Although he’s a bit of a love him or loath him figure to some, Aaron Sorkin has made an incredible name for himself as a screenwriter (Jobs, The Social Network) and on TV (The West Wing, The Newsroom), but it’s only now that he’s planning to turn director. Variety reports that Sorkin is teeing-up Molly’s Game as his directorial debut.
He’s actually been involved in a film version of Molly Bloom’s memoir for over a year, as he signed up to write the screenplay in November 2014. Now though he’s hoping to direct as well, with Danny Boyle having vacated the director’s chair.
Molly’s Game is set in the world of high-stakes poker, with the story following Bloom who ‘was a top-tier skier who headed to Los Angeles after not qualifying for the Olympics and became an an organizer of underground poker games for Hollywood players including Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire before being arrested by the FBI.’
Her downfall was getting involved (or according to her pressured) by the wrong people, including the Mafia who wanted a slice of the action after she moved from LA to New York, as well as turning what was a lucrative but legal operation into something that was classed as illegal gambling, after she started taking a cut of the pot rather than just relying on tips. It’s not known when the film about her will be released.
It was Carol and Bridge Of Spies that had most to celebrate yesterday with the news that they each scored nine BAFTA nominations. It was widely expected Carol would do well, although Spielberg’s Bridge Of Spies cetainly did better than many expected it to going into the awards season.
It’s just four months until Disney hopes that turning another one of its classic movies live-action will pay off at the box office. This time it’s The Jungle Book that’s being revamped, with Jon Favreau directing and the likes of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Scarlett Johansson, Giancarlo Esposito and Christopher Walken providing the voices of the animals.
After the massive success of The Conjuring, it’s no surprise that we’re getting a sequel. However it’s taken a while for it to be ready – so long that we’ve had time for the spin-off Annabelle in the meantime – but now we have a trailer for The Conjuring 2, which moves the action to Britain.
A few weeks ago a teaser trailer for the much anticipated High-Rise dropped, but it didn’t show us too much of the movie, instead coming across as a faux promotional video for the retro-futuristic building referred to in the title. Now a more traditional teaser has arrived, suggesting this will be a bizarre but incredibly eye-catching movie.
After the third Transformers movie, Michael Bay said he was done directing the franchise. However, then Paramount promised to fund his passion project, Pain & Gain, if he came back for a fourth outing. But according to Bay, that was definitely it.
Poor old Jeremy Renner, in everything from Avengers to Mission: Impossible it’s looked like he’s been on the verge of being handed his own massive franchise, only to end up slightly on the edge. Now it’s happening with the Bourne franchise, as rather than him starring in the planned follow-up to Bourne Legacy, Matt Damon is returning alongside director Paul Greengrass for Bourne 5.