1. Philip Seymour Hoffman is in negotiations to join “Child 44,” an adaptation of the Tom Rob Smith bestseller from director Daniel Espinosa (“Safe House”). Hoffman would join Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, and Joel Kinnaman in the film, which “focuses on a member of the Soviet military police who investigates a series of nasty child murders during the Stalin-era Soviet Union.” Richard Price wrote the script, and filming is already underway. [Deadline]
2. Broadway will dim their marquee lights today in honor of James Gandolfini, who passed away last week at the age of 51. Gandolfini was last on stage in a Tony-nominated leading performance in God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza’s “four-character comedy-drama about the primitive behavior lurking beneath polite social restraint.” Earlier in his career, he was an understudy for Alec Baldwin in a revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” [Hollywood Reporter]
3. “The Giver,” the adaptation of Lois Lowry’s acclaimed novel which has been in various stages of production for almost two decades, is finally moving forward. Jeff Bridges, who bought the rights to the book, will play the title character, and the producers are now looking at a bunch of young actors to fill the role of Jonas, the young protagonist. Vadim Perelman (“House of Sand and Fog”) wrote the most recent draft of the script and had been eyed to direct back in 2006, though it’s now rumored that Philip Noyce (“The Quiet American”) will come on to direct the film. [The Wrap]
4. The book everybody was dying to see adapted for the stage, “A Time to Kill” by John Grisham, is coming to Broadway in the fall, producers announced yesterday. The play, written by Rupert Holmes (“The Mystery of Edwin Drood”), premiered in 2011 at Arena Stage in Washington, where it received mixed reviews. No director is attached. In case you’ve never seen the 1996 Matthew McConaughey-starring film, “Kill” is a ”legal thriller about a young white lawyer defending a black man for a revenge murder in Mississippi.” Seems like it will translate well to the stage. The play is set to begin preview performances on Sept. 28 at the Golden Theater and open on Oct. 20. [Artsbeat]
5. Watch a 44-second teaser for “The Counselor,” written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott. Michael Fassbender stars “as a lawyer who gets involved in a drug-trafficking ring,” which, according to the clip, includes Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, and Javier Bardem, who is totally committed to sporting weird haircuts in every role he plays (here he has a full blow-out). The short teaser features a bunch of motorcycles going really fast, and some movie stars looking like movie stars, except the music behind them is menacing and they’re all in the desert. The film comes out on November 15. [Vulture]
-Craig Hubert
Previously: Kanye West, Richard Matheson, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Carlos Fuentes, M.I.A
Image: Gabriel Bouys/Getty Images
