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Nat Geo Teams With Joaquin Phoenix & Casey Affleck, Scott Free And ‘Undefeated’ Helmers For Special About Last Days Of Life

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday March 20, 2013 @ 9:57am PDTTags: Big Deals TV, Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix, National Geographic Channel, Scott Free
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: National Geographic Channel has greenlighted a provocative documentary special from top auspices: Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck; Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, directors of the Oscar-winning 2011 documentary Undefeated; and Scott Free, the company behind NatGeo’s hit factual drama special Killing Lincoln. The Verité documentary chronicles people’s final days before death, celebrating their lives and legacy through documentary footage, home movies, personal testimonials and interviews with friends and family members. “This is an incredible (project) documenting people in their last days and tackling the notion of death in an uplifting way,” NatGeo president Howard T. Owens said. Phoenix and Affleck, who previously collaborated on the headline-making 2010 film I’m Still Here, executive produce with Michale Muller through Strawhouse. Jules Daly will produce and David Zucker and Mary Lisio of Scott Free will executive produce, with Lindsay and Martin also producing. Production on the special will begin this spring, with broadcast set for fall 2013.

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Warner Bros Grasps ‘Boston Strangler’ Pitch For Casey Affleck

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday December 5, 2012 @ 3:54pm PSTTags: Big Deals Film, Casey Affleck, Kevin McCormick, Warner Bros
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has acquired Boston Strangler, a thriller pitch about the desperate search for the murderer who terrorized the Boston area during the early 1960s. Kevin McCormick‘s Warner-based Langley Park shingle will produce, and the pitch was bought from Casey Affleck and fellow Boston native screenwriter Chuck Maclean. Affleck hopes to star as one of the detectives who were part of the Strangler Squad responsible for solving the crime, and he will be exec producer.

The script will be written by Maclean, whose script Bridges On The Fort Point Channel made the 2011 Black List and who is writing Storming Las Vegas for Summit. With a tone similar to Se7en and Zodiac, they will cover the most haunting unsolved serial murder story in U.S. history. While Albert DeSalvo was convicted of crimes unrelated to the Boston Strangler case, the public was spun to believe he was the man behind the 13 gruesome murders of women in Boston for over a year and a half. There is still belief that more than one killer was involved, and that DeSalvo was a pawn in a bigger conspiracy. Read More »

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Relativity Media, Casey Affleck At Bat For Slugger Josh Hamilton Biopic

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday November 15, 2012 @ 10:52am PSTTags: Casey Affleck, Josh Hamilton, Relativity Media
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: After clubbing 43 homers including nine in the span of one week, Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton ended his 2012 season as a free agent. The same can no longer be said for his incredible life story, which has been acquired and will be turned into a feature film by Relativity Media. Relativity has closed a rights deal with Hamilton, along with a deal for Casey Affleck to write and direct. Thunder Road Pictures’ Basil Iwanyk will produce along with The Walsh Company’s Kevin Walsh. Thunder Road’s Kent Kubena will executive produce and Hamilton and his wife Katie will co-produce along with Hamilton’s business manager Steve Reed. Relativity has also closed a deal for rights to the book that Hamilton co-authored, Beyond Belief: Finding The Strength To Come Back.

Back in June, I wrote about this feature package that Iwanyk and Affleck were trying to build around Hamilton. I am a sucker for those inspirational sports films from The Blind Side to The Rookie and Brian’s Song and there is certainly one to be made about rising from the depths of addiction. While the landscape is littered with addiction casualties from Whitney Houston on down, Hamilton reminds me of a number of exceptional people like Robert Downey Jr, who after wrestling their demons have accomplished the admirable feat of realizing the potential of their outsized gifts. For Hamilton, this meant overcoming a crack cocaine addiction to become one of the most feared sluggers in baseball, something that seemed impossible when Hamilton was so rock bottom that his wife kicked him out of the house, and he was relegated to cleaning toilets and mowing the grass at a baseball training facility. Read More »

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Thunder Road, Casey Affleck Plan Feature About Baseball Superstar Josh Hamilton

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday June 21, 2012 @ 6:16pm PDTTags: Basil Iwanyk, Big Deals Film, Casey Affleck
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Josh Hamilton’s rise from the depths of an addiction to crack to become the American League’s most feared slugger is dramatic enough to have been scripted. Sure enough, Hamilton has entrusted his rights to producer Basil Iwanyk and Thunder … Read More »

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Rooney Mara, Ben Foster, Casey Affleck Circling ‘Aint Them Bodies Saints’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday April 27, 2012 @ 4:41pm PDTTags: Ben Foster, Casey Affleck, David Lowery, Rooney Mara
Mike Fleming

BREAKING: David Lowery has written and will direct Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, a contemporary story in the vein of Bonnie And Clyde, with Rooney Mara, Ben Foster and Casey Affleck attached to star. Lowery wrote … Read More »

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Willem Dafoe Joins ‘Out Of The Furnace’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday April 26, 2012 @ 5:13pm PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Christian Bale, Out Of The Furnace, Relativity, Scott Cooper

Willem Dafoe has joined the cast of Relativity Media and Red Granite’s thriller currently entitled Out Of The Furnace. Dafoe joins previously announced cast members Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard, Woody Harrelson and Forest Whitaker. … Read More »

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Relativity Sets Cast For ‘Out Of The Furnace’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday April 5, 2012 @ 3:08pm PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Christian Bale, Out Of The Furnace, Sam Shepard

Relativity Media has firmed up casting for Out Of The Furnace with Sam Shepard joining Christian Bale, Casey Affleck and Zoe Saldana as the production directed by Scott Cooper gets under way later this month. Cooper also wrote the script based on an initial version by Brad Inglesby titled The … Read More »

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Casey Affleck Frontrunner to Join Revenge Thriller ‘Out Of The Furnace’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday March 5, 2012 @ 5:06pm PSTTags: Casey Affleck, Christian Bale, Out Of The Furnace, Scott Cooper
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Casey Affleck is poised to join the cast of Out of the Furnace, the Scott Cooper-directed revenge thriller that Relativity Media will put into production later this year with Christian Bale starring. The script, which originated as a Brad … Read More »

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Ben Affleck To Direct Matt Damon And Casey Affleck in Whitey Bulger Mobster Saga

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday October 24, 2011 @ 10:37am PDTTags: Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Greg Silverman, Matt Damon, Stephen King, Terence Winter, Whitey Bulger
Mike Fleming

BREAKING: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are reuniting in their first real picture partnership since  Good Will Hunting. The Boston guys are taking on the story of New England’s most notorious gangster, Whitey Bulger. Warner Bros will make the film, Affleck will direct, co-star and produce with Damon, who’ll play Bulger. They’ll produce under their Pearl Street Films banner. Boardwalk Empire creator and writer Terence Winter is penning the script. Casey Affleck, who also starred in Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone, will play a supporting role as well.

“Matt and I have been looking for something to do together for some time,” Affleck said. “We’ve heard about Whitey Bulger since we were kids, and we are excited by the prospect of putting it on screen.” Ironically, Damon played a crooked cop in The Departed, the Martin Scorsese-directed film that took a page from the Bulger story. He is the notorious South Boston crime boss who fled in 1994 and remained a fugitive for 16 years — 12 of them on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. He was arrested in June in Santa Monica. The story will cover Bulger’s youth to his incarceration on Alcatraz, through his rise to become a mob boss while secretly serving as an FBI informant for decades. Pearl Street’s Chay Carter will be executive producer. Read More »

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Toronto: As Magnolia Turns 10, Owner Todd Wagner Says It’s Not For Sale And That VOD Strategy Is Thriving

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday September 15, 2011 @ 9:42am PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Eamonn Bowles, Elijah Wood, Harvey Weinstein, James Gray, Jason Janego, Joaquin Phoenix, Kirsten Dunst, Lars von Trier, Mark Cuban, Ryan Gosling, Seann William Scott, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Wagner, Tom Quinn
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Along with everything else about the 2001 Toronto Film Festival, the launch of Magnolia Pictures was quickly forgotten on September 11, as co-founder Eamonn Bowles and other indie film execs scrambled to find ways to get home. Magnolia marked its 10th anniversary at 2011 Toronto. While the company still doesn’t carry the profile of some other indie distributors, Bowles and co-owner Todd Wagner said their model — mixing traditional indie theatrical distribution with emerging digital technology — has made them distinctive and profitable. VOD revenues now often outpace theatrical for Magnolia films, and they return profit to filmmakers because of low P&A spends. Bowles and Wagner have been honing the VOD model since they were branded charlatans by theater chains in 2005 when Steven Soderbergh’s micro-budget film Bubble was released simultaneously on movie screens, VOD and DVD. Wagner and partner Mark Cuban put Magnolia and other film assets under the 2929 Entertainment banner on the selling block earlier this year, but pulled them back when they didn’t get a high price. Wagner said he’s staying.

Magnolia releases 35-40 films each year now, with upcoming releases that include the 2011 Toronto title Melancholia (which got Lars von Trier banned by Cannes for making dumb pro-Nazi comments). Some Magnolia efforts follow a theatrical release cycle, others go direct to DVD. But VOD has increasingly become the distributor’s calling card and Wagner said proof of its viability came when Harvey Weinstein poached Magnolia execs Tom Quinn and Jason Janego to start a VOD venture for The Weinstein Company.

“Harvey’s been in the industry forever, and he thought it was a good enough model to hire some of our folks away,” Wagner told me. “I’m flattered. There are other people doing this now, from IFC to John Sloss. To me, it’s validation that we’ve hit on something. But we’ve got an advantage, a unique collection of assets in the Landmark Theater chain, a home video division, and HDNet. The big theater chains still absolutely won’t play Ultra VOD titles, so having a theater chain is helpful. As is having the television network for the relationships it has made us with all the MSO’s. These synergies allow us to be freewheeling in how we license content. And producers are coming back to us with films because we are cutting them checks. That rarely happens elsewhere because of all the P&A that stands in front of them.” Read More »

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Hot Trailer: ‘Tower Heist’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday July 28, 2011 @ 10:28am PDTTags: Alan Alda, Ben Stiller, Brett Ratner, Casey Affleck, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Movie Trailer, Tea Leoni, Tower Heist, Universal Pictures
Mike Fleming

Universal Pictures has released a trailer for the Brett Ratner-directed Tower Heist, a comedy that stars Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Alan Alda and Tea Leoni. Alda plays a Bernie Madoff-like financier whose ponzi scheme wipes out the pensions of the staff of a luxury high rise … Read More »

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Sam Rockwell Joins Brad Pitt In ‘Cogan’s Trade’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday January 5, 2011 @ 8:12am PSTTags: Andrew Dominik, Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Cogan's Trade, Cogan's Trade Casting, Movie Deals, Movies, Sam Rockwell
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Sam Rockwell has signed on to join Brad Pitt in the Andrew Dominik-directed comic crime saga Cogan’s Trade. Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a professional enforcer who investigates a heist that takes place during a high stakes poker game … Read More »

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TEASER: Joaquin Back On Letterman

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday September 22, 2010 @ 4:22pm PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix David Letterman, Joaquin Phoenix I'M Still Here, Joaquin Phoenix Mockumentary, Late Night TV, Late Show with David Letterman, TV, Video
Nellie Andreeva

Well, the shaggy beard and the shades are gone as clean-shaven Joaquin Phoenix returned to the scene of the crime with a stint on the Late Show with David Letterman tonight. (Teaser below.) It’s been  1 1/2 years after his out-of-body appearance that turned out to be an act for the … Read More »

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Gasp! Joaquin Phoenix Documentary A Fake

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday September 16, 2010 @ 6:02pm PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Casey Affleck Documentary, Joaquin Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix David Letterman, Joaquin Phoenix I'M Still Here, Joaquin Phoenix Mockumentary, Movies
Mike Fleming

Casey Affleck came clean to The New York Times today, admitting that his Joaquin Phoenix meltdown documentary I’m Still Here was in fact a phony piece of performance art. It seems amusing in hindsight that each time Deadline referred to the film in the past few months as a “mockumentary,” the filmmakers and distributor Magnolia Pictures became incensed. This revelation is about as shocking as when Vince McMahon revealed that professional wrestling bouts were prearranged. Read More »

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Joaquin Phoenix Returning To Letterman

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday September 13, 2010 @ 7:13am PDTTags: Casey Affleck, I'm Still Here, Joaquin Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix David Letterman, Joaquin Phoenix I'M Still Here, Late Show with David Letterman
Nellie Andreeva

Actor Joaquin Phoenix, whose Feb. 11 2009 visit to the Late Show with David Letterman became a viral hit with some 8 million hits, will return to the CBS talk show on Wednesday, September 22. Phoenix is the subject of the upcoming documentary film, I’m Still Here, directed by actor and … Read More »

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Venice Fest “No Longer Special” Say Critics

By TIM ADLER in London | Tuesday August 31, 2010 @ 8:26am PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Crirtics Venice Film Festival, Helen Mirren, Jessica Alba, Paul Giamatti, The Guardian, Venice Film Festival, Venice Film Festival Golden Lion

Newspaper critics are increasingly being put off by how expensive the Venice Film Festival, which begins tomorrow, has become. One critic from Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf says that he can spend two weeks covering Toronto for the same cost of one week … Read More »

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Hot Trailer: ‘I’m Still Here’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday August 19, 2010 @ 2:27am PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Casey Affleck Documentary, Documentaries, I'm Still Here, Joaquin Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix I'M Still Here, Magnolia Pictures, Toronto Film Festival, Trailers, Video
Mike Fleming

Magnolia Pictures has released this teaser trailer for I’m Still Here, the Casey Affleck-directed documentary about the peculiar hip-hop adventure of Joaquin Phoenix. The film will be unveiled next month at the Toronto Film Festival, but has anyone heard Phoenix’s supposed hip-hop tunes which interrupted the momentum of a fine … Read More »

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Magnolia Will Platform Joaquin Phoenix Mockumentary By Casey Affleck Sept. 10

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday July 14, 2010 @ 9:04am PDTTags: Casey Affleck, Eamonn Bowles, I'm Still Here, Joaquin Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix I'M Still Here, Magnolia Pictures, VOD, WME Global
Mike Fleming

phoenix_narrowweb__300x453,0Magnolia Pictures has completed an acquisition of I’m Still Here: The Lost Year Of Joaquin Phoenix, the mockumentary that Casey Affleck directed about his brother-in-law’s bizarre transformation from acclaimed actor to debauched hip-hop artist. Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles tells me the … Read More »

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