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Back in July, it was announced that a biopic of legendary British prime minister/demon spawn Margaret Thatcher was in the works, from "Mamma Mia" director Phyllida Lloyd. Meryl Streep was set to reunite with Lloyd to play Thatcher, and the omnipresent Jim Broadbent would play her husband Denis.
Word's been quiet on the film, but Baz Bamigboye at the Daily Mail reports that the film's set to go ahead, with shooting beginning in January, and both Streep and Broadbent are locked in. What's more, the film's added a pair of new cast members. Olivia Colman, best known for "Hot Fuzz" and "Peep Show," and who's got the lead role in Paddy Considine's directorial debut "Tyrannosaur," will play the pair's daughter Carol, and newcomer Alexandra Roach will play Thatcher in her 20s.
Roach has only been out of top drama school RADA for a few months, but she's already landed roles in the buzzed-about BBC show "Candy Cabs," and the TV adaptation of best-selling non-fiction tome "The Suspicions Of Mr. Whicher." We happened to catch a couple of her graduation shows at RADA, and Roach is definitely the real deal, and certainly capable of playing the younger version of Streep.
The two actresses will be apparently working together to catch Thatcher's voice patterns, to make sure their performances are in sync. Broadbent discussed the script, by Abi Morgan (who's also writing "The Little Mermaid" for Joe Wright), with Bamigboye and revealed that Denis, who passed away in 2003, would be a supernatural presence in the script: "His purpose would be to visit Margaret Thatcher now and go back over her life. I don't know how they plan to make me ghostly, or whether some other dramatic device will be used."
Previous reports that the project would focus on Thatcher during the Falklands War seem to be incorrect, as it sounds, from what Broadbent says, that it'll be a broader look at her life. Despite our intense dislike for the former PM, there's no denying that there's plenty of potential for a strong film about her life, and Morgan's a fine writer. The cast is extremely promising so far: our only qualm is with Lloyd, who demonstrated a total lack of understanding of filmmaking on "Mamma Mia." Nevertheless, with filming kicking off at the end of January, we might as well start engraving Streep's name on the 2012 Best Actress Oscar, right?
Like pairing chocolate and milk or peanut butter and jelly, The Weinstein Company have sealed up an instant awards horse, getting Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts to team up for the big screen adaptation of the Tony-award winning play, "August: Osage County."
Set to be directed by John Wells ("The Company Men") and utilizing a screenplay by the playwright Tracy Letts, the film will find Streep once again stretching her talents playing "Violet, the drug-addicted matriarch of the working class Weston clan. Roberts will play Barbara Fordham, the oldest daughter in the family. While mom's problems and her penchant for revealing family secrets is a big issue, Barbara is melting because her husband is cheating with a college student. They are brought together when Violet's husband goes missing and all three of their daughters come home to rally around mom. In the process, a lot of family secrets get revealed." Sounds pretty damn great.
Production on the film is set to begin by next summer. What effect this might have on the gestating Streep vehicle "Great Hope Springs" with Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Gandolfini, which was aiming for a March shoot, remains to be seen, but we hope it's still in the works.
A much more vague report comes from Production Weekly's Twitter today concerning the film, "Welcome To People," the directorial debut of Alex Kurtzman.
Kurtzman is known as one half of the genre-based powerhouse writing/producing duo that includes Roberto Orci. After years of TV work for J.J. Abrams ("Alias,") the twosome started breaking out in a big way after they penned both "Mission: Impossible 3," both "Transformers" films and Abrams' highly successful "Star Trek" reboot. They also co-scripted Jon Favreau's upcoming "Cowboys & Aliens" sci-fi western and their Paper Products production shingle have made them the producers or exec-producers of myriad TV and film projects including, "Fringe," "Hawaii Five-O," the in-development, "Transformers Prime" TV series, and the feature-length thriller "2:22" (they're also exec producers/writers on "Star Trek 2," but oddly enough have nothing to do with Michael Bay's "Transformers 3." Maybe it was their backtalk).
And yet Kurtzman's "Welcome To People," is a veritable 180: a family drama. Production Weekly is "hearing" that a couple of actors have been "mentioned" for parts in the film and they include Chris Pine, Rachel McAdams and Meryl Streep. And while that does sound like a powerhouse trio, and surely there will be more names to come, we wouldn't get too excited just yet. Update: We're told by representative for Kurtzman that while Pine is in early discussions for a role in the picture (the lead), Streep and McAdams are not.
Mentioned usually means that the producers and studio (Dreamworks) have been brainstorming actors and these three have probably floated to the top of their, "wouldn't it be awesome if..." wishlist, but that may not even mean a script is out to their agent, let alone whether they like the part they're being sought for. Then shooting schedules have to come into play, negotiations if they get that far, etc.
Either way, "Welcome To People centers on a twenty-something man (Pine?) who, after the death of his father, must deliver $150,000 in cash to an alcoholic sister (McAdams) he didn’t know he had as well as her son, a 12-year-old with major anger management issues (at one point, he tries to blow up his middle school’s pool). The man doesn’t want to part with the money, but still reaches out to them without telling them who he really is.
While it's nice to see Kurtzman is aiming high for his filmmaking debut, it's unknown whether these busy A-list stars will deign to appear in a picture by a director who's never made a film before. That said the Kurtzman/Orci brand has major pull, so surely the actors will at least consider the part. "Welcome To People" is an old script by Kurtzman that he wrote six years ago and it seems like a wise decision to start out a directing career with what sounds like a modest and relatively contained people drama. Learning effects and action can come later, but this picture sounds like a smart low-key vehicle to start dipping his toe into feature-length filmmaking.
The gestating drama "Great Hope Springs" has been through a lot of changes since it was first announced earlier this summer. When we first heard of it, Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges were attached with Philip Seymour Hoffman linked and Jessie Nelson ("I Am Sam") directing. Shortly thereafter, Mike Nichols took over the director's seat with Streep and Bridges considered to be solid and the question mark being Hoffman. But it looks like things have changed again.
Vulture reports that James Gandolfini, after a table read for the film, has taken the role slotted for Bridges as a deal was never closed for the latter actor, with Hoffman now seeming more of a certainty. The film follows a couple (Gandolfini and Streep) who attend an intense counseling session over a weekend in order to decide the fate of their marriage. Hoffman would presumably play the therapist. Word is that both Hoffman and Gandolfini are eager to do the film, and Streep is game as well and is ready for a March shoot if talent and distribution deals can be locked down.
Obviously, anything with such an astounding lineup would garner studio interest and producers Mandate Pictures are already fielding domestic distribution offers from the big boys. We certainly like the talent attached and the material sounds great, here's hoping it moves forward.
Back in July, it was announced that a biopic of legendary British prime minister/demon spawn Margaret Thatcher was in the works, from "Mamma Mia" director Phyllida Lloyd. Meryl Streep was set to reunite with Lloyd to play Thatcher, and the omnipresent Jim Broadbent would play her husband Denis.
