Right before production kicks off, Martin McDonagh‘s highly anticipated Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has improved a remarkably impressive ensemble. The Wrap report on the additions of Peter Dinklage, John Hawkes, and Manchester By the Sea‘s Lucas Hedges, who are to play, in order: a man fancying the picture’s lead (Frances McDormand); said lead’s ex-husband; and said lead’s son.
As previously reported, Three Billboards concerns “a 50-year-old woman whose daughter is murdered and she goes to war with the police in her home town, because she thinks they are more interested in torturing black people than getting justice.” Revealed in the newest update is a bit more about the plot: to shame Ebbing’s police, she “pays for three local billboards lambasting law enforcement officials and goading them into action.” Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell portray the sheriff and “hot-headed protégé,” respectively, while Caleb Landry Jones will appear as a billboard salesman (that combination of actor and role already makes me giggle), and Abbie Cornish plays the role of sheriff’s wife.
With McDonagh’s project seemingly ready to launch, it’s expected that Fox Searchlight and Film4 will release it in 2017.
David Wain‘s A Futile and Stupid Gesture, a biopic concerning National Lampoon co-founder Doug Kenney has, as one would imagine, attracted attention among comedic performers, given its uncommonly intriguing mixture of source material, helmer, and, in the form of Will Forte, star, as evidenced by the latest bit of casting.
A whole bevy of names are coming in: Joel McHale, in a bit of casting befitting Community, is portraying Chevy Chase; Domnhall Gleeson has landed the role of Henry Beard, another of the magazine’s originators; Natasha Lyonne is in talks to appear as “one of the first writers hired at National Lampoon”; John Gemberling (Broad City) is playing John Belushi; Rick Glassman (Undateable) and Jon Daly (Zoolander 2) have been cast as Harold Ramis and Bill Murray, respectively; Seth Green has been set for future mockumentary titan Christopher Guest; Saturday Night Live writer Michael O’Donoghue will be played by Thomas Lennon; and Matt Walsh (Veep) is to be seen as Matty Simmons, who helped advance National Lampoon’s efforts into other mediums. [/Film]
A Futile and Stupid Gesture will roll cameras this month and be distributed by Netflix.
Finally, word from The Wrap has it that Benicio Del Toro and Leonardo DiCaprio are partnering for a crime epic — but only as actor and producer, respectively. Coming to their attention is The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld, an upcoming, T.J. English-penned non-fiction account of Jose Miguel Battle Sr., once a bag man for former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and, later, a CIA-trained soldier participating in Bay of Pigs. Despite that, as history will show, not going well, his saving 28 fellow invaders led to the creation of a Cuban-American mob outfit known as “The Corporation.” Racketeering, murder, and sundry illegalities followed for decades.
Paramount is backing the project alongside DiCaprio’s Appian Way, while David Matthews (Vinyl, Boardwalk Empire) is scripting.