Zac Efron Attached To Star In ‘The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman’ > The Playlist
Zac Efron Attached To Star In ‘The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman’ > The Playlist.
Exclusive: Founding his own production company (the cheekily titled Ninjas Runnin’ Wild), and being courted for a number of intriguing projects over the past year (including the remake of “Snabba Cash”), Zac Efron is set to turn heads in a role that will showcase the actor as we’ve never quite seen him before.
Producer Albert Berger has confirmed with The Playlist that Efron is attached to star in the lead role in the action comedy “The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman,” a role that was once inhabited by Shia LaBeouf last year. The film, said to be in the spirit of “Pulp Fiction,” follows Charlie who after the death of his mother, heads to Europe to find himself. There, he meets a girl and falls in love. The trouble is she already belongs to an insanely violent crime boss with a gang of thugs at his disposal, but that won’t deter Charlie who endures one bruising beat down after another to woo the girl and keep her out of harm’s way.
The film has been penned by Matt Drake, a scribe on the rise, who not only found his ‘Countryman’ script get approval from the folks who put together the Black List in 2007, but he’s also written the forthcoming, low budget R-rated comedy “Project X” produced by Todd Phillips and Joel Silver. While Dante Ariola was once attached to direct, this is no longer the case. ‘Countryman’ is currently out to directors, and the hope is to get the film in front of cameras this year.
Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa of Bona Fide are producing, and the film is set up at Mandate Pictures with Nathan Kahane executive producing. Dean Parisot and William Horbergwill also be producing.
Zac Efron ~ In Negotiations for “New Year’s Eve”
EXCLUSIVE: Sarah Jessica Parker Joining ‘New Year’s Eve’; Halle Berry, Zac Efron in Talks
Trio will join all-star ensemble that includes Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank and Ashton Kutcher.
Sarah Jessica Parker is set to join New Line’s New Year’s Eve, while Halle Berry, fresh off her Golden Globe nomination for Frankie and Alice, and Zac Efron are in negotiations to also join the all-star cast.
The trio will join an ensemble that includes such names as Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank, Ashton Kutcher, Sofia Vergara, Jessica Biel, Lea Michele and Abigail Breslin, all of whom who are in various stages of negotiations for roles as well.
The movie tells intertwining stories of a group of New Yorkers as they navigate their way through bittersweet drama and romance over the course of New Year’s Eve.
Parker is playing Breslin’s mom, someone who relies too much on her daughter for company.
If a deal makes, Berry will play a caterer who runs into a former flame. Efron is on track to play a bike messenger who ends up trying to fulfill Pfeiffer’s New Year’s Eve resolutions in exchange for tickets to a big party. [RELATED: Berry graces one of The Hollywood Reporter's three 80th-anniversary covers this week. Click here.]
The movie, being directed by Garry Marshall, was initially to shoot mid-December but is now eyeing a Feb. 1 start in New York. Second unit will be shot in Times Square over New Year’s.
Mike Karz and Wayne Rice are producing.
Parker (repped by CAA) starred in the Sex and the City movies for New Line, while Berry (CAA, Vincent Cirrincione Management) can be currently seen in the drama Frankie and Alice.
Efron (CAA, Alchemy Entertainment) is shooting The Lucky One in Louisiana.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Zac Efron ~ Another Project? ~ Akira
Zac’s name has been mentioned to star in the live-action version of Akira.
Zac Efron to star in live-action Akira?
Star in talks with director Albert Hughes
By Dan Goodswen | Nov 5th 2010
The rumour mill has coughed up an interesting tidbit this afternoon – High School Musical actor, and purported Manga fanboy Zac Efron is in talks to appear in the live-action version of Akira.
The film is being developed by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way company, and early rumours had DiCaprio himself attached to the lead role of Kaneda – but now it seems that Efron is being lined up to star.
Set in futuristic Neo Tokyo, the events of Akira take place after World War III has destroyed much of the old world. Kaneda is the leader of Neo-Tokyo motorcycle gang The Capsules, and the main character in both the comic and animated version of Akira.
When his best friend Tetsuo discovers he has immense psychic powers and threatens to destroy the city, Kaneda is the only one who can stop his former ally.
Slash Film are insisting that this is very much a rumour at this point, and can’t confirm whether and actual offer has been made, but it is certainly enough of a development to attract interest.
A live-action Akira film has been touted since the 1988 anime popularised Japanese cyberpunk and Manga to US audiences, but has found itself stuck firmly in development hell.
Albert Hughes, one half of directing duo the Hughes Brothers (From Hell, The Book Of Eli), came on board back in February after Appian Way had secured the rights, and has been busy ‘conceptualising’ what will eventually be two movies.
That casting rumours are starting to surface means Akira could finally be emerging from hell and into the green light of day.
Efron has been keen to rebrand himself as a credible actor, something DiCaprio will no doubt sympathise with, and his career will certainly be given a major boost if he manges to secure the lead in Akira.
Source: http://www.totalfilm.com/news/zac-efron-to-star-in-live-action-akira/
Rumor: Zac Efron in Albert Hughes’ ‘Akira’?
Posted on Friday, November 5th, 2010 by Peter Sciretta
Another rumor which is making the tracking board rounds today is that Zac Efron has apparently been offered the lead role in Albert Hughes’ upcoming live-action adaptation of the popular anime/Katsuhiro Otomo‘s six-volume manga Akira. I’m not able to confirm the offer, but one source tells me Efron is in talks, while another says that it is “far from a done deal.”
Set-up at Warner Bros through Leonardo DiCaprio‘s production company Appian Way, the project has been in development for some time with screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (wrote earlier drafts of Children of Men and are credited with Iron Man). Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli) had previously worked on the project.
Last we heard, producer Andrew Lazar said that Hughes is was busy “conceptualizing the movie with a bunch of visual artists” and working with a new screenwriter, Albert Torres (Henry Poole Is Here), to put his stamp on Akira. That draft was due in September. Hughes has also talked about the film being PG-13 and the idea that he might only direct the first of two planned films. (One adapting the first three manga volumes, and the second volumes four through six.)
The previous screenplay was set in a post-apocalyptic “New Manhattan” and will feature Akira’s famous red motorcycle. The original Katsuhiro Otomo anime was set in a futuristic and post-war city, Neo-Tokyo, in 2019. As for the casting, here is an excerpt from a previous posting by Russ Fischer:
No cast has ever publicly revealed to be attached. The involvement of Appian Way led many to suspect that DiCaprio would star as the teen biker Kaneda, despite being demonstrably too old for the part, but the actor publicly denied any involvement beyond producing duties. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was rumored to be in mind for Tetsuo, the friend of Kaneda whose psychic powers are awakened, setting of a cataclysmic chain of destructive events in Neo-Tokyo. He also denied any attachment.
Source: http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/11/05/rumor-zac-efron-albert-hughes-akira/
Zac Efron to do voiceover for The Lorax
The Once-ler will show his greedy face in ‘The Lorax’ – USATODAY.com.
The Once-ler is ready for his close-up.
Previously incarnated only as a pair of long green arms in Dr. Seuss’ storybook The Lorax, this villain will appear in the flesh — or is it fur? — in the big-screen 3-D adaptation planned for release in March 2012.The 1971 book revealed the Once-ler as a greedy creature who visits a colorful forest full of Truffala trees and begins chopping them down to harvest their tufts, only to wipe out every last one — and the frolicking Bar-ba-loots, Humming-fish and Swomee-Swans to boot.
The tale starts with a boy visiting the aged Once-ler as he recounts how he long ago ignored the preachy little Lorax, who appeared at the start of the reckless chopping to “speak for the trees.”
The movie will begin the same way, says producer Chris Meledandri, head of Illumination Animation. “What he finds, just like in the book, is this wonderful set of arms emerging from this boarded-up window, with these yellow eyes,” Meledandri says. “And then, at a pivotal moment, the character is revealed.”
Seuss (real name Theodore Geisel) never drew what he thought the Once-ler really looked like, says the author’s widow, Audrey, who is co-producing the film. “That was Ted, and that was wonderful: long spindly arm coming out of the Lerkim up there,” she says, using the book’s term for the Once-ler’s lair.
Ed Helms of The Office will voice the Once-ler, and Danny DeVito will play the Lorax, described in the book as: “shortish. And oldish/And brownish. And mossy” who “spoke with a voice/ that was sharpish and bossy.”
“The Lorax certainly has this very lofty mission, the protector of the trees and all things natural,” Meledandri says. “But his personality is … he’s a bit gruff and grouchy. He should be. He’s losing.”
The film expands Seuss’ story to give the curious unnamed boy more of a back story, dubbing him Ted (after the author) and giving him a grandmother (voiced by Betty White) who recalls the days when the world was clean and full of life. Zac Efron voices the boy.
“They live in an outrageously artificial world where all things natural have been replaced by plastic and steel. It’s like living in Las Vegas,” Meledandri jokes.
The movie becomes a quest as the boy first seeks out the Once-ler, then goes in search of the Lorax, who vanished after the last of the trees were destroyed. There may be hope yet in restoring what was lost — an idea the book suggested but left open-ended.
There may even be sympathy for the bad guy. “The character of the Once-ler really started out with very reasonable goals,” Meledandri says. “He set out to make his mark, be successful. He had a dream he wanted to achieve. Then he became successful, but he got swept up and bitten by the bug of greed.”
Helms will voice the Once-ler as the naive early businessman and the crooked, greedy monster slipped over to the dark side. “He goes from a young man to a much older man who wants redemption,” Meledandri says.
Seuss gave The Lorax a very direct social message. “He wasn’t a woodsman and wasn’t a hunter, but his father had run the zoo in Springfield, Mass.,” Audrey Geisel says. “And from that he began a lifelong interest in animals and preservation of their surroundings.”
That’s why this book, which urges children to take care of the environment, was particularly important to him. “We all go forth from what we had or knew when were children,” she says, “whether we give credit or not.”
