Jessica Chastain's Great New Role: Tom Cruise Love Interest
Today in film and television: Jessica Chastain is one side of a Tom Cruise post-apocalyptic love triangle, Justin Timberlake goes back to his musical roots, and good luck seeing the new Harvey Weinstein documentary.
Over the last 12 months, Jessica Chastain has been maternal and weird in The Tree of Life, funny and sweet in The Help, and a younger, more interesting version of Helen Mirren's character in The Debt. Now she's signed on to play Tom Cruise's girlfriend/fellow robot repairman in an untitled post-apocalyptic science fiction film where most of humanity lives in a city above the clouds, and sometimes Cruise and Chastain "work on drones that fight alien life forms," according to The Hollywood Reporter. Then one day Cruise meets "a woman who forces him to question his world view," which likely won't turn out well for Chastain, but will at least test whether "spurned lover in a blockbuster" is part of her impressive range.[The Hollywood Reporter via Vulture]
IFC isn't so much releasing Unauthorized, Canadian director Barry Avrich's about the bombastic, movie recutting ways of Harvey Weinstein, as they are dropping it onto their new streaming service Sundance Now on October 7 where it will never be seen again, since the service is both very expensive and highly unreliable. Nikki Finke suspects IFC wants to "bury the pic," which features the likes of Martin Scorsese, John Irving, New York Times writer David Carr, and Peter Biskind, author of the unflattering Miramax history Down and Dirty Pictures, talking about their experiences with the producer [Deadline]
Russell Brand and Julianne Hough will star in Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody's directorial debut. The film used to be called Lamb of God, but is now just a project about a young conservative woman who survives a plane crash, loses her faith, and takes off for Las Vegas to live a life of sin with a (presumably) goofy British man in tow that needs a title. We suggest Funny Leaving Las Vegas or Midnight Run Without the Violence. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Justin Timberlake loves biopics and he knows the music industry. So he's a natural fit to star in Spinning Gold as Casablanca Records co-founder Neil Bogart, who helped launches KISS, Donna Summer, and Parliament in the 1970s. Timberlake's also producing the project. [Deadline]
Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson is back in the realm of multiple killers: he's sold an original pitch to Fox for a pilot about "a diabolical serial killer who uses technology to create a cult of serial killers, and the FBI agent who finds himself in the middle of it." Our gut says this will be about "technology" the same way Terra Nova is about "science." [Deadline]
