Month: May 2021

Say what you will about Ben Affleck as Batman, or Jack Ryan, or any number of other action heroes that have seemed to be a stretch for the boy-next-door star, but Affleck is a terrific fit for “The Accountant,” in which he plays an autistic assassin. Though his choice in material is strong, the actor has always been a strange kind of thespian, one who seems so normal and non-actorly that most of his performances feel like watching one of your buddies up on screen, pretending to be someone he’s not. Here, Affleck, who formerly drew the short end of the stick playing the dumb townie to Matt Damon’s math savant, finally gets to embody the numbers whiz, and also to run around shooting some heavy-duty guns: It’s like Will Hunting and Jason Bourne rolled into one, brains and bullets. What’s not to love?

#TheAccountant #JonBernthal #BenAffleck #ZeroGravityManagement #BillDubuque

#WillemDafoe #MarkWilliams #HeadhuntersCalling #AlfredMolina #BillDubuque #GerardButler #TIFF

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winners Nicolas Cage and Faye Dunaway have signed on to star in Inconceivable, with Nicky Whelan co-starring in the Jonathan Baker-directed thriller.

Chloe King wrote the script, and Randall Emmett and George Furla ofEmmett/Furla/Oasis Films are producing with Baker and Daniel Herther of Baker Entertainment. Wayne Marc Godfrey of the Fyzz Facility and Arnaud Lannic and Barry Brooker are exec producing.

EXCLUSIVE: Varsity Blues is headed to television. CMT is developing a TV series inspired by the cult 1999 football movie. The network has ordered a script for the project, which will be penned by W. Peter Iliff, writer of the original movie that starred James Van Der Beek. Paramount TV, whose parent Paramount Pictures distributed the film, is producing.

Prema Cruz has booked a recurring role on the upcoming third season of Amazon’sMozart in the Jungle. Starring Gael García Bernal, Lola Kirke and Bernadette Peters,Mozart In The Jungle Season 3 will continue the story of the talented, contentious musicians who perform (and live) with passion under the baton of its spirited single-name conductor Rodrigo (Bernal). Cruz will play a single mother, a potential romantic interest for Rodrigo. A recent graduate of Yale’s MFA program, Cruz most recently recurred on Showtime’s Billions. She’s repped by Gersh and Zero Gravity Management.

Andrew Scott, known for his villainous roles in Sherlock and Spectre, is to lead the cast of Steel Country, a crime thriller that begins shooting in the US later this week.

Bankside Films has come on board to sell the US-set thriller, written by Brendan Higgins and directed by Simon Fellows (Malice In Wonderland), ahead of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Scott will play a small town truck driver who turns detective when a young boy is found dead in a sleepy part of Western Pennsylvania. His investigations turn into an obsession to prove the boy has been murdered, leading to harrowing consequences.

The Headhunter’s Calling centers on a Chicago-based headhunter, Dane Jensen (Gerard Butler, in the exclusive image above), who goes head-to-head with his ambitious rival, Lynn Vogel (Alison Brie), to control the company upon news his boss (Willem Dafoe) is retiring. But things take a different turn when he learns that his 10-year-old son, Ryan (Max Jenkins), is diagnosed with cancer.

Ahead of the film’s Sept. 14 premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Mark Williams, an experienced producer who makes his directorial debut here, said he knew The Headhunter’s Calling was something special the moment he read the script.

“[Writer] Bill Dubuque, sent an early version of this script, and it had all of the warmth, charm, heart, humor, and drama that the movie now has, although in the earlier form there was something so rich about the characters and the dialogue that popped out that made you care about these characters on a level that you don’t find very often,” Williams tells EW. That authenticity comes in part because Dubuque (The Judge) was a headhunter himself for 15 years before he became a screenwriter…

#MarkWilliams #BillDubuque #HeadhuntersCalling #GerardButler #ZeroGravityManagement #TIFF

Laura Linney is set to star opposite Jason Bateman in Netflix’s drama seriesOzark from Media Rights Capital. Bateman also serves as executive producer and director.

Grounded in reality and money-centric, this present-day story revolves around financial planner Marty Bird (Bateman), his wife Wendy (Linney) and their family’s sudden relocation from the suburbs of Chicago to a summer resort community in the Missouri Ozarks. Rather than the familiar skyscrapers and trading floors, Ozarkexplores capitalism, family dynamics and survival through the eyes of anything-but-ordinary Americans. The series will premiere worldwide on Netflix in 2017.

Bill Dubuque (The Judge) created the series and will executive produce alongside showrunner Chris Mundy (Hell on Wheels, Criminal Minds) and Bateman. The series is produced by Aggregate in association with Media Rights Capital for Netflix.

Oscar-, Tony- and BAFTA-nominated Linney stars in Michael Grandage’s film Geniusand recently wrapped Clint Eastwood’s Sully, Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals and Oren Moverman’s The Dinner. Ozark marks Linney’s first TV role since she starred in and produced Showtime’s The Big C, for which she won an Emmy and Golden Globe Award. Following Ozark, Linney will star in The Little Foxes, which will be directed by Daniel Sullivan at Manhattan Theatre Club