Movies News Headlines

By Jeff Sneider LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Cooper. Susan Cooper," may be a line of dialogue heading to a theater near you. With "The Heat" hitting the big screen on June 28, director Paul Feig is ramping up development on a female spy movie titled "Susan Cooper" that he hopes will become a franchise for 20th Century Fox, …

By Jeff Sneider LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Universal Pictures and Red Granite have rescued the Farrelly brothers' sequel "Dumb and Dumber To" out of turnaround from Warner Bros. and New Line. Red Granite will finance the $35 million comedy and handle foreign sales, while Universal will distribute in the U.S.. "Dumb and …

By Steve Pond LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Filmmaking could not exist in Europe without the support of governments, veteran director Costa-Gavras told an audience at the Los Angeles Film Festival on Monday night. At the same time, the Greek director of such politically-charged films as "Missing" and the Oscar-winning "Z," …

By Jeff Sneider LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Universal Pictures landed the film rights to "Panic," the next young adult novel from Lauren Oliver ("Delirium"), in a bidding war. The seven-figure deal closed on Monday night, according to an individual familiar with the negotiations. HarperCollins imprint Harper Teen will publish …

By Tony Maglio LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Multi-hyphenate James Franco has more jobs (and hobbies) then one can count, but it's his latest piece of work that's buzzing around the web. Franco wrote a critical take about "Man of Steel" for Vice, but much of the attention on the piece is actually based on what he said about …

By Tony Maglio LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Iron Man 3" broke the $400 million mark at the domestic box office on Tuesday, according to Disney. The amount was not unexpected but is still impressive, with "Man of Steel" taking most of the superhero movie buzz away over the weekend. The number means that third installment …

By Greg Gilman LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Alcon Entertainment is developing a sequel to the 2011 family film, "Dolphin Tale," co-founders and co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson announced on Tuesday. The entire original cast, including Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman and Kris Kristofferson, is in …

By Greg Gilman LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Production on Richard LaGravenese's musical adaptation of "The Last 5 Years," starring Anna Kendrick and "Smash" star Jeremy Jordan, begins this week in New York, Lucky Monkey Pictures and Sh-K-Boom Records said Wednesday. LaGravenese("Beautiful Creatures") wrote and is directing …

By Jeff Sneider and Greg Gilman LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Although Shailene Woodley shot scenes as Mary Jane Watson for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," she will not be joining Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone after all, TheWrap has learned. Director Marc Webb has decided to streamline the story and introduce Mary Jane in "The …

By Jeff Sneider LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Sam Taylor-Johnson has signed on to direct "Fifty Shades of Grey" for Universal Pictures and Focus Features, TheWrap has learned. Taylor-Johnson is the wife of "Kick-Ass" star Aaron Taylor-Johnson who starred as a young John Lennon in her directorial debut "Nowhere Boy." Sam Taylor-Johnson's …

By Jeff Sneider LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The sun won't come out tomorrow after all for Sandra Bullock. The actress won't be joining the cast of Sony's "Annie" reboot after a second attempt to get her in the cast fell through, according to an individual familiar with the dealmaking process. Bullock was in line to play …

By Patricia Reaney NEW YORK (Reuters) - British actress Gemma Arterton does not need to worry about typecasting with roles ranging from a fairy tale character and literary heroines to MI6 agent Strawberry Fields in the 2008 James Bond film "Quantum of Solace." In "Unfinished Song," a comedy-drama that opens in U.S. theaters …

By Belinda Goldsmith LONDON (Reuters) - British actor Daniel Radcliffe won plaudits this week for a new stage role as a bullied Irish cripple that takes him a critical step further away from his days as boy wizard Harry Potter. In his third foray onto the stage in six years, Radcliffe adopts an Irish accent to play Billy, …

By Brent Lang Jun 17 (TheWrap.com) - Leonardo DiCaprio parties like he's in ancient Rome in the new trailer for "The Wolf of Wall Street." The film marks his fifth collaboration with Martin Scorsese. This time the pair are exploring the seedy world of 1990s stock manipulation, and based on the outrageous trailer they have …

By Zorianna Kit LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - One-eyed green monster Mike Wazowski and his giant blue, furry friend James P. "Sully" Sullivan go back in time as "scaring" students in "Monsters University," as Walt Disney Co.'s Pixar Animation Studios pins its hopes for a blockbuster on the coming-of-age story. "Monsters University," …

By Jennifer Saba (Reuters) - A stunt double for Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie has sued News Corp over allegations its British newspapers hacked her phone, the first lawsuit in the United States against the company since the scandal broke two years ago. The lawsuit, filed on June 13 by professional stunt double Eunice …

By Ronald Grover and Chris Michaud (Reuters) - "Man of Steel," the big-budget reboot of the Superman franchise, leaped over the apocalyptic buddy comedy "This is the End," collecting a muscular $113.1 million to lead the domestic box office with the year's second-largest debut weekend and the biggest June opening ever. …

By Lucas Shaw NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Sony will produce and release two more sequels to "The Amazing Spider-Man," the studio announced on Monday. The studio is already production on "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," which will open in theaters May 2 of next year. The third "Spider-Man" film will open June 10, 2016 while the …

By Brent Lang LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Arthur Newman" made headlines when it debuted last spring, but it wasn't for the film's onscreen coupling of Oscar-winner Colin Firth and rising star Emily Blunt. The media attention instead centered on an innovative marketing campaign driven by an odd couple pairing of a Hollywood …

By Brent Lang LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It has been over a decade since "Monsters, Inc." and its two top scarers Mike and Sulley first proved that things that go bump in the night can be cuddly and adorable too. Now, Pixar is returning once more to the fright factory with "Monster's University." The prequel follows the …

By Tim Kenneally LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Juan Antonio Bayona, director of "The Orphanage" and "The Impossible," has been tapped to direct the first two episodes of "Penny Dreadful," the Sam Mendes-produced drama series coming to Showtime. The eight-episode series, which re-teams Mendes with "Skyfall" writer John Logan …

LONDON (Reuters) - British actor Jason Statham, known for playing the hard man in a list of Hollywood blockbusters, said he hoped his latest film "Hummingbird" would show a more emotional side to his acting even though the thriller is packed with violence. Statham, 45, walked the red carpet with his supermodel girlfriend …

By Andrea Burzynski NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger appear in the new film "Twenty Feet from Stardom," but only to shine the spotlight on the unsung backup singers who make them sound even better. Opening in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and expanding across the United States in coming weeks, …