EXCLUSIVE: Apple Studios has landed yet another high-caliber movie package, making a deal for an untitled film that Spider-Man director Jon Watts will write and direct, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt starring. The film will get a robust theatrical release as part of this.
The film will be produced by Watts, Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures and Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. Watts moved right from the Sundance indie drama Cop Car to the Marvel Spider-Man trilogy. Oscar winners Clooney and Pitt starred together in the Ocean’s Eleven franchise. Haven’t heard the pricetag, but I’m sure it falls in line with a lot of the recent deals for star packages. I have heard that between Clooney and Pitt, they left an eight-figure sum on the table to ensure the theatrical release component.
Category: Projects
George Clooney, Brad Pitt And Jon Watts Thriller Package Has Studios & Streamers Bidding
Deadline has confirmed that a Jon Watts-directed thriller starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt is being bid upon by an array of studios including Sony, Lionsgate, Annapurna, MGM, Universal and Warner Bros on the theatrical side and streamers Apple, Netflix and Amazon.
Watts is set to write, direct and produce with Clooney producing through Smokehouse Pictures and Pitt through his Plan B Entertainment.
The storyline, which is largely being kept secret, follows two lone-wolf fixers who are assigned to the same job. Big paydays in the eight-figure range for both stars, who appeared together in the Ocean’s 11 movies, are being reported.
Brad Pitt Joins Sandra Bullock in Paramount’s ‘Lost City of D’ in Cameo Role
Brad Pitt is reuniting with Sandra Bullock for Lost City of D, Paramount’s romantic action-adventure comedy that also stars Channing Tatum.
The move is actually a friendly quid pro quo as it follows Bullock making a cameo appearance in Pitt’s action movie Bullet Train, which recently wrapped production with director David Leitch shooting for Sony. When Bullock, who is producing as well as starring in D, saw an opportunity for a fun casting, she reached out to her pal, who said yes.
Adam and Aaron Nee are directing D, which is described as an old-fashioned star vehicle as well as a screwball adventure featuring mismatched leads, witty repartee and of course, romance.
Per the studio, the story centers on a reclusive romance novelist who is sure nothing could be worse than getting stuck on a book tour with her cover model. That is, until a kidnapping attempt sweeps them both into a cutthroat jungle adventure, proving life can be so much stranger, and more romantic, than any of her paperback fictions.
Bullock is the author while Tatum is the model. Pitt’s role is being kept hidden in the temple ruins, but it is said to be a cameo.
Brad Pitt once auditioned to star in a Phantasm film
Actor Michael Baldwin has played Mike Pearson, the hero of the Phantasm horror franchise, in four of the series’ five films. The exception was 1988’s Phantasm II, which starred a young James Le Gros, who would go on to appear in Drugstore Cowboy, Living in Oblivion, and Girls. But Mike was almost played by someone who became a much bigger star: Brad Pitt.
Director and Phantasm overlord Don Coscarelli related the tale when he appeared on this week’s installment of Entertainment Weirdly on EW’s Sirius XM channel to discuss his new memoir, True Indie: Life and Death in Filmmaking.
“The studio would not allow Michael Baldwin to have the role [in Phantasm II], so we had to search for other actors,” said Coscarelli. “I was interviewing every hunky male actor in Hollywood. When we did Phantasm III, 10 years later, I brought Michael Baldwin back to play the role, and he reminded me that he had been friends with Jennifer Aniston before she was successful. He said that he was with her and her new boyfriend, and it was Brad Pitt, and he came over to Michael and he said, ‘Hey, you’re the Phantasm guy! I tried out for that movie, and I didn’t get the role.’
Lizzy Caplan Joins Brad Pitt & Marion Cotillard In Robert Zemeckis Thriller
Masters Of Sex star Lizzy Caplan is joining the cast of the untitled film that Robert Zemeckis will direct with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard from a script by Steven Knight. The film is backed by Paramount Pictures, GK Films and New Regency.
The title and plot are shrouded in secrecy, but I’ve heard that Caplan will play Pitt’s character’s sister.
GK Films’ Graham King is producing the film with ImageMovers’ Zemeckis and Steve Starkey, with Jack Rapke, Knight, Patrick McCormick and Denis O’Sullivan exec producing.
