Katherine Heigl Refuses to Die
Not too much happening at this dreary end-of-week. Some good news for actors we like, and also some good news for actors we don't. Everyone loves fairytales these days, especially ones that are live action and self-referential.
Underused actors Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies did good! Their film City Island, which received the audience award at the Tribeca film festival, has found a North American distributor, with the similarly named Anchor Bay ("Have you been to City Island in Anchor Bay? It's beautiful! Julianna Margulies has a house there.") So go run out to your local arthouse in the next few months and see this comedy about familial secrets and lies. Or wait for it on Netflix or whatever like everyone else is doing and go see G.I. Joe instead. No judgments here. [Variety]
Oh for Pete's sake... Katherine Heigl, the outspoken and demanding star of Grey's Anatomy, was supposed to maybe sorta die in last month's season finale episode. But now apparently she's coming back. But will she be a ghost? A fever dream that Meredith has while trying to come up with snappy, poignant ways to narrate the end of her week? Who the hell knows. Sigh. Her friend George is still dead though, cause he got hit by a bus. [THR]
Ace director Mike Mitchell (Sky High, Surviving Christmas) has been tapped to helm Once Upon a Time. The Wicked or Enchanted or whatever else wannabe is about Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty—all married to the Charming Brothers like it was Real Housewives of New Jersey or something—setting out on an adventure when they're husbands go missing. In movie life? That adventure involves slaying beasts and foiling witches. In real life? That adventure involves working two jobs and trying to get your kids to finish high school. See why we need the movies?? [Variety]
Diminutive Oscar-winner Linda Hunt will spend a year or so living dangerously as a regular on that NCIS: LA spin-off about people using the alphabet. She'll play one of those tough but lovable administrators that crime show watchers just love to love. [THR]
Common, who was downright terrible in the downright awful Terminator Salvation thing that came out one time this summer, has landed a lead role opposite Queen Latifah. The movie is called Just Wright and is about a sports doctor who falls in love with a professional basketball player. Sounds pretty dull. One could even say common. [Variety]
Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Elijah Wood, and that bad vampire from Twilight have all signed on for The Experiment, a psychological creeper based on the German original, called Das Experiment (see the difference there?). With a cast of weirdos like that, it's destined to be a total creepfest. Someone get Shelley Duvall outta retirement to play a spooky nurse or the love interest or something. [Variety]