EXCLUSIVE PICS Uma Thurman Stars In Campari Calendar 2014

New Line Picks Up Action Comedy Spec 'The Lost' (Exclusive)

Shawn Levy, who is producing "The Lost"
New Line has picked up The Lost, an action comedy spec from popping scribe T.J. Fixman that has Shawn Levy and his 21 Laps banner attached to produce.

The story focuses on reformed first-time offenders who must clear their name after they are framed for the murder of their parole officer.

Levy will produce with the shingle’s Billy Rosenberg and Dan Cohen.

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Levy, who just wrapped directing the Jason Batemen-led ensemble drama This Is Where I Leave You, is in pre-production on Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Disney’s adaptation of the popular 1970s children’s book. The company is also prepping for the August 2 release of the Sundance hit Spectacular Now which stars Shailene Woodley.

Fixman hails originally from the video game world and is clearly on an upward trajectory. The Lost marks his second studio sale this year; in March, Universal picked up One Night On the Hudson, a spec that has Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis attached to star. He was also hired to rewrite Gargoyles for Disney.

Fixman is repped by WME and Fourth Floor Management.

'Kick-Ass 2' Filmmaker Tackling Fox's 'X-Force' (Exclusive)

Jeff Wadlow, who is readying for the Aug. 16 release of Kick-Ass 2, has been tapped to write an adaptation of X-Force, an X-Men spinoff being developed by 20th Century Fox.

The news comes on the heels of various blogs reporting Friday that the studio registered X-ForceMovie.com a few months ago.

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Longtime X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner is producing X-Force.

Wadlow is writing with an eye to direct.

X-Force, created by Rob Liefeld, was a spinoff from Marvel Comics flagship Uncanny X-Men released in 1991. Its first issue set records when it sold 5 million copies. (The record was surpassed later that year when X-Men No. 1, drawn by Jim Lee, sold 8 million issues.)

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The original lineup of the team comprised several characters from the first Uncanny X-Men spinoff, The New Mutants, teens who had matured into young adults. Also in the lineup was Cable, a militant leader from the future who is related to X-Men heroes Cyclops and Jean Grey. His body is enhanced by robotic parts, and he has telekinetic powers as well.

X-Force has been rebooted a couple of times in the past decade, and there are now two comics in the marketplace: Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force.

Wadlow wrote and directed Kick-Ass 2, the sequel to the violent and funny 2010 hit based on the comic books by Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr. He also recently wrote two episodes of A&E’s hit show Bates Motel.

Wadlow also is writing an adaptation of Bloodshot, based on the Valiant comic, that is set up at Sony.

He is repped by WME and Hirsch Wallerstein.

New Line Picks Up Secret Horror Pitch from 'Friday the 13th' Writers (Exclusive)

Mark Swift, left, and Damian Shannon
New Line has picked up an untitled and top-secret horror pitch from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the writers behind the company’s 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th and 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason.

Chris Bender, J.C. Spink and Jake Weiner of New Line-based BenderSpink are producing.

No details of the pitch are being revealed, but it is described as a potential franchise starter. It is not part of the microbudget and found-footage trend.

STORY: Warner Bros. Gives Up 'Friday the 13th' Rights to Board Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar'

Dave Neustadter and Walter Hamada are overseeing for New Line.

BenderSpink is gearing up for the Aug. 7 release of We’re the Millers, the comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis.

Shannon and Swift are New Line favorites, having worked on adaptations of comic books Hawaiian Dick and Power and Glory, both set up at the company. The duo is repped by UTA, Magnet Management and McKuin Frankel.

'I Give It a Year': Newlyweds Matchmake for Each Other

Marriage isn't easy.

In the new comedy, I Give It a Year, a newlywed couple (Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall) deals with the challenges that come after the "I do's."

Here, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively hosts a clip from the film, which shows the mismatched couple getting ready for a double-date night with pair of single friends they seem to be trying to set up.

However, while analyzing their friends, Nat (Byrne) and Josh (Spall) both "casually" pitch the idea of their spouse being better suited to date one of their single friends. This leads to some awkward accidental insults.

FILM REVIEW: I Give It a Year

Directed by Dan Mazer and also starring Anna Faris and Simon Baker, I Give It a Year opens in U.S. theaters Aug. 9 via Magnolia Pictures. It's been available via VOD since July 3.

Mazer (the writer of Borat and Bruno) makes his directorial debut with the film, which opened in the U.K. in February and had its U.S. premiere at the South by Southwest festival in March.

In THR's review of the film, Megan Lehmann writes: "Snarkier than your average Hollywood romantic comedy, the fitfully hilarious British outing I Give It a Year seeks to slice up happily-ever-after tropes with a hacksaw."

'Jungle Book' Live-Action Reboot in the Works at Disney (Exclusive)

A poster from the recent stage-musical version of "The Jungle Book"
Disney is swinging into development on a live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling’s classic set of fables based in India. Justin Marks has been hired to pen the script.

The short-story collection was published in 1894, and the majority of the tales focus on Mowgli, a young boy raised by wolves whose friends include a bear named Baloo and a panther by the name of Bagheera. One of the adversaries that pops up several times is Shere Khan, a mean tiger.

Disney famously adapted the stories in a 1967 animated film (it was the last film to be produced by Walt Disney, who died during production). The stories also have been adapted into numerous live-action and cartoon forms.

STORY: Disney's 'Jungle Book' Readies for Chicago Bow

The Jungle Book stories are in the public domain and are so popular that Warner Bros. is developing its own Mowgli adventure. Steve Kloves, who wrote the majority of the Harry Potter movies, is writing that script. A stage production of the book debuted July 1 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

Disney’s take is in the early stages, and the project has no producers attached. A search for a director is underway.

Jungle Book is the latest Disney animated film to get the live-action treatment. Alice in Wonderland started the trend, grossing $1 billion in the process, and Maleficent, based on Sleeping Beauty, is in the can. Cinderella, under the direction of Kenneth Branagh, is readying for a fall shoot.

Marks penned an early draft of Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea reboot, which at the time was being produced by Sean Bailey, now the studio’s production president. He also wrote The Raven, based on the hot Internet short, which is being produced by Mark Wahlberg and has Ricardo de Montreuil directing for Gold Circle and Universal.

'We Are the Nobles' Sequel in the Works (Exclusive)

Karla Souza and Luis Gerardo Mendez in "We are the Nobles."
MEXICO CITY – Writer-director Gary “Gaz” Alazraki is developing a sequel to the hit comedy We Are the Nobles, Mexico’s highest-grossing film.

Alazraki, a USC film school graduate, couldn’t have asked for a more successful directorial debut. We Are the Nobles (Nosotros los Nobles) has raked in about $26 million after 15 weeks in theaters, shattering the previous record of $13.5 million held by the Gael Garcia Bernal-starrer The Crime of Father Amaro.

Released by Warner Bros., Nobles centers on three spoiled children who are cut off from their family fortune and forced to do the unthinkable – get a job.

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It’s no accident that the film has performed so well. Alazraki comes from an advertising background (his family owns one of the most prestigious ad agencies in Mexico), and he went to great lengths to promote the film ahead of its March release.

“Many people were already familiar with the movie and its main characters before the release,” he said. “It was crucial to the success of the film.” The story had many folks talking about Mexico’s social class divide, a hot-button topic in a nation where more than half of the people live in poverty. “It’s all about how Mexico is trying to find an identity when there’s such a big division between the rich and the poor,” Alazraki said.

The follow-up, which Alazraki is penning with Nobles co-writer Adrian Zurita, also will focus on economic disparity in Mexican society.

'Hunger Games 2,' 'Ender's Game' to Get Dolby Atmos Mix (Exclusive)

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"
Lionsgate's The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Ender's Game will both get a Dolby Atmos mix, meaning the movies will be released in two immersive new sound formats.

Barco recently announced that both films would be mixed for its Auro 11.1 sound system.

DreamWorks Animation’s Turbo and Sony’s Elysium also are upcoming titles that will use both sound formats.

An issue has developed over how to create and distribute mixes for these new systems, as the formats are not compatible and therefore each requires a separate mix.

Numerous industry leaders have called for standards, and organizations including NATO, the Union Internationale des Cinemas (UNIC) and standards setting body Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers are working toward that goal. But not all parties agree as to how this might be achieved.

Recent titles offered in Atmos include Star Trek Into Darkness, Man of Steel and Pacific Rim, which will have its premiere in Dolby Atmos on Tuesday at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

Exclusive: Homebrew closes debut fund

The Homebrew crew


FORTUNE -- Homebrew, a new venture capital firm founded by former Google and Twitter product managers, has quietly closed its debut fund with $35 million.

The San Francisco-based firm was launched earlier this year by Hunter Walk, who led product for Google's (GOOG) YouTube, and Satya Patel, a fellow ex-Googler who most recently was VP of product for Twitter.

Both also have past investing experience -- Walk as an active angel and Patel with Battery Ventures.

The Homebrew strategy is to create a concentrated portfolio of startups that "enable the people-based economy" for both consumers and enterprises. Half of the companies would be incubated by Homebrew, while the others would be seed-stage financings. None of Walk and Patel's personal angel investments will be rolled into the Homebrew portfolio.

Walk and Patel personally contributed around 2% of the fund capital, while the majority came from funds-of-funds.

Walk declined to comment on the fund close. So far, Homebrew does not have a website.

Warner Bros. Nabs Rights to YA Novel 'The Young World' (Exclusive)

After a heated auction Friday, Warner Bros. won a bidding war to secure the rights to The Young World,  the first in an original trilogy of post-apocalyptic YA novels by filmmaker turned novelist Chris Weitz.

Weitz will adapt the books and also will direct and produce from his original novel, which will be published in 2013 by Little Brown. Depth of Field will produce, along with Andrew Miano.

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The books center on teenage survivors who inherit a destroyed and desolate earth, after a cataclysmic event kills off every person on earth not between the ages of 12 and 21.  Ill-equipped to restore society to working order, the surviving residents of New York City must try to rebuild their world from the ground up.

Weitz directed the film adaptation of the novel The Golden Compass, a major international hit, and the film adaptation of New Moon from the series of Twilight books (the film grossed more than $700 million worldwide).  Weitz most recently directed 2011's A Better Life, for which Demian Bichir was nominated for a best actor Oscar.

Chantal Nong brought the project into the studio and will oversee with Lynn Harris.

Weitz is reposed by WME and attorney Alex Kohner of Morris Yorn Barnes & Levine.

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'Jacob's Ladder' Getting Remake Treatment (Exclusive)

Get ready to climb Jacob’s Ladder again.

Mickey Liddell’s LD Entertainment is financing a remake of the 1990 movie starring Tim Robbins that will be produced by Michael Gaeta and Alison Rosenzweig. Liddell also is producing with the company’s Jennifer Monroe.

Jeff Buhler, who wrote the Clive Barker adaptation The Midnight Meat Train, is penning a script building upon an earlier draft by Jake Wade Wall, the scribe behind the 2006 remake of When a Stranger Calls.

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The original Ladder, written by Bruce Joel Rubin and directed by Adrian Lyne, ostensibly told of a Vietnam War vet who suffers increasingly bizarre hallucinations and attempts to discover the truth behind them. The movie, which has a twist ending, was made by Carolco and achieved cult hit status.

The producers are looking to make something more akin to an homage and not mimic the original. The plan is to contemporize the story with new situations and characters but still maintain a story that examines issues and poses existential questions.

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The producers are now out to directors.

Gaeta and Rosenzweig were exec producer and producer, respectively, on the 2011 remake of Fright Night as well as Transit, an action movie that starred Jim Caviezel. The duo is developing a remake of the 1987 Mickey Rourke-Lisa Bonet thriller Angel Heart.

Among Liddell Entertainment’s recent credits are the Liam Neeson adventure movie The Grey as well as Disconnect, a drama that starred Jason Bateman. The company this week partnered with McG’s Wonderland Sound and Vision to back a slate of film, television and digital projects.

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'90210' Star Jessica Lowndes Joins 'Eden' Cast (Exclusive)

90210 star Jessica Lowndes will be the female lead in Eden, the survival thriller from Ombra Films that stars actor-turned-producer Nate Parker.

Lowndes will join Ethan Peck and Diego Boneta in a story set in motion when a soccer team’s plane crashes on a deserted island.

Team spirit evaporates as disagreements both petty and profound cause the group to separate into factions, and soon sharks, abandoned Japanese mines and starvation are the least of the survivors’ worries as a Lord of the Flies mentality takes hold.

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Commercials director Shyam Madiraju is making his feature debut. Parker is producing with Jaume Collet-Serra and Ombra’s Juan Sola and Hernany Perla.

Lowndes starred for five seasons on The CW’s 90210 and also appeared in such movies as Darren Bousman’s rock opera The Devil’s Carnival and the horror thriller Altitude. She recently wrapped the screwball comedy Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant opposite Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander and Molly Shannon.

Lowndes is repped by CAA, Aperture Entertainment and Sloane Offer.

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'Vampire Diaries,' 'Continuum' Actors Join Eadweard Muybridge Movie (Exclusive)

The Vampire Diaries actress Sara Canning, Ian Tracey and Jodi Balfour have joined the cast of the untitled psychological drama centered on Eadweard Muybridge.

Michael Eklund is starring in the Canadian indie, which is being directed by Kyle Rideout and produced by Josh Epstein. Rideout and Epstein were behind Wait for Rain, a short that won best science fiction/fantasy at last year’s Comic-Con International Film Festival. The Muybridge project is their first feature.

Also joining the cast are Christopher Heyerdahl and Torrance Combs. The movie begins principal photography next week in Vancouver.

Muybridge was a world-famous 19th century photographer who took pictures of nude and deformed subjects, found fame with his landscape shots and pioneered motion photography by capturing animals and humans in action and led the way for motion pictures with his zoopraxiscope device. His personal life also was noteworthy: He killed his wife’s lover and received a justifiable homicide verdict.

Canning will play Muybridge’s wife, while Balfour will be one of the photographer’s models who became the focus of some of his very first nudes.

Tracey will portray the founder of Stanford University who enlists Muybridge's services to win a famous bet over whether a horse had all four hooves off the ground while galloping.

Canning stars in Primeval: New World, the North American version of the hit BBC sci-fi show.

Tracey has appeared in the popular Canadian sci-fi show Continuum and appeared in Man of Steel and A&E’s Bates Motel.

Balfour is one of the stars of CBC’s acclaimed show Bomb Girls.

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Exclusive: DARPA alums form VC firm

FORTUNE -- A new breed of energy-focused private equity funds is beginning to emerge, focused on capital-efficient companies rather than the fortune-burning manufacturing plays of yesteryear. In other words, no more solar panel or biofuel investments that look more like project finance than traditional venture capital.

The latest one I've heard about is being formed by Doug Kirkpatrick, who has spent the past three years as a partner with VantagePoint Venture Partners. His new platform is called InnerProduct Partners, and currently is seeking commitments for its debut fund.

Kirkpatrick spent eight years as a chief scientist with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) before joining VantagePoint, and is being joined on InnerProduct by a number of former colleagues. Among them is Pete Haaland, a former DARPA project manager who later was an office director with Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).

Kirkpatrick did not respond to requests for comment.

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'Captain Planet and the Planeteers' Movie in the Works From Sony (Exclusive)

Environmental cartoon Captain Planet and the Planeteers is getting the big-screen treatment.

Sony Pictures is in final negotiations to pick up the rights to the early 1990s series for an adaptation to be produced by Mark Gordon, Don Murphy and Susan Montford.

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The show was produced by Turner Broadcasting and DIC Entertainment, the latter known for Inspector Gadget and The Real Ghostbusters cartoon shows.

Captain Planet told the story of five teens from around the world -- North America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and South America (if this isn’t tailored for today’s international marketplace, I don’t know what is) -- that are given powers by Gaia, the earth spirit, in order to protect the planet from the devastation of polluters.

When their powers are not enough, the teens combine to summon a superhero named Captain Planet.

The Captain and the Planeteers fought villains such as Dr. Blight, Verminous Skumm, Duke Nukem and Looten Plunder. (The series initially attracted high-profile celebrities to play the baddies -- Sting  ,   Meg Ryan and James Coburn among them.)

A movie adaptation attempted to take form in the 1990s but only reached the script stage. Murphy and Montford developed a live-action series with Cartoon Network in the late 2000s but it never took root.

Andrea Giannetti will oversee for the studio.

Gordon is a veteran producer whose credits range from Speed and Broken Arrow to Saving Private Ryan and 2012. He is also the executive producer behind shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, Criminal Minds, and the upcoming Ray Donovan.

Murphy, one of the producers behind The Transformers mega-franchise, and Montford are in production on Vampire Academy, the adaptation of the YA novel by Richelle Mead being directed by Mark Waters.

 

Twitter: @sajilpl

 

First Look: The New Pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel (Exclusive Photos)

Still the perfect place to be seen, the pool has just resurfaced after a three-month, multimillion-dollar renovation befitting the Pink Palace, which turned 100 last year.This story first appeared in the July 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Plunge into the Beverly Hills Hotel pool and you might come out famous. It's where Raquel Welch and Robert Evans got discovered, Esther Williams swam each morning and The Beatles swashed by moonlight. Katharine Hepburn dove in clothed, while Tallulah Bankhead reportedly did so naked. In a cabana, Yves Montand romanced Marilyn Monroe. Boorish Rex Harrison greeted longtime pool manager Svend Petersen wearing nothing but a strategically placed handkerchief, a different color every day, and Fred Astaire walked around the perimeter as if life itself was a graceful dance.

PHOTOS: Exclusive Photos of Beverly Hills Hotel's New Pool

"There were so many beautiful stars there and so much action," recalls actor and habitue Robert Wagner. "Afterparties, movie meetings. It's the embassy of Hollywood!" It was a great place for a young actor to get recognized, he says. "But no belly flops. You'd want to do a pretty clean dive."

Still the perfect place to be seen, the pool has just resurfaced after a three-month, multimillion-dollar renovation befitting the Pink Palace, which turned 100 last year. "Everything was custom designed to preserve what the hotel represents: the glamour, the stripes, the pink, the green," says renowned designer Adam Tihany, who was responsible for the refresh. "I commissioned a banana-leaf mural, and we created a new umbrella that makes you feel like you're under a banana tree." Service has entered the 21st century.

PHOTOS: 8 Iconic Beverly Hills Hotel Pool Snapshots

Before the remodel, food was not available poolside, and the adjacent Cabana Cafe didn't serve dinner. (Maybe that's why Howard Hughes had staffers leave roast beef sandwiches in the tree outside his cabana late at night.) Now, guests can order the hotel's famed McCarthy Salad while sunbathing, the cafe has been expanded with an open-show kitchen, and the less prestigious upper-level cabanas were replaced by a pool terrace, where dinner will be served starting in the fall. "We're creating one of the most romantic spots in L.A. to dine alfresco," says Tihany, "not just for the bathing-suit crowd, but for people in cashmere and Jimmy Choos."

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