By: Henry J. Fromage -

I apparently don’t watch enough E! as I was entirely  unaware that Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis were an item (or perhaps this proves I watch exactly the right amount of E! ?).  Anyway, as Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman can probably attest, making a film together isn’t always the best thing for a relationship, so we’ll have to see how things go with Relanxious.  The comedy revolves around an agoraphobic man who strikes up a relationship with a woman with an anxiety disorder, which mostly consists of them discussing what kind of hypothetical dates they’d go on if either of them had the strength to leave the house.  Outside of that title, there’s some comedic potential there, and even if filming proves stressful for a couple, the result is usually pretty good.

Right?

Idris Elba was the center of a little bit of controversy lately, although he had nothing personally to do with it.  His choice for Nelson Mandela was defended by the casting director stating that there aren’t any South African actors tall enough to portray the 6’4 leader.  That didn’t sound particularly correct to anyone, especially as he in no other way resembles Mandela.  He’s still attached to the film, though, which is an intriguing one- adapting Mandela’s memoir, Long Walk to Freedom.  At one point Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) was attached to the project, but now Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) is looking likely.  There’s no denyingElba has the dramatic chops for the part, and he will undoubtedly raise the profile of the film, which the likely real reason for his casting.

It’s not like physical resemblance has held him back before

Normally the news of one more airport novel spy thriller adaptation would not merit comment, but Dead Spy Running has some interesting people involved.  I’m unfamiliar with the book or its two sequels (franchise potential!) but apparently it has been likened to The Social Network of spy stories, with the main character coming from and using a much younger and more technically proficient perspective than most spies.  Stephen Gaghan (Traffic) is handling the script, and Jonathan Levine (50/50) will direct, which suggests that material has the potential to be more than just a summer popcorn flick.  The lead role hasn’t been cast yet, but I have a suggestion.

Too obvious!  I’m meant Aziz Ansari.

By: Henry J. Fromage -

Awhile back there were some whispers about an edgy retelling of Peter Pan, starring Channing Tatum… as Peter Pan.  I ignored those whispers, because even if that movie did come into being, you’d run out of matches and fingernails before you could force me to watch it.  Then one of Guillermo Del Toro’s 500-odd directing/producing projects was announced as a edgy reboot of the Pan tale in which Hook is a detective tasked with chasing down the notorious child abductor.  That one got as far as casting, but hasn’t started shooting yet, leaving the Tatum project to swoop down and nab the same basic idea.  To add one more bizarre wrinkle to the story, Gavin O’Connor, the director of one of my favorite films from last year, Warrior, will be behind the camera, and the latest news seems to indicate Tatum will only be producing.  Anybody that watched that film might have some trouble reconciling it with anything involving Peter Pan, but I guess we’ll just have to see how this all plays out.

Maybe instead they’ll cast Robin Williams again, who has already shown us what a grown-up Pan would look like

Even in the year or so that the Daily Shotgun has been in existence, we’ve seen a ton of projects blow up, reform, or change into something different.  The Revenant was a script about a fur trapper mauled by a bear that drew a great deal of interest from directors and actors that included Alejandro González Iñárritu, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, John Hillcoat, and Christian Bale.  Its dissolution, at least for now, has instead opened up Iñárritu and Penn to work on Red Flag, based on the non-fiction memoir Flim-Flam Man: The True Story Of My Father’s Counterfeit Life, about a bank-robber, arsonist, drug addict, counterfeiter and confidence man.  DiCaprio will move on to his fifth Martin Scorcese movie with a similar psychological hook- The Wolf of Wall Street.  It is another memoir, this time about an 80s drug and sex-addicted stockbroker who gets mixed up in stock fraud with the mob.

Which might be an even riskier proposition than tangling with a bear.

Errol Morris had me at hello (Gates of Heaven) and I’ve made sure not to miss a single one of his documentaries since.  His biggest success of them all arguably was Fog of War, in which he interviews controversial political and military figure Robert McNamara, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, and draws out surprisingly candid and poignant responses.  His next project returns to similar territory, and my expectations are high, as the subject has much more cachet with my generation than McNamara does: Donald Rumsfeld.  Besides the fact that they both held the same government position, the parallels between him and McNamara should be obvious.

They both like golf?