Thank you Vaska!

Oscar winner Brad Pitt is in negotiations to play Richard Leakey in Angelina Jolie‘s drama “Africa,” an individual familiar with the Skydance project has told TheWrap.

Skydance declined to comment, while a representative for Pitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pitt and wife Jolie recently teamed on her third feature as a director, “By the Sea.” They first worked together on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

Oscar winner Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump”) wrote “Africa,” which is a biopic of Leakey, the famed archaeologist who became a staunch defender of elephants against poachers in Kenya in the late ’80s.

Jolie will reteam with her “Unbroken” cinematographer Roger Deakins on the project, which she’s also producing with Skydance’s David Ellison and Dana Goldberg, as well as Jon Peters. Production could begin as soon as this summer.

“I’ve felt a deep connection to Africa and its culture for much of my life, and was taken with Eric’s beautiful script about a man drawn into the violent conflict with elephant poachers who emerged with a deeper understanding of man’s footprint and a profound sense of responsibility for the world around him,” Jolie said in a statement last September.

Read more. This is unconfirmed.

Will WORLD WAR Z 2 be a completely different monster from the first movie? That could be the takeaway based on this interesting statement from the sequel’s screenwriter Steven Knight.

In an interview with Thompson on Hollywood, the Oscar-nominated scribe explains why he took the gig and how it differs from Marc Forster’s original:

“I thought, ‘why not? What fun.’ It’s not quite like the other, we’re starting with clean slate. When they’ve signed off we’re on.”
To me, “clean slate” indicates we won’t be picking up with Brad Pitt’s character, who at the end of the first film was happily reunited with his family after his long, arduous search for a zombie cure. But does it really make sense to make another WORLD WAR Z without Pitt front and center? (His production company, Plan B, will still produce.)

The article also notes that the film is “set to shoot in October for 2016 release.” J.A. Bayona is directing.

Read more.

A foundation has distributed more than $5.5 million in donations that poured into Joplin after a May 2011 tornado.

The Joplin Tornado Fund administered by the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri received just over $6 million in donations from sources as diverse as children’s lemonade stands to $500,000 from celebrities Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Stephanie Howard, president of the foundation board, says about 54 percent of the funds went to organizations that rebuilt or repaired the homes of owners who didn’t have insurance or enough insurance, or to federal allocations to re-establish a house or repair all the damage.

The Joplin Globe report groups that helped with mental health and counseling, and those that cared for children while parents dealt with the tornado’s aftermath, also received foundation grants.

Read more. Note: It is my assumption that the donation was done via the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Thank you Vaska!

Thank you Vaska!

During periods of his career, Martin Scorsese has enjoyed working with one lead actor over and over again. In the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, that actor was Robert De Niro. In the last two decades, it was Leonardo DiCaprio. However, the three have never worked together on a feature film. That’s the gag in a series of commercials for two casinos in Manila, Philippines.

Scorsese directed the commercials, which star DiCaprio and De Niro as themselves, competing for a same role. However, these are not just commercials. These are basically trailers for a short film called The Audition that will also bring Brad Pitt into the mix. Yes, it’s a Martin Scorsese directed short starring DiCaprio, De Niro and Pitt. And rumor has it, each actor made over $10 million for the work. Check out the Martin Scorsese Leonardo DiCaprio Robert De Niro commercials below.

Thanks to The Film Stage for the heads up. Here are the two trailers, featuring lots of same footage, but each for a different casino owned by the same company: The City of Dreams in Manila and Studio City in Macau. In the second clip, you see a tease of Brad Pitt and a press release about the production confirms he’ll be appearing in the final film which will premiere later this year. Here’s a quote from Brett Ratner, a producer on the project:

This short film is a historic event because it is the first film ever to star such legendary actors as Robert De Niro, Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt in one film together.

Read more.

Following the success of “Moneyball,” Brad Pitt and his Plan B shingle have assembled an all-star cast for the next adaptation of a Michael Lewis bestseller.

Sources tell Variety that Pitt, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling have come on board to star in “The Big Short,” Paramount and Plan B’s adaptation “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” which Adam McKay is writing and directing.

Lewis’ nonfiction tome tells the story of the build-up of the housing and credit bubble during the 2000s that led to the financial crisis of 2007-2010. Paramount had no comment.

Pitt will produce with DeDe Gardner through their Plan B banner. Production start date is unknown.

The book follows several key people who played a role in creating the disastrous credit bubble. The feature adaptation will likely feature several A-list actors who have similiar-sized roles, similar to the cast of “Traffic” or “The Counselor.”

As with “Moneyball,” Pitt has been very passionate about getting this adaptation onto the bigscreen.

Read more.