Josh Duhamel is set to pair with Katherine Heigl in Life As We Know It, for Warner Bros. Project follows two unattached adults whose worlds are turned upside down when
their mutual best friends die in an accident and name them as
caregivers of their orphaned daughter. Heigl and her mother, Nancy Heigl, are exec producing with Greg Berlanti (Eli Stone) directing. Duhamel was recently seen in Transformers: revenge of the Fallen and has Mark Steven Johnson’s When In Rome with Kristen Bell upcoming. Heigl is currently starring in The Ugly Truth with Gerard Butler and will be returning to Grey’s Anatomy in the fall.
Jennifer Aniston is gearing up for Goree Girls for Grey Gardens helmer Michael Sucsy. Girls tells the true story of an all-female country band in a Texas prison in the 1940s. Aniston will also be producing through her Echo Films banner with Overnight Productions for DreamWorks. Sucsy will polish the most recent draft by John Lee Hancock, who polished an original by Margaret Nagle based on a 2003 Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth.
His story was about the eight women who formed one of the first
all-girl C&W acts in the country, became a public favorite and were
eventually pardoned. Production begins in January 2010.
Adam Beach (Windtalkers) will join “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in Stranger, an action vehicle for the former wrestler to be directed by Rob Lieberman. The man-on-the-run story follows an FBI agent (Beach) who is
tracking down a material witness (Austin) involved in a top-secret
investigation. Erica Cerra, best known from the SyFy series, Eureka, who also is
cast in Fox’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning
Thief, will play a psychiatrist involved in the case. Austin has previously worked with producers Nasser Entertainment Group and Caliber Media on Damage, a bare-knuckles fight film which will be out next year. Beach also has Warrior, a coming of age drama, upcoming.
via THR.com
Jason Segel will be joining Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman in the comedy, The Adventurer’s Handbook. Akiva Schaffer
is directing for Universal. Hill, Matt Spicer and Max Winkler wrote the script, about four
childhood friends who are bored with the monotony of their lives
and embark on a global adventure inspired by the stories of
explorers detailed in Mick Conefrey’s book The Adventurer’s
Handbook: Life Lessons From History’s Great Explorers. In the project, Segel would play a talented musician who never got his act
together, becoming a backup piano player and an alcoholic; Hill
plays an engineer, isolated from his family; Schwartzman is a
spoiled and cowardly three-time Grammy winner. Segel, the star of How I Met Your Mother, also has Gulliver’s Travels upcoming. Production on Handbook is slated for early next year.
Carla Gugino will reteam with director Zack Snyder on his upcoming Sucker Punch. Gugino joins Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Jena
Malone, and Abbie Cornish star in the 1950s-set tale of a girl
(Browning) confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather,
who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. She and her
friends enter an alternate reality where they begin planning an
escape. Gugino is playing Mrs. Schultz, an adult figure in the
institution. Gugino also has Our Lady of Victory pending. Shooting begins in the fall in Vancouver.
Alyssa Milano’s pilot, Romantically Challenged is nearing pickup from ABC. The Alphabet is leaning toward a mid-season, 13-episode order for the Warner Bros. series, which centers
on a thirtysomething man who is torn between his new girlfriend and
needy best friend.
The pilot, which was shot in the spring, was a serious contender
for a berth on ABC’s fall schedule, with female lead Milano getting
strong buzz for her performance. Milano will play the girlfriend of the main character.
Finally, Paula Abdul is leaving American Idol after eight seasons after failing to come to a salary agreement with the show’s producers. Psychiatric consultation is pending.
via the Internet