Two new Hugh Jackman updates have come our way today. The first is regarding Precious director Lee Daniels‘ next project, Selma. Jackman has joined the film, which chronicles the “historic 1965 march in the Alabama town that marked the political and emotional peak of the civil rights movement.” In an interview with USA Today Lee Daniels confirmed Jackman is the only cast member locked. Robert De Niro was previously rumored. The film is still scheduled for a May shoot, but that makes Jackman pretty busy as he is shooting the comedy Avon Man next month, the robot-boxing movie Real Steel this summer and the sequel to Wolverine in January, which we have more details on below. Read the full story

Although it was reported that Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn’s next project may be The Dying of the Light with Harrison Ford, it looks like he has found something else. Empire (via The Playlist) spoke with the director today and he said:

Hopefully [my] next is a movie with Ryan Gosling at a studio in America. It’s called ‘Drive,’ and it’s about a stuntman by day, a getaway driver by night.

If this project sounds familiar it is because The Descent director Neil Marshall was signed on to direct Hugh Jackman almost two years ago, but the production never got started. Now that it’s back on track with Nicolas Winding Refn, I couldn’t be more excited. The James Sallis novel of the same name follows “a stuntman who’s already-exciting existence is jolted when he discovers that a contract has been put out on his life.”

Check out the full novel synopsis below via Amazon:

I drive. That’s what I do. All I do.” So declares the enigmatic Driver in this masterfully convoluted neo-noir, which ranges from the dive bars and flyblown motels of Los Angeles to seedy strip malls dotting the Arizona desert. A stunt driver for movies, Driver finds more excitement as a wheelman during robberies, but when a heist goes sour, a contract is put on his head and his survival skills burn up the pavement. Author of the popular six-novel series set in New Orleans featuring detective Lew Griffin (The Long-Legged Fly, etc.) and such stand-alone crime novels as Cypress Grove, Sallis won’t disappoint fans who enjoy his usual quirky literary stylings. Reading a crime paperback, Driver covers “a few more lines till he fetched up on the word desuetude. What the hell kind of word was that?” Lines such as “Time went by, which is what time does, what it is” provide the perfect existential touch. In this short novel, expanded from his story in Dennis McMillan’s monumental anthology Measures of Poison, Sallis gives us his most tightly written mystery to date, worthy of comparison to the compact, exciting oeuvre of French noir giant.

Winding Refn was also attached to the Keanu Reeves-starring Jekyll, a Gore Verbinksi-produced heist film and the neo-Western Only God Forgives, set in Bangkok. The word that he will be directing Drive comes straight from his mouth, so expect it to be his next project. I loved Bronson and need to see Valhalla Rising again to fully appreciate it, but I look forward to anything Refn does.

Do you like Nicolas Winding Refn? Would you like to see him direct Drive?

Today we have new information on the casting of two upcoming projects. The first comes from Joe Johnston’s Captain America. In an interview with SCI FI Wire, Johnston talked about how we will know the actors for the film soon:

“We need to cast it soon,” Johnston said. “We have a very short list, but we’re still juggling actors here. I’d say within the next couple of weeks we’ll have ourselves a Captain America, I hope.”

Production will start in the UK this June for a July 22, 2011 release date.

The next story comes from the Hugh Jackman project, Real Steel, directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum). The sci-fi sports film is budgeted around a modestly $80 million. Check out the press release from Dreamworks below, regarding the open casting call.

DreamWorks Studios has launched a nationwide casting search to fill a lead role in its upcoming movie “Real Steel,” it was announced today by DreamWorks Studios.

Actors interested in the role have two ways to audition. Beginning immediately, individuals can submit a videotaped audition through RealSteelcasting.com. Complete instructions are available on the website.

Additionally, two open call auditions will be held starting on Sunday, February 14, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois and then on Saturday, February 20, 2010 in New York, New York. No acting experience is necessary for interested actors, nor are they required to prepare anything for the audition.

Role to be cast is ‘Max’: Male, 10-14 years old. He’s a street-smart, tough, charming kid with a hard, untrusting outer shell which hides a warm enthusiastic spirit beneath. He is a complicated, strong-willed and resourceful boy.

Details on the open call auditions are as follows:

CHICAGO
Sunday, February 14, 2010
11:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Chicago Academy of the Arts
1010 W Chicago Street
Chicago, IL 60642-5490
(Parking behind building)

NEW YORK
Saturday, February 20, 2010
11:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Shetler Studios
244 West 54th Street
12th Floor
New York, NY 10019-5515

Complete details on the auditions are available at RealSteelcasting.com. All videotape submissions will become the property of Dreamworks Studios and will not be returned.

The new sport of robot-boxing is the backdrop for the sports drama “Real Steel” about a former boxer (Hugh Jackman) who gets one last shot at the title when he teams up with his long-lost son (‘Max’) to train a unique robot for the upcoming Real Steel World Championship. Film is being directed by Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”) and produced by Don Murphy, Susan Montford and Shawn Levy. Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke, Steve Starkey, Josh McLaglen, and Mary McLaglen are all executive producing. John Gatins has written the script.

Are you excited for these projects? Who would you like to see cast?

The Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post has reported today that Hugh Jackman will be playing the male lead in Wayne Wang’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Also joining the cast is Jeon Ji-Hyun and Li Bingbing (The Forbidden Kingdom) who has replaced Zhang Ziyi. Read the full story

After successfully securing nearly $825 in financing from J.P. Morgan, Reliance Pictures and Disney, DreamWorks is going forward with the sci-fi sports tale Real Steel directed and produced by Shawn Levy and starring Hugh Jackman in the leading role. The sci-fi sports epic will be produced on a mere $80 million budget — significantly less than most studio sci-fi films produced recently.

Real Steel is one of 17 projects that Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider retained in the split with Paramount in 2008. The Richard Matheson short story is a continuation of Spielberg’s work with projects involving humanistic robots — A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and Transformers to name a few.

Jackman will play promoter and manager to a struggling robot in a world where boxing matches are no longer decided by feats of strength and heart — Boxers in this world have been replaced by boxing robots. Much of the heart of the story is based on the father-son relationship that develops with the 11-year-old son that Jackman discovers, however on the surface it’s described as a “rousing sports movie.”

Production is set to begin in June 2010 with a 2011 release.

Is a $80 million budget enough for a large studio sci-fi release?

Source: Variety

UPDATE: It looks like WAMG had a bad source. It was announced last night that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will be hosting the Academy Awards.

Last night /Film reported that previous Oscar host Hugh Jackman would not be continuing his role for the 2010 ceremonies. Well, no sooner has it just been revealed via We Are Movie Geeks that Neil Patrick Harris will be taking over. Jackman has said he would consider coming back in the future, but did not want to host two years in a row. Read the full story

While at the Teen Choice Awards Hugh Jackman said, during an acceptance speech, that work has begun on the sequel to this year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and said what many have assumed would happen with the sequel – namely Japan. This is, of course, related to the fan-favorite four issue story arc written by Frank Miller and illustrated by Chris Claremont.

Jackman’s words vaguely alluded to some possible specifics. While holding his surfboard [award given out at the show], Jackman said, “Who knows, maybe Wolverine will use one of these when he heads to Japan.” This has been speculated for a long time, but this feels like a cementing of the rumors that have been swirling prior even to the Wolverine’s release this past May. It’s expected that this movie will further follow the character of Logan’s development into the character of Wolverine we saw in the first X-Men.

This isn’t really much of a surprise, but who really wants a Wolverine sequel? The movie received poor reviews upon release and didn’t receive much of an enthusiastic response from die-hard fans of the comic books either, the general audience came out and the film  did well at the box office, so of course 20th Century Fox wants a sequel. I’m actually just a little hopeful because the Wolverine in Japan storyline is one of the more well-praised stories for the character so maybe something good can come of a sequel. Maybe.

What do you think of a sequel to Wolverine, and of basing it on the Japan storyline?

Source: MTV Splash Page, CHUD

Remember late last year when 20th Century Fox’s PR department hilariously went into overdrive before the opening of Australia to assure the world that Hugh Jackman was, in fact, a slab of total man-beef but in a completely 100% heterosexual way?

Well now that both Australia and X-Men Origins: Wolverine have opened, who cares?!

Variety is reporting that Fox has inked a deal for Jackman to star in The Greatest Showman on Earth, an original musical based on the life of entertainer and entrepreneur P.T. Barnum. The film is scripted by Jenny Bicks (Sex and the City) and produced by Laurence Mark (Dreamgirls), both of whom previously worked with Jackman on the 2009 Oscars. Pop singer Mika is in negotiations to write the music and the filmmakers are writing the female lead with Anne Hathaway in mind.

This is the second musical Jackman is hoping to recruit Hathaway for. His big screen version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel, a sure contender for world’s most depressing musical, is being set up at Fox 2000.

Are you ready to see Tony-award winning Jackman take his singing to the silver screen?

While I did get to interview with 20th Century FOX CEO Tom Rothman, he was of course very vague about some of the studio’s upcoming films, but the details he gave me were rather interesting.

Read the interview >>

Variety reports Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, and Robert Pattison will star in a period drama titled Unbound Captives. The film will be the directorial debut of Madeleine Stowe, who wrote the script with her husband Brain Benben in the earlier 90’s. Production will start at the end of the year with the great cinematographer John Toll (The Thin Red Line, The Last Samurai) on board. Hyde Park Entertainment is set to produce.

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