Mike Fleming

Some action on the feature front. Sony’s Columbia Pictures attached Barry Levinson to direct Brother Jack, a  Mosaic-produced drama based on the life of human rights activist Jack Healey. Harley Peyton wrote the script and Kelly Masterson is rewriting. Levinson’s got a little momentum from the Jack Kevorkian biopic You Don’t Know Jack which he directed for HBO to 15 Emmy nominations today…

I must amend a recent post about the lack of starpower (compared to other versions of the film contemplated over the years) in the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. There’s a recognizable name in the cast of a movie that financier John Aglialoro put into production just before he would have lost the rights to the author’s estate. It’s filmmaker Nick Cassavetes, who’s playing the role of Richard McNamara. The film is being directed by Paul Johansson (who also plays John Galt), and Johansson acted in the Cassavetes-directed Alpha Dog. Cassavetes, who is also playing himself in current episodes of Entourage, is moonlighting as he and Warner Bros work out a cast for the remake of A Star Is Born that he plans to direct…

Despite reports to the contrary, Oscar-winning Crazy Heart star Jeff Bridges is not starring in Great Hope Springs. That’s the film that Mike Nichols is eyeing to direct and Meryl Streep is in talks to star in the saga of a couple whose 30-year marriage is crumbling and hinges on an intense couples’ counseling weekend. Bridges was never firm, and given his Oscar victory lap that made clear his devotion to his long time wife, it’s hard to imagine him in a movie about a loveless couple that hasn’t slept together in forever.