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Cannes: Joel Edgerton Moves From ‘Gatsby’ To Whitey Bulger Tale ‘Black Mass’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday May 15, 2013 @ 4:38pm PDTTags: Black Mass, Cannes Film Festival, Cannes Wrap-Up, Joel Edgerton, Johnny Depp
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Big day on the Croisette for Joel Edgerton. The Australian actor just took the bows for the Cannes opening night film The Great Gatsby, and I’ve learned that he’s just closed a deal to star alongside Johnny Depp in the Cross Creek crime thriller Black Mass, which Barry Levinson is directing. The picture is a co-production between Cross Creek and Nigel Sinclair and Guy East’s Exclusive Media, with the two entities co-financing and Universal Pictures releasing in the U.S. through Cross Creek’s distribution deal with the studio.

Whitey Bulger rose to the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List when he disappeared for a decade before he could be put behind bars. Many felt he could never have gotten that far without the help of John Connolly, an FBI agent and childhood pal of Bulger and his brother. Connolly was tasked with bringing down the Italian mob, and he was aided by Bulger, who burnished his own position as Boston crime kingpin by getting rid of the competition for his Winter Hill gang. Edgerton will play Connolly, who was lauded for his work before things went south for him. He was eventually convicted of racketeering and obstruction of justice for aiding Bulger, who is currently in a Massachusetts state prison for second-degree murder. Edgerton gets a meaty role in a story about a law enforcement officer with conflicted loyalties.

The film’s title comes from the 2001 Dick Lehr/Gerald O’Neill New York Times bestseller Black Mass: The True Story Of An Unholy Alliance Between The FBI And The Irish Mob. The script was written by Mark Mallouk, and the long-gestating movie got the third act it needed when Bulger was captured in California in summer 2011, after he spent a decade on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

Bulger was a notoriously ruthless Boston mob kingpin who was the basis for characters like the one that Jack Nicholson played in the Martin Scorsese-directed The Departed and Pete Postlethwaite played in the Ben Affleck-directed The Town (Affleck has his own Whitey Bulger project scripted by Boardwalk Empire creator Terrence Winter with Matt Damon expected to play the mobster, but he’ll next direct Dennis Lehane’s Live By Night so there’s no way that film will beat this one into production). Even as he was masterminding a violent gang–the federal case against him alleges 19 murders–Bulger was an FBI informant, a role he took on discreetly to take down a rival gang, but the tables were turned on him. After the Feds closed in on their targets, they double crossed Bulger and ultimately prosecuted him, along with his partner in crime and the original FBI agent working with him.

The film will be produced by Cross Creek’s Brian Oliver and Tyler Thompson, John Lesher, and Christi Dembrowski, Depp’s partner in Infinitum Nihil. Exclusive Media’s Tobin Armbrust, President Worldwide Production and Acquisitions and Cross Creek Pictures Sr. VP of Production Adam Kassan, will oversee production. Alex Walton, Exclusive Media’s President of International Sales and Distribution, will introduce Black Mass to overseas buyers at the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin.

 

After Deadline broke the story that Depp would team with Levinson, Cross Creek’s Oliver said the project paints “turns of this highly complex story, paints a vivid portrait of Boston’s underbelly and its corrupt political machine, as well as exposing the worst scandal in FBI history. It’s also an examination of loyalty to family, Irish heritage, and South Boston.” Edgerton is repped by CAA, Shanahan Management and Markham, Froggat and Irwin.

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Cannes: Michelle Williams, Joel Edgerton Star in Remake Of ‘The Double Hour’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday May 15, 2013 @ 10:11am PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Cannes Film Festival, Cannes Wrap-Up, Joel Edgerton, Joshua Marston, Michelle Williams, The Double Hour
Mike Fleming

BREAKING: Michelle Williams and Joel Edgerton are set to star in The Double Hour, a remake of the 2009 Italian film of the same title. Joshua Marston, helmer of Maria Full Of Grace, is writing and will direct. … Read More »

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Joel Edgerton In Talks For ‘Jane Got A Gun’

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Tuesday December 11, 2012 @ 2:43pm PSTTags: Jane Got A Gun, Joel Edgerton, Zero Dark Thirty

EXCLUSIVE: Joel Edgerton is in negotiations to join the cast of Jane Got A Gun, the Lynne Ramsey-directed Western action film that stars Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender. It is set to start shooting early next year. The … Read More »

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Marvel Testing Short List Of Actors For ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ Leader

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday November 28, 2012 @ 2:43pm PSTTags: Big Deals Film, Eddie Redmayne, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jack Huston, Jim Sturgess, Joel Edgerton, Lee Pace
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: As Marvel Studios does each time it looks to land a lead for a superhero franchise, Kevin Feige’s hit-making studio has put together a short list for the lead in its next major project, Guardians Of The Galaxy. Marvel, after reportedly hiring James Gunn as director, has begun the effort to cast Peter Quill, the Guardians leader who is the offspring of a human mother and an alien father. I’m hearing that Marvel is making test deals with a small group of leading men. Here are the names: Zero Dark Thirty‘s Joel Edgerton, Boardwalk Empire‘s Jack Huston, Cloud Atlas‘ Jim Sturgess, Lee Pace (who has roles in both Lincoln and The Hobbit), and Eddie Redmayne from Les Miserables.

I’ve confirmed all of them are in contention but can’t say definitively that this list is all-inclusive as I’ve also heard of interest from or in Garrett Hedlund, James Marsden (he already played Cyclops in X-Men, but then again Chris Evans played Fantastic Four‘s Human Torch before landing Captain America) and Edgerton’s Animal Kingdom co-star Sullivan Stapleton. We’ll stay tuned, but this certainly means that Marvel and Disney are serious about launching new superhero franchises. Read More »

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Jai Courtney Joins Joel Edgerton In Aussie Thriller ‘Felony’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Monday October 15, 2012 @ 11:02am PDTTags: Felony, Jai Courtney, Joel Edgerton

EXCLUSIVE: Jai Courtney has been cast opposite Joel Edgerton and Tom Wilkinson in Felony, which centers on a decorated cop (Edgerton) who runs a cyclist off the road after drinking with his buddies to celebrate a major gang bust. His … Read More »

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Toronto: Tom Wilkinson Joins ‘Felony’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Saturday September 8, 2012 @ 12:13pm PDTTags: Felony, Joel Edgerton, Tom Wilkinson, Toronto Film Festival
Mike Fleming

Tom Wilkinson 'Felony'Tom Wilkinson has been set to star in Felony, joining Joel Edgerton in the thriller from The Solution Entertainment Group. Noise helmer Matthew Saville will direct Edgerton’s script. Solution partners Lisa Wilson and Myles Nestel are funding … Read More »

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Screen Australia Backs 4 Films, 8 TV Projects

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday July 25, 2012 @ 9:37pm PDTTags: Felony, Guy Pearce, Joel Edgerton, Robert Pattinson, Screen Australia

Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney

Hugo Weaving and Don Hany will star in Healing, an Australian drama about a sympathetic prison warden and his efforts to rehabilitate an Iranian-born prisoner, one of four features agency Screen Australia agreed to co-finance at its board meeting today. The other films that secured Screen Australia investment are Aim High in Creation, a hybrid documentary-drama celebrating “the cinematic genius” of the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, from writer/director Anna Broinowski and producer Lizzette Atkins; and the previously announced The Rover, a futuristic Western from Animal Kingdom writer/director David Michôd, starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce; and Felony, which will star Joel Edgerton as a decorated cop who knocks down a young cyclist while driving home after celebrating a drug bust, scripted by Edgerton and directed by Mathew Saville.
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Joel Edgerton Commits To ‘Felony’: Cannes

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Wednesday May 16, 2012 @ 9:06am PDTTags: Animal Kingdom, Joel Edgerton, Zero Dark Thirty

Joel Edgerton is to star in the Matthew Saville-directed Felony, a thriller that Edgerton also wrote and will produce. The Solution Entertainment Group arranged financing for the film and is handling international sales in Cannes with CAA repping the US. … Read More »

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Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton To Star In Double Feature

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday February 2, 2012 @ 1:23pm PSTTags: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Myriad Pictures, The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby
Mike Fleming

Thursday, February 2, 2012 – Santa Monica…. Academy Award®-nominee Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Tree of Life) and Joel Edgerton (Warrior, Wish You Were Here) have signed on to star in a double-feature film project for Myriad Pictures: The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Hers.

The love story explores a New York City couple’s relationship during a difficult time in their marriage, from the different perspective of the husband, (Edgerton), a restaurant owner, and of the wife (Chastain), who goes back to college. Academy Award® ‐ winner and 5-time nominee William Hurt (The Kiss of the Spider Woman, Syriana) is in discussion to join the cast.

Ned Benson (In Defiance of Gravity) wrote the two scripts and will direct both films. Cassandra Kulukundis (A Late Quartet, In Defiance of Gravity) is producing. Kulukundis is also Casting Director (There Will Be Blood, Shattered Glass).

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Entertainment One Buys Joel Edgerton Pic ‘Wish You Were Here’: Sundance

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday January 26, 2012 @ 11:58am PSTTags: Joel Edgerton, Sundance, Wish You Were Here
Mike Fleming

Park City/Los Angeles/Toronto – January 26, 2012 – Leading independent studio Entertainment One (eOne) is pleased to announce that it has acquired the North American distribution rights to Kieran Darcy-Smith’s directorial debut Wish You Were Here. Brokered by Sejin Park, eOne’s VP, Worldwide Acquisitions and Natja Noviani Rosner, LevelK’s Sales Director, the deal covers rights to the film in all media.

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Hot Trailer: ‘Wish You Were Here’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Friday December 2, 2011 @ 5:15pm PSTTags: Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, Wish You Were Here

Kieran Darcy-Smith directed this Sundance Film Festival entry in the World Dramatic Competition. Darcy-Smith and Felicity Price wrote the screenplay about four friends on a holiday frolic in Cambodia from which only three make it home. With Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, Felicity Price and Antony Starr.

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WB To Open ‘Great Gatsby’ Dec. 25, 2012

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Friday October 14, 2011 @ 4:19pm PDTTags: Baz Luhrmann, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Leonardo DiCaprio, The Great Gatsby, Tobey Maguire

Warner Bros. has set The Great Gatsby to open Christmas Day 2012. Director Baz Luhrmann began filming his adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel  last month in Australia. The 3D production stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke and Elizabeth Debicki.

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‘Warrior’ Director Gavin O’Connor Takes On ‘The Samurai’ And Stage Version Of ‘The Hustler’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday September 30, 2011 @ 11:11am PDTTags: Jackie Gleason, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte, Paul Newman, Renee Zellweger, Tom Hardy, Walter Tevis
Mike Fleming

BREAKING: In a high-six-figure deal, Warner Bros has acquired The Samurai, a spec script that will be the next film directed by Warrior helmer Gavin O’Connor. The intention is to get it into production quickly, because O’Connor is also working … Read More »

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Hot Restricted Trailer: ‘The Thing’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday September 19, 2011 @ 4:16pm PDTTags: Joel Edgerton, The Thing
Mike Fleming

Universal Pictures has released a restricted trailer for The Thing, the Matthjis van Heijningin Jr-directed prequel to the classic paranoid horror film. This one stars Warrior’s Joel Edgerton, and takes place at a research site in Antarctica, where a creature wreaks havoc on the base. The film’s released October 14.

 

… Read More »

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Lionsgate Preps Sneaks of ‘Warrior’ Sept. 4

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Tuesday August 30, 2011 @ 9:25am PDTTags: Gavin O'Connor, Joel Edgerton, Lionsgate, Tom Hardy, Warrior

Lionsgate said today that it will offer nationwide sneak-preview screenings of Warrior, the Gavin O’Connor-helmed action drama starring Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, on Sunday, Sept. 4 at 7 PM, ahead of the film’s official Sept. 9 bow. The studio … Read More »

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Hot Trailer: ‘The Odd Life Of Timothy Green’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Tuesday August 9, 2011 @ 10:54am PDTTags: Disney, Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, Movie Trailer, Peter Hedges, The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Disney’s comedic drama The Odd Life of Timothy Green, directed by Peter Hedges, doesn’t have a release date yet. But Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton star in the story about a happy couple who can’t wait to start a family and who find a young boy on their doorstep on … Read More »

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Joel Edgerton Gets Tom Buchanan Role In ‘The Great Gatsby’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday May 17, 2011 @ 4:15pm PDTTags: Baz Luhrmann, Ben Affleck, Carey Mulligan, Elizabeth Debicki, Isla Fisher, Joel Edgerton, Leonardo DiCaprio, The Great Gatsby, Tobey Maguire
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Joel Edgerton has been set by director Baz Luhrmann to play Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. He will join Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, Isla Fisher as Myrtle (Tom’s mistress), and Australian newcomer Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker. Edgerton, the Australian actor who was on the short list to star in The Bourne Legacy spinoff at Universal and other plum roles, takes a part that was going to Ben Affleck until his schedule didn’t work when he committed to direct and star in Argo for Warner Bros. Luhrmann’s update of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic will be made for Warner Bros, which will release it in 3D. Edgerton next stars with Tom Hardy in Warrior, the Gavin O’Connor-directed drama about brothers who square off in the mixed martial arts arena. Edgerton has an imposing physicality that makes him an intriguing choice for the role of Tom, played by Bruce Dern in the 1974 film.

Luhrmann, who took the above photo of Edgerton as Buchanan, confirmed he’d found his man: “In casting Tom one had to find an actor who could credibly be (as Fitzgerald describes him) ‘one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven,’ had five-star acting chops and in the big dramatic showdown scenes between Gatsby and Tom, hold the screen against Leonardo DiCaprio, in the appropriate age group. Read More »

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Pair Of Hunt For Bin Laden Projects Could Be Timeliest Movies In Hollywood Now

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Sunday May 1, 2011 @ 9:37pm PDTTags: Joel Edgerton, Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Oliver Stone, Osama Bin Laden, Tom Clancy
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: I’ve learned that Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow in recent weeks has been preparing and starting to cast an indie movie with the working title Kill Bin Laden, while another movie project about the hunt for the Al Queda terrorist leader at a major Hollywood studio stalled back in 2006. Given tonight’s startling news, it’s clear that these  may be the timeliest film projects in recent Hollywood history. And judging from tonight’s showbiz phone calls coming into Deadline about Osama bin Laden’s death, I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie studios are anxious to bring these projects to the big screen as soon as possible, updated with the details behind tonight’s successful military mission. Have you seen those spontaneous cheering crowds that formed tonight outside Washington DC’s White House and in NYC’s Times Square as well as around major American cities and small towns? If a patriotic film about this story can tap into these feelings of first helpless horror and then widespread frustration and then successful closure, it could be a real winner at the box office.

Bigelow and Mark Boal, her collaborator on The Hurt Locker, have been mobilizing their film to go into production as their follow-up to that Best Picture Academy Award winner. Their movie as planned was based on an earlier unsuccessful mission to try to kill the Al Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack on America as he hid in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But now they’ve certainly got a celebratory ending to that dramatic story with tonight’s announcement that the U.S. conducted a military operation that killed Bin Laden. Mind you, reps for Bigelow have told me previously that this movie isn’t specifically about the Al Qaeda leader. A lot of details about this film are stilll sketchy and secret, but I’ve heard that Megan Ellison, daughter of Oracle chief Larry Ellison, is ready to fund it. I heard as recently as Friday that Bigelow and Boal were courting Joel Edgerton for the lead actor. Edgerton had been on the short list for two Universal Pictures movie projects in the works, The Bourne Legacy and Snow White And The Huntsman.

Meanwhile, back in 2006, Paramount Pictures optioned Jawbreaker, a book by U.S. intelligence operative Gary Berntsen about the December 2001 American-led military mission to hunt and kill Bin Laden right during the opening stages of the 9/11-prompted invasion of Afghanistan that the author as the CIA pointman had helped coordinate with Special Operations Forces. The heavily vetted book detailed how close those forces came to finding and executing Bin Laden in the rugged mountains of Tora Bora until they were pulled back after a decision was made to let Pakistan tribal leaders lead the search — a decision experts felt helped Bin Laden get away. The studio hired The Path To 9/11 scribe Cyrus Nowrasteh Read More »

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Hot Trailer: Gavin O’Connor’s ‘Warrior’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday April 7, 2011 @ 4:18pm PDTTags: Gavin O'Connor, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte, Tom Hardy, Warrior
Mike Fleming

Lionsgate has issued a trailer for Warrior, a film written and directed by Miracle and Pride and Glory helmer Gavin O’Connor that seems to have a bit of familial spirit of The Fighter, transplanted to the world of mixed martial arts. It’s the story of battling brothers played by Tom … Read More »

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