Author: Deadline

Although nobody else could play Paulette Bonafonté quite like her, Jennifer Coolidge went into Legally Blonde with other ideas. While reuniting with her co-stars from the beloved 2001 comedy at Prime Video’s Elle World on Saturday, the Golden Globe winner admitted she “stupidly thought” she was auditioning for the titular role of Elle Woods, which was immortalized by Reese Witherspoon. “Well, you know, I forgot that when we first started filming, I was only 17 years old,” she joked on a panel moderated by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. “No, I was, and so I just can’t believe it. All…

James Bradley, whose nonfiction book Flags Of Our Fathers purportedly documented his father’s role in the iconic WWII photograph of American soldiers raising the stars-and-stripes flag on Iwo Jima became a bestseller and was adapted into a hit 2006 film directed by Clint Eastwood, died June 5. He was 72.

From Leah McKendrick (Scrambled) comes a new rom-com starring heavy hitters in the genre, Nick Robinson (Love, Simon) and Zoey Deutch (Set It Up, Something From Tiffany’s) as well as Nick Offerman, Lukas Gage, Harry Shum Jr., Ciara Bravo, Megan Danso, Toby Sandeman, Spencer Lord, and Gil Bellows. The premise revolves around the tragic death of Jill’s (Deutch) younger sister Isabelle (Bravo) from cystic fibrosis. Struggling through her burgeoning career as a chef in San Francisco with a boss who breathes down his employees’ necks (Offerman), Jill still calls her sister’s old phone number from time to time to give…

EXCLUSIVE: Adeline Rudolph (Mortal Kombat II) is set to star alongside Emily Bader and Logan Lerman in Netflix‘s reboot of rom-com 13 Going on 30, multiple sources tell Deadline. Reps for Netflix declined comment. Rudolph’s role, and the sequel’s logline, are being kept under wraps. Jennifer Garner, who starred in the original film, has returned as executive producer, with production to kick off in Los Angeles in late June, per our sources. Released in 2004 by Columbia Pictures, 13 Going on 30 centers on a 13-year-old girl who magically wakes up as her 30-year-old self and must navigate adulthood while rediscovering who she really…

EXCLUSIVE: Grace Gummer (Love Story) has inked a deal to join Dakota Fanning in Apple TV‘s new thriller series from Alex Cary (A Spy Among Friends, Homeland) and Sony Pictures Television. In the untitled series, Fanning stars as an undercover Treasury agent in a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate, with world-changing political and criminal tentacles, who becomes conflicted between her mission and a belief that her principal target, the heir apparent to all that corrupt power, is at his core a good man and worthy of her love. Gummer will play the series regular role of Juliana, the oldest child of Stellan Skarsgård’s…

EXCLUSIVE: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) and Rudy Pankow (Outer Banks) have inked deals to star in Thud, a supernatural romance from director Mali Elfman (Next Exit), where they’ll respectively play the juicy roles of the Grim Reaper and the Devil. Based on an original screenplay by Noga Pnueli (Meet Cute), Thud watches as the Grim Reaper and the Devil meet cute at a three-day destination wedding, falling in love after colliding at the event, where they’ve each come to sow their own chaos. Set to shoot in Los Angeles with a California tax credit, the film will be…

EXCLUSIVE: Witchcraft Motion Picture Company has set plans to adapt Alone Time, a viral short film by director Rod Blackhurst (Dolly), into a feature film.  Originally directed and produced by Blackhurst and written by David Ebeltoft, Alone Time debuted online in 2012 and has since amassed millions of views across YouTube and Vimeo.  The feature adaptation is being developed by Witchcraft in partnership with Fever Dream, a private equity group that Witchcraft said approached them following the success of original internet IP-driven genre projects like Backrooms and Obsession.  The film follows Ann Saunders, a young New York professional whose carefully…

Turkish director Banu Sıvacı’s film Hear The Yellow swept the board at the 72nd Taormina Film Festival on Sunday, winning best film, director, actor and actress in ex-aequo. This year’s jury was presided over by Jane Campion, who was accompanied by The Piano actress Holly Hunter, costume designer Miyako Bellizzi (Marty Supreme), casting director Francine Maisler (Sinners), director Akinola Davies Jr.(My Father’s Shadow), Amazon MGM Studios Head of Global Marketing, Film, Series Sue Kroll, and Italian star Pietro Castellitto (The Predators). Hear the Yellow, which world premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year, stars Sevla Erdener as a singer who…

In the documentary Amazomania, which just screened at the DC/DOX festival in the nation’s capital, vintage footage shows a Swedish filmmaker and journalist in what appears to be a jungle setting, tying on his worn boots. A machete is suspended within easy reach, its long blade thwacked into a wooden post. Erling Söderström, the filmmaker-journalist, looks into the camera and declares, “We are a large troop of 26 men. Make or break, this is the last attempt to make contact with the Korubo. This has never been done before, that humans enter the Indians’ territory, land that they know very…

EXCLUSIVE: Inanna Sarkis (Maintenance Required) is set for a role alongside Phoebe Dynevor and Patrick Schwarzenegger in Beach Read, 20th Century Studios‘ adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel from Emily Henry, which is shooting this month, sources tell Deadline. Reps for 20th declined comment. We’re told that Sarkis will play Shadi, the best friend of Dynevor’s January. She joins an ensemble that also includes the previously announced Andie MacDowell, Kevin Bacon, Kristin Davis, and Tig Notaro. In Beach Read, idealistic romance novelist January Andrews (Dynevor) and cynical literary fiction writer Augustus “Gus” Everett (Schwarzenegger) — rival authors with dramatically opposing worldviews…