1.) Fox has officially set Chronicle helmer Josh Trank to direct the reboot of Fantastic Four with expectation it will be the next film Trank directs. Fox has additionally set Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) to direct the family sci-fi film Rust based on the Royden Lepp novel about a struggling farm family and the mysterious robot that shows up and changes their lives. The studio is also now looking to fill the director shoes on a reboot of Daredevil now that David Slade has dropped out. The studio needs to get the film into production by fall or contractually risk having the the property revert to Marvel Studios and Disney. [Deadline]
2.)Breck Eisner (The Crazies) is in negotiations to direct Stretch Armstrong, the movie project based on the classic Hasbro toy and set up at Relativity with a script from Dean Georgaris (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life). The original Stretch’s unique design broke free of traditional action figures, as he could be stretched over and over and always returned back to his original size. The nostalgic toy is considered to be rare and collectible to this day. The film is currently targeting an April 11, 2014 release. [THR]
3.)The Alberta Film Ratings board has confirmed a teaser trailer for Zack Snyder‘s Superman project Man of Steel is on the way, running 87 seconds and expected to go online next week while also playing in front of The Dark Knight Rises next Friday, July 20. Man of Steel hits theaters on June 14, 2013. [Alberta Film Ratings]
4.)Tobey Maguire is the latest to join Jason Reitman‘s new film Labor Day, a film based on the Joyce Maynard novel in which Kate Winslet will play a single mother of an awkward and isolated young son who takes in a stranger (Josh Brolin) who turns out to be an escaped convict and ends up teaching the boy life lessons, while she falls in love with him over the course of Labor Day Weekend. The rest of the cast includes James Van Der Beek, Gattlin Griffith, Brighid Fleming, Tom Lipinski, Maika Monroe, Clark Gregg, Alexie Gilmore and Brooke Smith. [Deadline]
5.)Charlie Kaufman and Dan Harmon (“Community”) are turning to Kickstarter for your help to get a stop-motion animated feature off the ground. The film is titled Anomalisa and was written by the duo and directed by “Community” helmer Duke Johnson. The story goes as such:
“The film follows a celebrated motivational speaker traveling the country, changing the lives of countless people. But in the course of transforming others, his life has become hollow and meaningless. It’s a grey and monotonous existence where people literally look and sound identical.
Suddenly one day, a girl’s voice pierces through the veil of nothingness. She fills him with such a rush of “aliveness”, he’s willing to abandon everything and everyone, including his own family, and escape with her to a better life.”
You can find out more at the Kickstarter page here and watch a brief teaser below. The campaign has so far made $80,748 of the $200,000 they are looking for. [AV Club]
