Brad Pitt is interested in producing and possibly starring in “Lost City of Z,” a David Grann manuscript about the search for a lost city in the Amazon, with Brad Pitt’s Plan B shingle.  

You know I can actually see Pitt doing this film because take a read and see what it’s about:

According to Variety, Grann’s forthcoming nonfiction book concerns British explorer Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett, who was attempting to find the so-called City of Z when he and his party disappeared in 1925. Over the next 70 years, scores of explorers tried and failed to retrace Fawcett’s path, including a 1996 expedition of Brazilian adventurers. Pitt would play Fawcett.

When Pitt expressed interest in starring as well as producing, “Lost City of Z,” Paramount moved quickly to buy it. Par previously optioned Grann’s New Yorker article “City of Water.”

Pitt has been a busy actor. He has two films awaiting release: the Coen brothers’ “Burn After Reading,” which Focus Features will open in September, and David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which Par will open in December. He is also attached to star in “The Fighter” for the studio. As a producer, Pitt’s next film is Rachel McAdams-Eric Bana starrer “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” set for release in November.

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Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren are starring together in “The Last Station,” wonderful combination, which starts shooting April 7 in Germany. They replace previously announced Anthony Hopkins and Meryl Streep in the roles of Tolstoy and his wife, Sofia.

Other key cast include James McAvoy, great actor, and Paul Giamatti. The film, based on Jay Parini’s 1990 novel, explores the turbulent final year in the life of the Russian writer and philosopher and his troubled marriage. According to Variety, Giamatti plays Tolstoy’s trusted follower Chertkov, a supporter of the writer’s nonviolent socialist Christian movement who becomes Sofia’s cunning adversary, while McAvoy plays a naive private secretary sent by Chertkov to work for Tolstoy. British actress Anne-Marie Duff, who is married to McAvoy, stars as Tolstoy’s daughter Sasha.  

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Ray Romano is coming back to television, TNT to be exact. He will star in “Men of a Certain Age.”  Romano and Mike Royce wrote the show together and will executive produce. “Men” is about three men in their 40’s who have been friends since college. Now, together they are going through midlife crises, kind of like the movie “Sideways.” Looks like the show won’t arrive any sooner than 2009. Variety offers specifics to the show: Romano will play Joe, a neurotic divorced dad who hoped to become a pro golfer but now owns a party store. His two best friends are a stressed-out car salesman-dad and an aspiring actor.  

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“One Big Happy,” a comic idea from “Party of Five” creators Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman to which Steve Martin and Diane Keaton are attached to star, is coming to the big screen folks.  I’d love to see Keaton and Martin together, again. They were great in “Father of the Bride,” although I am not partial to remakes. The story is hush-hush, but Variety describes “One Big Happy” as a family comedy about a couple and a family reconnecting amid various obstacles. The material is a strong match for Martin and Keaton. Keaton was last seen in the comedies “Mama’s Boy” and “Mad Money.” Martin next stars in “Pink Panther 2.”  

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Today, Warner Brothers sent out a cool online 3D poster for the upcoming Speed Racer movie.  Similar posters have also begun popping up in local theaters, but you don’t actually have to go there to check it out.  They’ve put together a neat online version, which allows you to click and drag your mouse back and forth across the poster to see the 3D effect in action.  You can check it out here.

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Please go to MovieZen and find out more about “21.” Kevin Spacey stars in this fact-based film about MIT students playing the odds.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE ESTIMATE
Mar. 28 - Mar. 30
Weekend Box Office
1. 21                                                                       $23,700,000
2. Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!                        $17,400,000
3. Superhero Movie                                                $9,500,000
4. Meet the Browns                                                $7,800,000
5. Drillbit Taylor                                                     $5,800,000
6. Shutter                                                                $5,300,000
7. 10,000 BC                                                           $4,900,000
8. Stop-Loss                                                            $4,500,000
9. College Road Trip                                               $3,500,000
10. The Bank Job                                                     $2,800,000

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Will the success of the patchy but watchable Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles start a trend of U.S. TV networks adapting films into TV series? The answer seems to be yes.

Sci Fi Wire are reporting that David Eick, exec producer on Bionic Woman (which has been gladly cancelled), is writing a pilot for a TV series of Children of Men. You may remember the Alfonso Cuaron directed and Clive Owen starring science fiction film of last year, in which a man attempts to rescue the last pregnant woman on the planet. It did reasonably well in theatres and is becoming quite the cult classic.

Eick’s script will not, however, be an extension of the feature film, but rather will revert back to the source novel, written by PD James, a member of UK Parliament. The TV series, if made, will deal with the political and social upheaveal that was left in the background for Cuaron’s movie.

It’s an interesting idea for a series- the charting of a dystopia which collapses when the human species becomes infertile. However, what made Children of Men (the movie) so enjoyable was the excellent direction, in which the extended action sequences were shot in one, complex take, maximising the tension. A TV series could never be as ambitious.

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Recently we lost a great actor, Richard Widmark, of such great movies as “The Street With No Name,” “Road House,” “Yellow Sky,” “Down to the Sea in Ships,” “Slattery’s Hurricane,” “Panic in the Streets,” “No Way Out,” “The Halls of Montezuma,” “The Frogmen,” “Red Skies of Montana,” “My Pal Gus” and the Samuel Fuller film noir “Pickup on South Street.”

Widmark always appeared so calm in front of the camera, so sure of himself as a bad guy.  No matter what role he took, it was superbly performed. The last movie I saw him in was “Against All Odds,”  a favorite film of mine that includes the late, great Jane Greer.

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Maria Bello looks to be taking over for Maggie Gyllenhaal in Rebecca Miller’s adaptation of her novel “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.” Gyllenhaal had hoped to complete her portion in the ensemble cast within two weeks in Connecticut, playing star Robin Wright Penn’s mother in several flashback sequences. But when the new scheduling stretched out her shoot she had to bow out and return to her newborn and husband in the U.K.

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Judy Greer, Chloe Sevigny, Cybill Shepherd and Billy Dee Williams are set to star with Patrick Wilson in dark romantic comedy “Barry Munday.”According to Hollywood Reporter, Wilson plays the title character, a womanizer who gets attacked, loses his testicles and discovers that a brief fling with a woman (Greer) he can’t remember has led to a paternity suit.That really sounds like a dark comedy.Sevigny plays the woman’s flirtatious sister, who has a secret life and no compunctions about coming on to Munday. Shepherd plays their mother, and Williams is cast as the tough boss at Munday’s insurance company

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