To Wrangle Ghost Army

Producing the WWII caper

Clearly enjoying the fit of the producer's hat he recently donned for Hyperion, Bradley Cooper is now also putting together a WWII project at Warner Bros. He's developing, along with regular honcho Todd Phillips and American Sniper's Andrew Lazar, the WWII tall tale Ghost Army. 

Henry Gayden (Earth To Echo) has been tasked with the screenplay, adapting Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles' recently-published history The Ghost Army Of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived The Enemy With Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, And Other Audacious Fakery. Beyer already used the material in a 2013 documentary, also called Ghost Army.

That extended title probably tells you all to need to know about the film in the offing. The stranger-than-fiction story involves secret squad made up of  artists, designers, advertising execs and other creative types who were tasked with making the US army look a lot bigger than it was, and in a lot more places than it was, in order to fool the Nazis. This really did involve inflatable tanks, as well as dummies on the ground, and fake radio operatives cluttering the airwaves with disinformation. These antics have been credited with saving thousands of lives.

As with Hyperion, it isn't yet clear whether Cooper also intends to appear in front of the camera. But if we were betting people we'd put a few quid on him being part of this one's ensemble cast. There's no start date yet, while Gayden gets on with the script.

Source Empire News http://ift.tt/1cY3RYv

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Marcus Dunstan Will Direct Halloween Returns

The stabbing starts next month

We knew, as of February this year, that Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton were finally writing the much-delayed next Halloween sequel. This morning comes the relatively unsurprising news that Dunstan will also direct. Production is due to start imminently, and the film now has a title too. It's (ahem) Halloween Returns. 

Dunstan and Melton are the writing team behind Saws IV-VII, the Feast films and Piranha 3DD. Halloween Returns - the eleventh Halloween - won't be his first gig behind the camera however. He made his debut with The Collector in 2009, followed by its sequel The Collection in 2012.

There's still nothing known about the film's plot or angle, other than that it's planned as a "recalibration" of the Halloween series. Deadline actually describe it as "the next instalment of the Halloween reboots," but that's not quite in line with the apparent desire of all concerned to draw a line under the two Rob Zombie films and start again. Again.

It's almost certain, of course, that Halloween Returns will involve Michael Myers on a killing rampage on October 31. Beyond that, details will no doubt start emerging soon, since Dunstan's cameras start rolling next month.

Source Empire News http://ift.tt/1CaxigM

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Did Kristen Stewart's Mom Just Out Her?

Kristen Stewart's mom is denying a story that ran in British tabloid The Mirror.

According to the publication, Stewart's mother Jules reportedly outed her daughter, saying that she's dating her personal assistant, Alicia Cargile. The uber-private Twilight star has been rumored to be dating Cargile

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Miley Cyrus and Instagram Team Up for Equality Campaign with an Awesome Photo Series

Miley Cyrus is doing what she can in the fight for equality.

The 22-year-old star has collaborated with Instagram for the Happy Hippie Presents #InstaPride project, a portrait series aimed to increase awareness of people across the gender spectrum.

The portraits and the people in them are meant to

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Ashley Tisdale Met Up with Her Suite Life of Zack & Cody "Brothers" and It's Adorable

What a time to be a Suite Life of Zack & Cody fan!

Just last month, the Internet played witness to stars Cole and Dylan Sprouse's graduation from New York University, and now the twins have reunited with their former co-star Ashley Tisdale.

Tisdale documented the meet-up on Instagram, writing: "I love

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• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody
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