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Cannes TOLDJA! Kevin Costner Re-Teams With Mike Binder On ‘Black And White’ For IM Global

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday May 7, 2013 @ 6:03pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Black And White, Cannes Wrap-Up, IM Global, Kevin Costner, Mike Binder
Mike Fleming

Deadline revealed last week that Kevin Costner was going to reteam with Upside Of Anger helmer Mike Binder on Black And White. IM Global has confirmed the scoop, adding that The Help‘s Octavia Spencer will also be in the cast. Here’s the official release:

IM Global founder and CEO Stuart Ford announced today that IM Global will launch the international sales in Cannes of BLACK AND WHITE, the project that re-teams two-time Academy Award® winner Kevin Costner (Man of Steel, The Upside of Anger, For Love of the Game, Open Range, Dances with Wolves) with acclaimed writer, director and actor Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger, Reign Over Me). The film, which also stars Academy Award® winner Octavia Spencer, is based on Binder’s own script, and is a co-production of Costner’s Treehouse Productions and Binder’s Sunlight Productions, along with Todd Lewis. Cassian Elwes is onboard as an executive producer. Principal photography begins this summer in New Orleans.

Binder’s engrossing drama focuses on attorney Elliot Anderson (Costner) who is widowed after the car crash death of his wife. Elliot has raised his bi-racial granddaughter Eloise since his daughter died in childbirth. As he struggles with his grief, Elliot’s world is turned upside-down when the child’s African American grandmother Rowena (Spencer) demands that Eloise be brought under the care of her father Reggie, a drug addict who Elliot blames for the negligence that led to the death of his own daughter. Elliot finds himself deeply entrenched in a custody battle and will stop at nothing to keep his granddaughter from coming under the watch of his reckless son-in-law. BLACK AND WHITE is a searing portrayal of a broken man caught up in a struggle clouded by bitterness, blame and racial tension who learns to forgive and how to provide for the only family he has left.

Said Ford, “We’re delighted to come onboard such a powerful, compelling project with the Costner/Binder team that memorably brought us The Upside of Anger. Kevin’s recent critical achievements as both an actor and producer with Hatfields & McCoys give the project added momentum and we’re expecting a strong distributor response in Cannes.”

Said Elwes, “I could not be more honored to work with Kevin Costner and his team on this incredible film. I know he and Mike are going to create a classic that will be widely seen and loved for many years to come and IM Global is the perfect company to position the film for its international success.”

The deal was brokered by Cassian Elwes on behalf of the producers, and by IM Global CEO Ford and President Jonathan Deckter. Elwes is also handling the U.S. rights. Spencer is repped by WME.

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Kevin Costner Re-Teams With Mike Binder On ‘Black And White’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday April 29, 2013 @ 3:30pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Black And White, Hatfields And McCoys, Kevin Costner, Mike Binder
Mike Fleming

Kevin CostnerEXCLUSIVE: Kevin Costner has been set to re-team with Upside Of Anger helmer Mike Binder in Black And White, an indie that Costner will star in and produce through his Treehouse Productions banner. The film will be done in co-production with Binder’s Sunlight Productions, and Todd Lewis. Shooting begins in New Orleans this summer. In the Binder-scripted drama, Costner plays a grandfather, widowed after the car crash death of his wife, who has raised his own bi-racial granddaughter since his daughter died in childbirth. The child’s paternal grandmother surfaces to wage a custody battle over the little girl, and the thrust becomes about race and where she should grow up. Read More »

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Summit/OddLot’s ‘Draft Day’ Finalizes Cast Ahead Of Real NFL Draft

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday April 24, 2013 @ 1:20pm PDTTags: Ivan Reitman, Kevin Costner, OddLot Entertainment, Summit Entertainment

Summit and OddLot Entertainment’s dramedy Draft Day began filming today in New York, timed to the real NFL Draft that begins Thursday at Radio City Music Hall. Kevin Costner stars alongside Jennifer Garner, Ellen Burstyn, Denis Leary and Frank Langella as the GM of the Cleveland Browns who tries to trade up for the first pick and save football in the city. The pic is directed and produced by Ivan Reitman from a Black List script by Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman. 42 star Chadwick Boseman has a small role as former star college player, and Terry Crews, Sean Combs, Josh Pence, Rosanna Arquette, Timothy Simons, David Ramsey, Wade Williams, Chi McBride, W. Earl Brown, Brad Henke, Griffin Newman, Kevin Dunn, Patrick St. Esprit, Arian Foster, Christopher Cousins, Pat Healy, Laura Steinel and Wallace Langham are also aboard. Read More »

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‘True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld Lands Lead In Kevin Costner’s Relativity Media Thriller

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday November 29, 2012 @ 8:25am PSTTags: Big Deals Film, Hailee Steinfeld, Kevin Costner, Relativity Media
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Hailee Steinfeld, who burst on the scene with an Oscar-nominated turn in True Grit, has landed the lead role opposite Kevin Costner in the untitled action film that McG will direct for Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp and Relativity Media. Scripted by Besson and Adi Hasak under the title Three Days To Kill, the film stars Costner as a Service agent who discovers he’s dying. Before he goes, he attempts to complete a final mission, and reconnect with his estranged daughter. He’s also taking an experimental drug that could prolong his life, and that adds complexity to the ticking clock because of the drug’s hallucinatory side effects. Besson and Virginie Besson-Silla are producing with Hasak and Relativity CEO Ryan Kavanaugh. Tucker Tooley’s exec producer. Read More »

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Paramount In Talks For Tom Cruise Pic ‘Our Name Is Adam,’ But Studio Punts Ivan Reitman/Kevin Costner’s ‘Draft Day’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday October 17, 2012 @ 6:26pm PDTTags: Ivan Reitman, Kevin Costner, Our Name Is Adam, Paramount Pictures, Tom Cruise
Mike Fleming

UPDATE: I am hearing now that Paramount Pictures is pursuing the Tom Cruise-attached Our Name Is Adam. My bet is that the studio makes the deal. The price tag is high, but Paramount brass is doing everything they can to make the numbers work before their first look expires and others get a shot at it. In fact, they are in an exclusive negotiation now so I expect this will result in another film for Paramount and Cruise, beyond the revived Mission:Impossible franchise, Jack Reacher and possibly Top Gun 2, those three a co-production between Paramount and Skydance. Stay tuned.

EARLIER, 8:32 pm EDT EXCLUSIVE: There has been some heavy decision-making going on lately at Paramount Pictures. After the studio added the Oscar-bait Martin Scorsese-Leonardo DiCaprio pic The Wolf Of Wall Street to its late 2013 slate, Paramount has just  made a free agent out of its NFL-themed film Draft Day, putting in turnaround a film that has Kevin Costner attached to star and Ivan Reitman to direct. At the same time, the studio seems likely to take a pass on Our Name Is Adam, the T.S. Nowlin-scripted science fiction pic that our sister publication Daily Variety reported has Tom Cruise circling.

Let’s take each one separately. Reitman and partner Tom Pollock developed the Moneyball-esque Draft Day, the fictional account of the events that take place on a draft day for the perennial also-ran Buffalo Bills. Costner would play the team’s GM, but timing is a major challenge for this film.

Paramount chose not to make it in the small window that Reitman has before he is expected to finally get the long-gestating Ghostbusters reboot in front of the cameras next summer for Sony Pictures (sans Bill Murray). Costner–who has made more quality sports films than any active actor–Field of Dreams, Tin Cup, Bull Durham and For Love Of The Game–is also very busy. He’s filming the Jack Ryan relaunch, and after that he has the Luc Besson pic Three Days To Kill, about a dying assassin who has a short window to clean up professional and personal loose ends. It would be tough to find room to squeeze in the football film and finish before Reitman goes back to Ghostbusters duty. Read More »

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TOLDJA! Kevin Costner Stars In McG-Directed ‘Three Days To Kill’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday October 2, 2012 @ 12:17pm PDTTags: Europacorp, Kevin Costner, McG
Mike Fleming

File this one under, exclusive, my ass. Back in early August, Deadline broke the story that Kevin Costner would star in Three Days to Kill, and also told you that McG was going to direct and Relativity Media would … Read More »

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Kevin Costner Makes Atria Book Deal For ‘The Explorers Guild’, Eyes Series And Films For Epic Series

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday September 13, 2012 @ 11:08am PDTTags: Kevin Costner
Mike Fleming

BREAKING: Kevin Costner is at the center of a world rights deal made with Atria Books for The Explorers Guild, an epic serialized illustrated adventure novel series that Costner hopes will transfer to multiple platforms including a feature film that he will star in and produce. The first book in the series, The Explorers Guild, Volume One: A Passage To Shambhala, will be published in 2014.

Costner told me he feels the book has the sweep of adventure classics he grew up reading, including Arabian Nights and The Red Badge Of Courage. He’s producing and developing the book with writer and art director Jon Baird, and it will be heavily illustrated by Rick Ross. The hope is to create a series that will have resonance for both a young-adult and mature audience.

Publishing is a new foray, but Costner is no stranger to sprawling historical-based projects, from Dances With Wolves to the recent Emmy-nominated History miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, which he starred in and produced. The Explorers Guild is a clandestine group of adventurers who seek out the places where light gives way to shadow, and reason is usurped by myth. The secrets of this unknown world are hidden in mountain ranges and lost in deserts, sunk to the ocean floor and lodged deep beneath polar ice. The aim of The Explorers Guild: to discover the mysteries that lie beyond the boundaries of the known world. The first adventure is set against the backdrop of World War I and revolves around the quest to find the mythic Buddhist city Shambhala. Guild members are looking for different things there: one hopes to save his brother’s life, another looks for spiritual enlightenment and peace; others fear it will bring mankind to the brink of apocalypse. The search includes treks to the Polar North, the Mongolian deserts and underground canals of Asia to the Himalayas. Read More »

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Paramount’s ‘Jack Ryan’ Resurrecting Tom Clancy’s Hero Finally Set For 4th Quarter 2013; Keira Knightley Cast As Chris Pine’s Love Interest; Prequel Story Starts Trilogy

By NIKKI FINKE AND MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday August 22, 2012 @ 7:07pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Chris Pine, David Koepp, Jack Ryan, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Tom Clancy

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline can now confirm the cast for this long gestating, highly anticipated action thriller that will be the first of an anticipated franchise trilogy. It resurrects the popular Tom Clancy character of CIA analyst Jack Ryan last seen on film in 2002 and now played by Chris Pine in the role already made famous by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck. After various starts and stops, bad luck and good fortune, Deadline also has learned that Jack Ryan finally has come together for a release in the 4th quarter of 2013.

Paramount chose to wait for Pine to complete the second installment of Star Trek in this contemporized original prequel story that picks up Ryan before he joined the CIA. (Paramount long ago locked in Pine after he played Captain Kirk.) His love interest and the female lead is Keira Knightley. Paramount was intensely searching because it’s a high profile role — an older version of the character was played by Anne Archer in the Harrison Ford films — and involves options that would potentially put the actress in three pictures.

As Deadline previously reported, Kevin Costner has an invented but key role as does the film’s director Kenneth Branagh who will play the Russian villain plotting to wreck the U.S. economy. Paramount began talks with the Thor helmer to replace the once-attached Jack Bender. Paramount courted Costner to become a linchpin in not only Jack Ryan but also the spinoff franchise Without Remorse based on Clancy’s 1993 novel. (The studio is now courting The Dark Knight Rises villain Tom Hardy to star, with Christopher McQuarrie rewriting to direct.) The deal that came together envisions Costner potentially headlining his own film as William Harper, a true blue American idealist who recruits and mentors both Ryan and John Kelly from Without Remorse. Kelly later becomes CIA operative Clark.

Paramount like every studio is looking to build tentpoles and has a good opportunity for more than one here by cross-pollinating characters Ryan and Clark like The Avengers successfully keeps doing.

Branagh recently described the movie as “an original story that allows us to understand how Jack Ryan develops into a CIA analyst, before joining, and perhaps even joining, the CIA. It’s a very contemporary action thriller set in the here and now.” its launching point is mentioned in Clancy’s The Hunt For Red October book and film: a terrifying helicopter crash that nearly killed Ryan when he was a 23-year-old Marines platoon leader and the only member to survive.

Paramount Pictures and co-financier Skydance Productions went top shelf to get the franchise relaunch to the starting line and hired David Koepp for 7-figures to redraft the script by Adam Cozad known as Moscow. Cozad was a screenwriter without a screen credit and yet now is in the middle of some of the bigger projects in town. Read More »

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Paramount Lands Kevin Costner To Rev Jack Ryan And ‘Without Remorse’ Pics

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday August 20, 2012 @ 6:33pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Chris Pine, Jack Ryan, Kevin Costner, Paramount Pictures, Tom Hardy, Without Remorse
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline told you two weeks ago that Paramount was courting Kevin Costner to play a key role opposite Chris Pine in the Kenneth Branagh-directed Jack Ryan film. I’m told that Costner has now accepted and they are working … Read More »

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After ‘Hatfields & McCoys’, Kevin Costner Eyes Jack Ryan, ‘Three Days To Kill’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday August 6, 2012 @ 5:44pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Big Deals TV, Hatfields & McCoys, Jack Ryan, Kevin Costner
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: It is clear from the record cable rating and 22 Emmy noms for the History Channel miniseries Hatfields & McCoys that audiences want to see more of Kevin Costner, who starred as clan leader Devil Hatfield. Studios … Read More »

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Kevin Costner Sues Over Profits From ‘Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Tuesday July 24, 2012 @ 8:00pm PDTTags: Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner alleges Morgan Creek Productions reneged on its promise to share profits from the 1991 film that grossed over $390 million worldwide and tens of millions more from television, home video and other sources, … Read More »

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Hot Teaser Trailers: ‘Man Of Steel’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Saturday July 21, 2012 @ 11:51am PDTTags: Henry Cavill, Kevin Costner, Man of Steel, Russell Crowe, Zack Snyder

Here are a pair of teaser trailers for Zack Snyder‘s Man Of Steel starring Henry Cavill as the title character. They’re pretty much the same but each has different narration. This one is “Pa Kent” (Kevin Costner):

This one is “Jor-El” (Russell Crowe):

Watch the teasers on YouTube: … Read More »

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EMMYS: Kevin Costner On ‘Hatfields & McCoys’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Monday June 25, 2012 @ 4:38pm PDTTags: Awardsline, Emmys, Hatfields & McCoys, Kevin Costner

Anthony D’Alessandro is AwardsLine managing editor and contributor.

Boardwalk EmpireWhen it comes to the longevity of the Western, Kevin Costner remains an iconic voice for the genre. This time he’s extended his lasso around TV as the producer and star of History Channel’s first miniseries Hatfields & McCoys. Hitting record ratings for basic cable each of its three nights with a final 14.3 million, Hatfields’ success underscored the genre’s continuing popularity as well as Costner’s continuing potential as leading man. Costner Westerns hone in on the subtext and mores of standoffs against a blue sky, which are plentiful in Hatfields, rather than slow-motion blood and pungent dialogue that have peppered the likes of the Coen brothers’ True Grit and HBO’s Deadwood. Costner also doesn’t flinch at playing the bad guy, and his Devil Anse Hatfield is as potent as his turns in A Perfect World and Mr. Brooks. Given the TV Academy’s adoration for oaters (i.e., the four Emmy wins rallied by Robert Duvall’s Broken Trail including best actor and miniseries), expect Costner and Hatfields & McCoys to ride high in the saddle come nom time.

AWARDSLINE: How did the project come your way? Were you tracking this?
KEVIN COSTNER: No, It came to me in a fairly traditional way. My agent had read it, knowing my sensibilities. While on the surface it didn’t seem like something I would do in terms of it being on TV — whatever everyone’s prejudice is — he understood I’m writer-driven and material-driven. He liked it enough that he asked me to read it and when I did, I knew immediately that I liked it enough to consider it. They asked me to direct it, but I was doing music over the summer and I couldn’t give it its proper prep.

Related: EMMYS: ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ Producer Leslie Greif Read More »

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Kevin Costner Eulogizes Whitney Houston

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Saturday February 18, 2012 @ 12:19pm PSTTags: Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston

Tyler Perry Eulogizes Whitney Houston

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Kevin Costner Exits Mandingo Trainer Role In Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Monday September 26, 2011 @ 4:11pm PDTTags: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Costner, Leonardo DiCaprio, Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L. Jackson, Sergio Leone
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Costner has dropped out of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, an exit I’m told is due to a combination of scheduling and personal reasons. Costner had agreed to play the supporting role of Ace Woody in the Sergio … Read More »

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Ayelet Zurer Replacing Julia Ormond As Superman’s Krypton Mom

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Sunday September 25, 2011 @ 3:54pm PDTTags: Amy Adams, Charles Roven, Chris Nolan, Diane Keaton, Diane Lane, Dianne Wiest, Emma Thomas, Henry Cavill, Julia Ormond, Kevin Costner, Lara Lor-Van, Lawrence Kasdan, Man of Steel, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Superman, Zack Snyder
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Superman is getting a new mom. Ayelet Zurer, the Israeli actress who starred in Angels & Demons and who played the wife of Avner (Eric Bana) in Munich, has been set to play the role of Lara Lor-Van, Superman’s … Read More »

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Bill Paxton To Star In History’s ‘Hatfields And McCoys’, Kevin Reynolds To Direct

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday August 16, 2011 @ 8:20am PDTTags: Bill Paxton, History, Kevin Costner, The Hatfields And McCoys
Nellie Andreeva

Bill Paxton has been tapped for the second lead opposite Kevin Costner in History’s miniseries The Hatfields and McCoys, about America’s most infamous family feud. Kevin Reynolds (Red Dawn) has signed on to direct the mini, to be … Read More »

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First Look At Henry Cavill As ‘Man Of Steel’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday August 4, 2011 @ 8:44am PDTTags: Amy Adams, Antje Traue, Chris Meloni, Diane Lane, Henry Cavill, Julia Ormond, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne, Man of Steel, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Superman, Zack Snyder
Mike Fleming

Warner Bros today released a first photo of British actor Henry Cavill as Superman in Man of Steel, the franchise reboot that’s being directed by Zack Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan. Cavill stars with Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Antje Traue, Julia Ormond, Russell Crowe, Chris Meloni, … Read More »

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Superman Won’t Soar Again Until Summer 2013

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday July 21, 2011 @ 1:56pm PDTTags: Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Henry Cavill, Kevin Costner, Man of Steel, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Superman, Zack Snyder
Mike Fleming

Warner Bros has pulled The Man of Steel from a planned late 2012 release date and has slotted it to open wide on June 14, 2013 release. The Zack Snyder-directed reboot of the Superman franchise feels like a summer film … Read More »

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