After Wash Westmoreland’s success with Still Alice (which he co-directed alongside his partner, Richard Glatzer, who sadly died last March), he’s now planning his next movie, a biopic of the French writer and performer Colette, who is best known for penning Gigi. He may now have found the person to play the central role, as Variety reports that Keira Knightley is in talks for the part.
Born in 1873 as Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, when she was 20 Colette married libertine Henry Gauthier-Villars, better known by his nom-de-plume, Willy, who encouraged her to start writing. Together they came up with the semi-autobiographical Claudine novels, which shocked many with their depiction of lesbian desire. Willy also introduced Colette to the intellectual circles of Paris and encouraged her to have same sex affairs (he also didn’t had more this his fair share of lovers).
The marriage didn’t last long and when it ended Colette was thrown into poverty (largely because Willy owned the copyright to her books), but she continued to write, continually using her own life as inspiration. While initially seen as a minor writer whose main attraction was titilation, her reputation grew over her lifetime, especially during the 1920s and 30s, which saw her produce much of her best work. When she died she became the first French female writer to be given a state funeral.
The Best Picture winning Hollywood musical of Gigi was released four years after her death, and helped cement her reputation with an international audience.
It’s not clear whether Westmoreland’s film will cover all of her life or just one period, although it appears it’s her early period they’re most interested in. Bold Films’ Michel Litvak comments, “Keira is impeccably suited to step into the role of the iconic Colette in the early 1900s, who pushed the envelope in a time when women writers were shunned and bisexuality was scandalous. We are honored to bring her story to the big screen.”
The movie will start shooting in Budapest in May, from a screenplay by Westmoreland and Glatzer.
While we’ve had a couple of promos for Disney’s Zootropolis (which in the US is called, Zootopia, but for some reason has a slight name change in the UK), they’ve more been extended clips than anything else. However, we’ve now got a proper trailer as well as some more clips.
Laika has garnered a great reputation thanks to the likes of Coraline, Boxtrolls and ParaNorman. They’re sticking with stop-motion for their next movie, Kubo & The Two Strings, which has just launched a new trailer and some character posters, which you can take a look at below.
It seems The Secret Life of Pets almost wants to be for our pets what Toy Story was for kids playthings, exploring what happens when no one is looking. However, rather than Pixar, this new movie is from the team behind Despicable Me.
For many years, the fluffy-haired trolls were inexplicably popular as everything from keyrings to pencil toppers, despite the fact they were pretty ugly and had no discernible purpose. However that hasn’t stopped Dreamwords Animation deciding it would be worth making a movie based on them.
Ben Baur got plenty of fans thanks to starring in the likes of the popular web series Hunting Season, and he’s also an OUT 100 Honoree. Now though he’s teamed up with friend Thandi Tolmay to co-create an new comedic series, #Adulting, which has just released it first episode.
Although videogame to movie adaptations don’t have a great track record in Hollywood, you’d think Sony would be on to a sure thing with the insanely popular smartphone game Angry Birds. It may not have a strong plot, but the game is full of characters that should work well on the big screen.