Is Leonardo DiCaprio the Great Gatsby?
He just might be if rumors are to be believed. Also today: News about three of your favorite NBC shows, Ben Affleck mulls his next directing project, and some small bits of casting.
What is Ben Affleck going to do now that he's officially back in Hollywood's good graces? (In related news, a woman known only as "Gigli" was found face down dead in a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike. Detectives suspect she was killed while participating in some particularly violent "Reindeer Games".) Well, he's gonna do his directing thing again, possibly with a project called Replay, a book adaptation that's been floating around for 22 years. The description sounds cheesy then kind of cool then cheesy again:
The dramatic fantasy centers on a 45-year-old man who has a fatal heart attack while trying to prevent the murder of a jogger in New York's Central Park. Instead of going to the great beyond, however, he is stuck in a "replay" of his life beginning at age 18 in Brooklyn. With his knowledge of the future, he changes his life and builds a financial empire, only to die again at age 45. The "replay" continues, however, as he and the murdered jogger fall in love and struggle to break the cycle of their repeating lives
So I like the changing history thing and cyclical fate and whatnot, but falling in love with the jogger and whatnot sounds kind of like that thing that happens in The Lake House? Doesn't it? Anyway, good for Ben for considering breaking out of the Boston crime world. [THR]
VH1 has put a ring on it! Groan, I know. But they have ordered eight episodes of a show called Single Ladies, produced by Queen Latifah. Now I know that when you hear about a show called Single Ladies produced by Queen Latifah you think "Ohhh that kind of 'single' ladies...", but you are wrong. It is about REGULAR single ladies. The show will premiere as a movie and then be turned into a series. It stars Stacey Dash, from Clueless, and D.B. Woodside, a Yale-trained actor who is now on a VH1 show called Single Ladies. [Deadline]
Fall TV progress report! NBC has seen fit to give their new chase show Chase, about chasing, a full-season order. This is a welcome bit of good news for series regular Jesse Metcalfe, who's had a tough go of it lately. NBC has also granted a full season to their always-on-the-brink-of-being-canceled series The Chuck, a show about Chuck. That show just won't ever die! It's good news but not as good news for Undercovers, J.J. Abrams's oddly unwatchable spy show (I think it's the tone? Y'know, is it thriller? Comedy? It needs to be frothier or grittier, the in-between just isn't working), which was asked to deliver four more scripts. So we'll see. The numbers for all of these shows really aren't great, but NBC hasn't got much else. That's just how things are these days. [Variety]
Numbers (I refuse to do that 3) actor David Krumholtz has been cast in Mr. Popper's Penguins. So you could write a headline reading: "Krumholtz to Popper's Penguins" and it would make sense. That's a good bit of news then, I think. Just for the headline. [THR]
Oh heavens. Baz Luhrmann has locked three actors in one of his velvet-draped funhouse bunkers to "workshop" a new script, an adaptation of... The Great Gatsby! Yes, the Moulin Rouge! director and a collaborator have whipped up a new adaption of Lauren Conrad's favorite book and they've thrown some actors in a room together to see if it'll work. The actors? Well. Tobey Maguire as Nick. Rebecca Hall as Daisy. And Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. Blerghhh. I like Hall and DiCaprio, but not in those parts. And Tobey Maguire is... just not who I would cast in that role, or any other role. But, hey, at least it's not, like, Gerard Butler as Gatsby, Jessica Alba as Daisy, and Michael Cera as Nick. Hahahaha. That's actually a fun game. Let's play that game. Come up with the worst possible Great Gatsby casting. How about: Adam Brody as Nick, Matthew McConnaughey as Gatsby, and Katherine Heigl as Daisy. Now you go! [Deadline]