Barry Levinson is making a new film with 2929 Entertainment called What Just Happened?, and Catherine Keener and Robin Wright-Penn have signed on to provide a desperately needed dose of talent. Why is the situation so desperate? Because the plot centers around a movie producer trying to survive in Hollywood while navigating yet another broken marriage, and the producer is played by Robert De Niro. Sources haven’t confirmed that the film’s title was decided while Levinson and De Niro had dinner to talk about their careers over the last decade, but you can draw your own conclusions.
Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Kristen Stewart, Bruce Willis and Sean Penn (the latter two as themselves) will also appear. Regardless, the idea of Keener and playing second fiddle to an aging DeNiro is so inherently sad that I feel compelled to offer additional news.
Keener has apparently wrapped her work on Spike Jonze’s adaptation (with Dave Eggars co-scripting) of Where The Wild Things are. And her next move, after finishing Levinson’s picture, will be in Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synedoche, New York. There she’ll show up alongside Michelle Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays a theatre director attempting to build a full-scale replica of New York inside a warehouse to use as a set for his new play. Thankfully, knowing Kaufman, that’s not just some kind of metaphor.