News

This week:

Jon Hamm eyes a major comedy role; Brad Pitt is developing a series for HBO; Kevin Smith champions Jon Favreau for Star Wars: Episode 7; Two different actors express interest in Star Wars roles; Lenny Kravitz is set to play Marvin Gaye; and Laura Linney is in talks for the WikiLeaks movie.

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Mad Men star and all-around suave guy Jon Hamm is reportedly eyeing a starring role in the comedy Epic Fail for director Mark Teitelman.

In the film, which is scripted by first time writer Kevin Costello, Hamm would play a schoolteacher who recruits two students to “kidnap” his wife so that he can play the hero and rescue her. The premise alone sounds a bit formulaic, but Hamm’s presence in the film could push it over the top.

Over the past few years, Hamm ...

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Cinderella

Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement"), Alicia Vikander ("Anna Karenina") and Gabriella Wilde ("The Three Musketeers") are all set to test for the title role in Mark Romanek's live-action take on "Cinderella" at Disney.

Cate Blanchett is already in negotiations to play the evil stepmother. Chris Weitz penned the script. [Source: Variety]

Mercy

Chandler Riggs ("The Walking Dead") and Joel Courtney ("Super 8") are set to join Peter Cornwell's horror thriller "Mercy" at Blumhouse, Wonderland Sound and Vision, and Universal Pictures. The story is an adaptation of Stephen King's 1984 short story "Gramma."

The young actors will play brothers who go with their mother (Frances O’Connor) to take care of their grandma. Unbeknownst to them, the grandmother is a witch, who made an evil deal using black magic years earlier. [Source: Heat Vision]

10 Things I Hate About Life

Janet Montgomery ("Jersey Girl," "Spies of Warsaw") has signed on to star opposite Evan Rachel Wood...

What is Casting Couch? Today it’s mostly about smaller-name actors getting roles in upcoming projects, but that can be interesting too. Not everyone can be an old favorite coming back to an X-Men movie or getting hounded about the new Star Wars. It’s been known for a while that Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is a big fan of comedy—just look at how many lowly podcasts he’s appeared on, bit parts in comedies, and even his SNL host gigging for proof of that—but he’s yet to get his chance to take his love of the yuks further and actually star in a comedic feature. That might soon change though. Variety is reporting that he’s currently circling a project called Epic Fail that’s about a down-on-his-luck high school teacher who hires two students to kidnap his wife, in the hopes that if he swoops in and rescues her he might...

Back in October, we learned that "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm was going to work with Fright Night director Craig Gillespie for a film called Million Dollar Arm, the story of sports agent J.B. Bernstein who staged a reality show in India for cricket players to get a chance at a professional baseball career. So Hamm has a sports film in the works, but he's also circling a straight-up comedy from a sports director. Variety has word that Hamm is circling a project called Epic Fail from up and coming writer Kevin Costello which would have"Monday Night Football" director Mark Teitelman attached to direct. So what's the story? Read on! The film follows a down-on-his-luck high school teacher who recruits two students to stage his wife's kidnapping so he can play the hero and rekindle their marriage. So it's like Fargo but with more of a romantic comedy twist.

Jon Hamm is reportedly in line for a starring role in Epic Fail. The Mad Men actor is eyeing the Kevin Costello-penned comedy, which will be directed by Mark Teitelman, according to Variety. The movie centres around a down-on-his-luck teacher who hires two students to kidnap his wife. His attempt to stage a rescue and rekindle their marriage presumably does not go entirely to plan. Costello has lined the project up for producers Sheldon Turner and Jennifer Klein, who will also (more)...

Screenwriter Kevin Costello has set up two projects with producers Sheldon Turner and Jennifer Klein (Pearl Harbor).  The first is Epic Fail, a 20th Century Fox comedy about "a down-on-his-luck high school teacher who recruits two students to stage his wife's kidnapping so he can play the hero and rekindle their marriage."  That's a solid premise that becomes more promising once you hear Jon Hamm is circling the lead role.  Hamm has stuck to supporting roles outside of his Emmy-nominated work on Mad Men.  But that will change once Hamm takes on the lead role in the (presumably inspirational) Disney sports movie Million Dollar Arm.  Mark Teitelman, and Espn veteran who honed is craft on such fine programs as Monday Night Football, is attached to direct. Hit the jump for details on Costello's other project, Six Month Curse. Six Month Curse started as a spec script by Julie Golden.  The...

Mark T-Man Teitelman has been hired to direct The Push, a romantic comedy for Gold Circle being produced by the company's Paul Brooks as well as Kiwi Smith and Seth Jaret.

Written by Sonny Postiglione, the romantic comedy follows a coterie of New York guys who engage in the art of "pushing," which occurs when an ordinary man invents a creative, elaborate, convincing persona in order to pick up gorgeous, ordinarily unattainable women. The story centers on a master of "the push" who meets his match when he falls for an unpushable strong-willed beauty.

Push was the first feature sale for Postiglione, a former assistant on ABC's NYPD Blue who is coming off a season as a writer on NBC's Law & Order.

Norm Waitt and Scott Niemeyer are executive producing the project, which is out to cast and eyeing a January start.

Gold Circle exec Brad Kessell brought the project in and is overseeing.

Smith is the co-writer of Legally Blonde and the untitled Anna Faris/Bunny project in production at Columbia with Happy Madison producing.

Columbia Pictures has tapped first-time feature helmer Mark Teitelman to direct its teen comedy Big Man on Campus.

The story is set in motion as beauty and brains duke it out in high school, changing the perception of "popular" and crumbling the power structure. Gina Wendkos wrote the screenplay based on her own pitch.

Hal Lieberman, who produced Screen Gems' upcoming horror film Vacancy, is producing Big Man through his Hal Lieberman Co. shingle.

Sony's Amy Baer and Adam Milano are shepherding for the studio.

Michael Converse is overseeing the project with Lieberman for the shingle.

Teitelman, who has worked as a commercial helmer and a teaser director for Monday Night Football, is repped by CAA, manager Dave Chariton at Miners Mills Entertainment and attorneys Adam Kaller and Howard Abramson.