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James Franco Closing Disney Deal For ‘Oz: The Great And Powerful’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday February 25, 2011 @ 8:25am PSTTags: Alex Pettyfer, Anne Hathaway, Catherine Hardwicke, Charlize Theron, David Cromer, David Lindsay-Abaire, Famke Janssen, Gemma Arterton, James Franco, Jeremy Renner, Julia Roberts, Kristen Stewart, Michael Fassbender, Movie Deals, Movies, Nicholas Hoult, Nicole Kidman, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Sam Raimi, Scott Rudin, Tennessee Williams, Vanessa Hudgens
Mike Fleming

While James Franco and Anne Hathaway have been busy pulling it together to host Sunday’s Oscarcast, Franco’s CAA reps and Disney have closed his deal to play the title role in Oz: The Great and Powerful. That puts the film on track to begin production in July, with Franco reuniting with his Spider-Man director Sam Raimi in the prequel to the L. Frank Baum novel that was scripted by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire. Joe Roth is producing.

There had been much discussion around town lately about Disney’s gyrations in trying to pare the budget of the film down to a mere $200 million, but they must have figured it out if they locked in Franco. For Franco, the multi-tasking marvel’s dance card for 2011 now looks like this: he’ll first star in the Noah Baumbach-directed While We’re Young, and then will shoot Oz. That brings him to the late fall/winter, when he’ll star in Sweet Bird of Youth, the David Cromer-directed revival of the Tennessee Williams play that will be produced by Scott Rudin. Kidman will play Alexandra Del Lago, the aging voracious movie star, while Franco will play her gigolo paramour Chance Wayne. While Franco has starred in eclectic indies and is even a recurring soap opera star, he has event film experience from the Spider-Man films with Raimi, and stars this fall in Fox’s Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes. Still, this is a big step up commercially and is the biggest deal of the actor’s career so far and a byproduct of his Oscar-nominated performance in 127 Hours. In between all that work, Franco will continue matriculating toward his PhD in creative writing at Yale, planning to attend class each day and then commute to NYC for his nightly stage turns.

Oz is a major piece of business for Disney, and joins the parade of revisionist fairy tales and classic kid stories that started with Disney’s billion dollar grossing Alice in Wonderland, and continues with CBS Films’ Beastly with Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens and the Catherine Hardwicke-directed Amanda Seyfried-starrer Red Riding Hood from Warner Bros. Also gearing up for production starts are rival Snow White pictures The Brothers Grimm: Snow White from Relativity Media that has Julia Roberts starring, and Snow White and the Huntsman from Universal Pictures, with Kristen Stewart, Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron starring. Nicholas Hoult was just set for the Bryan Singer-directed Jack the Giant Killer at New Line and Paramount/MGM just set Peter Stormare to join Gemma Arterton, Jeremy Renner and  Famke Janssen in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Franco is also repped by James/Levy Management.

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‘Glee’s Ryan Murphy Courted To Direct ‘Annie’ With Willow Smith

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday February 9, 2011 @ 1:55pm PSTTags: Annie, Eat Pray Love, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jaden Smith, James Lassiter, Jay-Z, Julia Roberts, Ken Stovitz, Ryan Murphy, Wicked, Will Smith, Willow Smith
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Glee creator Ryan Murphy is Sony Pictures’ top choice to direct a re-imagining of the Broadway musical Annie, with Willow Smith playing the lovable orphan. The project was recently set at Sony Pictures by Overbrook Entertainment partners James … Read More »

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Update: Relativity Confirms Julia Roberts In Snow White Pic

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday February 8, 2011 @ 5:12pm PSTTags: Baz Luhrmann, Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, Kristen Stewart, Leonardo DiCaprio, Movie Deals, Movies, Rupert Sanders, Ryan Kavanaugh, Tarsem Singh, The Brothers Grimm: Snow White, Universal Pictures, Viggo Mortensen
Mike Fleming

UPDATE: Relativity confirmed they’ve signed Julia Roberts, and have set a June 29, 2012 release date. That puts The Brothers Grimm: Snow White six months ahead of the preliminary release plan for Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman. … Read More »

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Famke Janssen Bewitches ‘Hansel & Gretel’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday February 8, 2011 @ 11:41am PSTTags: Famke Janssen, Gary Sanchez, Gemma Arterton, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Jeremy Renner, Julia Roberts, Movie Deals, Movies
Mike Fleming

Big day for casting female fairy tale villains. Famke Janssen will play the leader of the witches in the Tommy Wirkola-directed Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters at Paramount Pictures. She joins Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as the title characters … Read More »

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Dueling Snow White Films Target Charlize Theron And Julia Roberts As Mean Queens

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday December 13, 2010 @ 4:44pm PSTTags: Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, Movies, Relativity Media, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Brothers Grimm: Snow White, Universal Pictures
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: An intriguing tale of rival Snow White is unfolding between Universal Pictures and Relativity Media. I’m told that Charlize Theron is hot and heavy in negotiations to play the Evil Queen in Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman (with … Read More »

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Julia Roberts And Meryl Streep To Team In ‘August: Osage County’ For John Wells

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday September 30, 2010 @ 4:07pm PDTTags: Harvey Weinstein, John Wells, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Movie Deals, Movies, The Weinstein Co
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: In a power pairing, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep are in talks to star for The Weinstein Company in the bigscreen adaptation of the Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer and Tony-winning play August: Osage County. I hear Roberts and Streep have agreed to the project and they are now working out deals and locking a production start. John Wells will direct the film from a script written by the playwright. Production will start by next summer. Streep will play 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. The film has been developed for several years by Harvey Weinstein, who was involved Read More »

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GUYS BEAT GAL: ‘Expendables’ $35M Wkd; ‘Eat Pray Love’ $23.7M; ‘Scott Pilgrim’ $10.5M

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Saturday August 14, 2010 @ 11:01pm PDTTags: Box Office, Eat Pray Love, Eat Pray Love Box Office, Julia Roberts, Michael Cera, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables, The Expendables Box Office

SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Weekend wonders never cease. Friday the Thirteenth weekend proved lucky for a pair of faded stars. Overall box office looks about $140M (about even with last year’s) and had something for everyone — men/women, old/young, romance/bromance, winners/losers/dropouts. It’s so competitive that The Expendables was marketing itself by pitting Sly Stallone against Pretty … Read More »

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Ryan Murphy Scores $5M To Re-Team With Julia Roberts On Sony Pictures Film

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday July 13, 2010 @ 3:23pm PDTTags: Amy Pascal, Brad Pitt, CAA, Dede Gardner, Eat Pray Love, Julia Roberts, Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy Glee, Sony Pictures
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Their first picture together, Eat Pray Love, based on the Elizabeth Gilbert bestseller, isn’t in theaters this ryan juliasummer until August 13th so Sony Pictures doesn’t know how it will fare yet. Nevertheless, the studio just made one of the year’s … Read More »

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Do You Think This Could Be The Reason?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Friday May 2, 2008 @ 12:04pm PDTTags: Agents, AMPTP, Box Office, Brad Pitt, CAA, George Clooney, Jim Carrey, Julia Roberts, Movies, The Hollywood Reporter, Trades, Will Ferrell

Today, The Hollywood Reporter does an AMPTP-friendly story about how Hollywood’s big-name movie stars aren’t pulling in the money they once did at the box office. What the trade fails to point out in its chart is that all but one of the actors are CAA clients. The one who’s … Read More »

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