Final Twilight book split into two films, Transformers 3 news, a Les Grossman film & more!

TWILIGHT NEWS!

Summit Entertainment has confirmed the rumor that the final “Twilight” book will be adapted as two separate films. The news, from their press release:

Summit Entertainment confirmed today that THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN will be released as two separate films with the first of the two slated to be released in theatres on November 18, 2011. Academy Award® winner Bill Condon will direct both films starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner along with Billy Burke as Charlie Swan as well as returning members of the Cullen Family including Peter Facinelli as Carlisle, Elizabeth Reaser as Esme, Jackson Rathbone as Jasper, Nikki Reed as Rosalie, Ashley Greene as Alice and Kellan Lutz as Emmett…

UPCOMING FILM PROJECTS!

USA Today visited the set of TRANSFORMERS 3 and got new details on the third film, opening in theaters on July 1, 2011. The newspaper confirmed it will be released in 3D. Talking about the second film, director Michael Bay said, “I’ll take some of the criticism” while standing at a set built to resemble a dilapidated nuclear reactor. “It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers’ strike (of 2007-08).” Bay said that “This one really builds to a final crescendo. It’s not three multiple endings… As a trilogy, it really ends. It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending.”

“One thing we’re getting rid of is what I call the dorky comedy,” Bay added. So the twins, “They’re basically gone,” he said, though John Turturro returns for comic relief.

The newspaper says the new villain will be Shockwave, “the robot cyclops-turned-laser-cannon, who became dictator of their home world of Cybertron after the other Autobots and Decepticons journeyed to Earth.”

According to USA Today, “The new film features Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) taking his first tenuous steps into adulthood while remaining a reluctant human ally of Optimus Prime.” “Shia has this great line: ‘You know, I’ve saved the world twice, but I can’t get a job,’” producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said. Transformers 3 centers around the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet’s most dangerous secrets…

You saw him in “Tropic Thunder” and on last Sunday’s MTV Movie Awards, and now Paramount is going to make movie about Tom Cruise’s LES GROSSMAN. The official announcement:

Paramount Pictures and MTV Films announced today that they are set to develop a movie around mega-producer Les Grossman. The announcement comes on the heels of Grossman’s groundbreaking and visionary production of the soon-to-be Emmy® award-winning 2010 MTV Movie Awards Sunday night. Tom Cruise, along with Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld of Red Hour Films will produce and have secured the life rights to Grossman…

Universal Pictures announced that Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clatyon”) is returning to write the script for THE BOURNE LEGACY, the fourth installment in the Jason Bourne franchise. He penned “The Bourne Identity,” “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum”…

Producer Scott Rudin has purchased the rights to the upcoming biography CLEOPATRA: A LIFE by Stacy Schiff and may be looking at Angelina Jolie to play the last of the Egyptian Pharoahs, says USA Today. The story of Cleopatra has had a long history in Hollywood, including (among others) a lost silent version starring Theda Bara, a 1934 version with Claudette Colbert and, most famously, a 1963 version with Elizabeth Taylor in the title role. Let’s hope Jolie’s performance doesn’t mirror her crappy one in the Oliver Stone dud “Alexander”…

The classic children’s fairy tale, SNOW WHITE will be getting an updated live-action retelling courtesy of Brett Ratner and Relativity Media, Deadline reports. The new version is said to take an “edgy” and comedic look at the original Brothers Grimm story with Ratner claiming, “This is not your grandfather’s ‘Snow White’”…

F. Gary Gray (“The Italian Job”) is in early talks to direct KANE & LYNCH, a big screen adaptation of the Eidos video game. Stunt coordinator and second unit director Simon Crane was directing the project but exited in May due to creative differences. Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx are attached to star. The plot follows Adam “Kane” Marcus (Willis), a mercenary who makes an unlikely alliance with a schizophrenic killer named James Lynch (Foxx). The duo is forced on a mission to retrieve a stolen microchip…

CASTING NEWS!

According to the Hollywood Reporter, “The Proposal” director Anne Fletcher, stars Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, and producers David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are reteaming for Universal Pictures’ MOST WANTED. Not to be confused with the Keenan Ivory Wayans action film of the same name, in this action comedy, Bullock plays a woman on the run with Reynolds as an agent who is supposed to be handling her. The project is described as having a tone similar to that of Universal’s 1988 release “Midnight Run,” with Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin, which the studio is developing a sequel for…

For all the “True Blood” fans out there: “True Blood” actor Stephen Moyer will star in thriller THE DOUBLE opposite Richard Gere and Topher Grace, and then he’ll topline THE BIG VALLEY with Jessica Lange. “The Double” is writer Michael Brandt’s directorial debut and stars Moyer as a Russian spy. The story centers on a retired CIA operative (Gere) forced to partner with a young FBI agent (Grace) to hunt down the killer of a senator in Washington. Next month, Moyer will go to Louisiana for “The Big Valley,” an adaptation of the 1960s ABC series that starred Barbara Stanwyck. Lange will play Stanwyck’s role of matriarch of the Barkleys, a family of ranchers in 19th century California. Moyer will play Jarrod Barkley, the family’s respected attorney who represents ranchers fighting to keep their land from being taken by railroad companies…

Michael Fassbender is in the running for two different comic book adaptations, playing the villain in each, Showbiz411 reports. The “Inglorious Basterds” actor is allegedly up for the part of Magneto in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and the unknown villain of Marc Webb’s 3D SPIDER MAN reboot. According to the article, Fassbender can’t fit both films into his schedule and will have to pick one or the other…

Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer and Rashida Jones will star opposite Paul Rudd in MY IDIOT BROTHER. Jesse Peretz is directing the comedy about Ned (Rudd), an idealist. His three sisters (Banks, Deschanel and Mortimer) are ambitious. His mother is overbearing. Ned crashes at each of their homes, in succession, and brings truth, happiness and a sunny disposition into their lives. In other words, he wreaks havoc…

AT THE MULTIPLEX!

There are a few fantastic films in limited release opening this week: JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK provides a revealing portrait of the legendary TV personality and comedienne. If you weren’t a fan of Rivers before, you definitely will be after viewing this touching documentary. WINTER’S BONE features an outstanding performance by star Jennifer Lawrence as a teenage girl who races against the clock to find her deadbeat dad before her family loses their home. The film also boasts a great supporting turn by character actor John Hawkes as her badass uncle, Teardrop. THE LOTTERY, a doc by Madeleine Sackler, is a very one-sided piece of advocacy (although the side is the right one) in favor of charter schools in order to fix the failing public school system in New York and beyond. It’s heartbreaking nonetheless, as Sackler follows four families from Harlem and the Bronx who have entered their children in the charter school lottery with very slim hopes for winning a better future…

…Until next week!