Let’s quickly get the Meryl Streep news out of the way as Deadline delivers our first look at her in a sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated role as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Streep is currently in the second week of filming the picture with director Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia). The film looks at the actions taken by Thatcher in the days leading up to the Falklands War in 1982. You can get a larger, full-sized look at the image of Streep right here.
In additional Streep news, Variety reports she’s in final negotiations to reteam with her The Devil Wears Prada director David Frankel in Great Hope Springs. The comedy focuses on a couple that engages in an intense counseling weekend to examine their intimacy issues after 30 years of marriage. Production is scheduled to begin in August.
Moving on to no-Streep related movies, “How I Met Your Mother” star Cobie Smulders has beaten out the rest this group of ladies to land the of Nick Fury’s SHIELD sidekick (rumored to be Maria Hill) and eventual successor in The Avengers. Variety reports Smulders has entered final negotiations for a deal that would include options for up to nine pictures, which has become the standard for actors being integrated into the Marvel Universe. Smulders was previously attached to Avengers director Joss Whedon’s failed Wonder Woman project.
Deadline reports Warner Bros is looking to acquire the script for Harker, a reimagining of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, as a project for director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, Unknown) that would be produced under Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way banner. DiCaprio isn’t planning to act in the film. The script focuses on detective Jonathan Harker as he tracks Dracula, and sets up the investigator as a potential new franchise character. The Harker character was perhaps most famously portrayed by Keanu Reeves in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of the novel.
Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) will direct a new take on Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations to coincide with the writer’s bicentenary celebration in 2012. According to The Hollywood Reporter the project will be produced by Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen, the Oscar-nominated team behind The Crying Game. Prior adaptations of the novel, which tells the story of a humble orphan who winds up as a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor, have been helmed by David Lean (1946) and Alfonso Cuaron (1998).
British studio Ecosse Films has greenlit the “inspired by true events” romantic fairytale Girls’ Night Out, which will be directed by Michael Hoffman (The Last Station). Dakota Fanning will star as teenage Princess Margaret who, along with her sister, is allowed out of Buckingham Palace for one night to join in on the celebrations during V.E. Day in 1945. Variety reports casting for Margaret’s sister, Princess Elizabeth, will be announced shortly.
Shock Till You Drop reports G.I. Joe director Stephen Sommers’s next project will be an adaptation of Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas. The novel tells the story of ordinary man who can communicate with the dead and must use their silent clues to prevent a mass catastrophe which threatens everything he holds dear. Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Charlie Bartlett) is the first to join the cast.
I don’t usually support using TMZ as a reference, but an interesting story has their sources close to Lindsay Lohan telling the site that she has engaged in a number of conversations with Warner Bros. about playing a “major character” in Zack Snyder’s Superman: Man of Steel. File this one under “rumor” for now as it’s probably just Lohan’s inner circle attempting to convince people she’s still in demand. I’d be surprised if anything materializes given Lohan’s legal troubles.
Following up a previous report, Julia Roberts has indeed closed a deal to star as the Evil Queen in The Brothers Grimm: Snow White as neither of the rival Snow White pictures slated for release in 2012 seem willing to budge. Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman, which has lined up Kristen Stewart and Viggo Mortensen in the title roles and Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen, has set a December 21, 2012 release date. I have a feeling this won’t end well for one of the pictures.
Paramount has added Famke Janssen (X-Men, GoldenEye) to the cast of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters alongside the previously announced Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton in the roles of the titular siblings. The studio has set production to start on March 7th in order to squeeze it in between Renner’s assignments on Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Avengers.
