- Disney is in talks with director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha) for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film. While producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp will return to the franchise, previous director Gore Verbinski has chosen to move on to new projects. If a director is confirmed soon, the new film would begin shooting in 2010. [Variety]
- Rachelle Lefevre is out as Victoria in the third Twilight film, Eclipse, and will be replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard. Evidently Rachelle and her castmates aren't happy about her dismissal, and Summit Entertainment isn't happy that people know Rachelle isn't happy . . . [E! Online]
- The projects keep rolling in for Hugh Jackman. The Wolverine actor has signed on to portray P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman on Earth, an original big screen musical. Jackman "will play the showman with a penchant for hoaxing a gullible public as he creates the three-ring circus that made him famous." Singer/songwriter Mika of "Grace Kelly" fame is in talks to write the music an lyrics. Anne Hathaway is being eyed for the female lead. [Variety]
- Charlize Theron and up-and-coming leading man Sam Worthington(Terminator Salvation, Avatar) will star in The Tourist, a remake of a 2005 French thriller. Theron will play a spy who chooses an "everyman" tourist and uses him as bait to lure a wanted criminal, who also happens to be her ex-lover. Worthington replaces Tom Cruise, who was strongly considering the project but eventually passed. [Hollywood Reporter]
- Steven Spielberg's next project will be . . . a remake? Spielberg has chosen to tackle a remake of the 1950 film Harvey, in which Jimmy Stewart memorably played a man whose best friend is a 6 1/2-foot-tall invisible rabbit. [Variety]
Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, and his grandson Walter E.D. Miller have co-founded a new museum dedicated to teaching the public about the man behind the now-ubiquitous brand name. Scheduled to open on October 1, The Walt Disney Family Museum will be housed in three redesigned and upgraded buildings in the Presidio in San Francisco.
The museum will be comprised of 10 galleries that explore Disney's humble beginnings on a Missouri farm and continue through his success with his revolutionary animation studio in Burbank, California. The galleries will include numerous personal items including the Academy Award for Snow White (which actually consists of one normal Oscar and seven dwarf-size Oscar statues), listening stations, more than 200 video monitors and interactive displays.
One stand-out part of the museum is born of Disney's love of trains. When walking down a spiral ramp, visitors will see a train track suspended from the roof that supports the "Lilly Belle," the 1/8 scale-model train that used to run around Disney's home.
While the Walt Disney Co. is collaborating with the Disney family, the museum is an independent project funded by the Walt Disney Family Foundation. The museum is neither owned or run by the Walt Disney Co. [San Francisco Chronicle][The Walt Disney Family Museum]
- Shia LaBeouf will star opposite Michael Douglas in the follow-up to the 1987 hit film Wall Street. Director Oliver Stone will return to helm the film, titled Money Never Sleeps. Douglas will reprise his role as Gordon Gekko, who has served his time in prison and whose warnings about the impending crash of the financial markets goes unheeded. LaBeouf's character is engaged to Gekko's daughter and is an up-and-comer in the financial world. When LaBeouf's mentor is found dead and LaBeouf suspects that he was murdered, the young man asks for Gekko's help as he seeks revenge. [Associated Press via Yahoo! News]
- The cast list for the upcoming movie Easy A includes a whole slew of familiar names -- Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Daniel Byrd, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell, Alyson Michalka, Emma Stone and Stanley Tucci. In the movie, Stone portrays "a high school student who, after being ostracized by a false rumor she's loose, uses the rumor mill to her advantage, pitting puritanical students and teachers against their liberal counterparts." Production for Easy A starts on June 9. [Variety]
[bxA]- Disney has announced the first-ever D23 Expo, a convention for Disney fans, to be held in Anaheim this fall. The expo will give attendees a look at content and products from just about every branch of Disney and feature keynote speeches from execs including Bob Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, and John Lasseter, chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation and Pixar Animation Studios. Attendees will have the chance to view sneak peeks from upcoming films such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Toy Story 3, TRON, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Disney's A Christmas Carol and The Princess and the Frog. View the recently released Toy Story 3 trailer below. [D23 Expo][Hollywood Reporter] - Amanda Seyfried, Gael Garcia Bernal, Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero will star in Letters to Juliet, which begins shooting in Italy later this month. Seyfried and Bernal will portray a couple on vacation in Italy who receive a letter written by an older woman (Redgrave) searching for her long-lost Italian love (Nero); the missive was directed to the Shakespearean character Juliet Capulet. Seyfriend decides to search Tuscany to find the woman's lost love in the hopes of reuniting them. [Variety]
- And finally, it looks like Sigourney Weaver will be taking a couple of comedic turns in the films You Again and Paul. You Again focuses on "a young woman who finds out that her brother is going to marry her high school nemesis." Weaver is still in talks to join Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of Shaun of the Dead fame in their upcoming flick Paul. [Entertainment Weekly]
- The Emmys will air on September 13 (8:00-11:00PM, live ET/delayed PT) this year, one week earlier than the orignally announced date. A spokesman for CBS cited the possibility of broadcast delays on the orignal award show date due to an NFL doubleheader airing on The Eye that Sunday. The original date for the Emmys was set before the NFL released their 2009 television schedule. This year's Primetime Emmy nominees will be announced July 16 at 5:40AM. [Emmys.tv]
-Disney Channel has ordered a fourth season of its franchise-generating hit show Hannah Montana. Tween queen Miley Cyrus will return as the titular character, though "goodbyes will be will be an ongoing theme in an arc that will see Cyrus' character and her family leave their beachfront Malibu enclave." The Mouse also renewed the freshman comedy series Sonny With a Chance, which stars another tween darling, Demi Lovato. [Variety]
- Brian Austin Green (of the recently cancelled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) is in talks to join the cast of The CW's One Tree Hill. The hour-long drama faces big changes going into its seventh year after last season's departure of two of the show's original leads, Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton. If Green comes aboard, he would be a series regular -- a "brash sports agent" who is also "enjoying the spoils that come from being a wealthy, handsome single guy." Sounds like Green would be moving back toward his 90210 roots with this character. [Hollywood Reporter]
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- Disney is in talks with director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha) for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film. While producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp will return to the franchise, previous director Gore Verbinski has chosen to move on to new projects. If a director is confirmed soon, the new film would begin shooting in 2010. [Variety]
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