George Clooney will direct a film based on The New Yorker article, The Yankee Commandante, which was published in the May 28, 2012 issue. According to Deadline, Clooney will co-produce with his Smokehouse partner Grant Heslov. “The article is about William Alexander Morgan, an American who helped Castro and the Cuban rebels overthrow Fulgencio Batista. He’d reached the status of Comandante, the sole foreigner other than Argentinian Che Guevara to be so highly regarded. Shortly after, Morgan, a shadowy man whose motives for being there were subject to suspicion, was imprisoned and facing a firing squad, charged with working for U.S. intelligence. At the same time, his exploits as a rebel soldier led J. Edgar Hoover and everyone else scrambling to sort out his motives and who he was working for.”
Dan Aykoyd has joined the cast of the HBO Liberace film, Behind The Candelabra, which features Michael Douglas as the flamboyant musician and Matt Damon as his his live-in lover, Scott Thorson. The Steven Soderbergh directed film is base on Thorson’s memoir, My Life With Liberace. “Aykroyd will play Seymour Heller, Liberace’s long-time manager who disapproved of his relationship with Thorson.”
Writer/director Andy Bergman makes a long awaited return with his upcoming film, A Film By Alan Stuart Eisner, a comedy about a a young documentary filmmaker who intends to bring his family’s amazing and bizarre World War II history to the screen. The cast includes Project X‘s Oliver Cooper, Shirley MacLaine and Robin Williams with Rob Reiner making a cameo. Among his work, Bergman was a writer on Blazing Saddles, wrote the screenplay to Fletch and wrote and directed such films as The Freshman, Honeymoon In Vegas, and It Could Happen to You.
David Gordon Green, who was has a taken a step back from his indie roots to helm several studio features, has recently filmed a top-secret indie film, Project Avalanche with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. The film, a remake of Icelandic road comedy Either Way, “follows two men whose lives intersect while working on a road striping crew together.”
Evanna Lynch has joined the cast of the upcoming film Monster Butler, the indie crime thriller starring Malcolm McDowell, Gary Oldman, Dominic Monaghan, and Joanne Whalley. Lynch is best known for her role as Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter series. “The film is about Roy Fontaine, aka Archibald Hall (McDowell), a bisexual jewel thief/con man/serial killer, and the movie will tell of his personal descent into darkness and his eventual capture. Lynch will play Fiona Carrick-Smith, who is intrigued by her upper-class
family’s new and seemingly all-knowing butler. Seeing him as an older,
wiser confidant, she confesses her misgivings for her upcoming marriage
and her longing for dangerous excitement. She soon acts on her desires
with the butler — acts of reckless behavior that lead to betrayal and
tragedy.”
Elvis is back in the building! CORE Media Group, owners of the Elvis Presley brand, has
signed a deal with digital production company Digital Domain Media Group (makers of Coachella’s Tupac Shakur) to, “develop, produce and own a series of “virtual” Elvis Presley
likenesses for entertainment projects – shows and appearances to film,
TV and multi-platform productions throughout the world.” Which essentially means that the deceased King of Rock ‘n Roll could show up on Law & Order: SVU during sweeps next season.
