Amy Adams is in talks to join the cast of the Boston-set feature The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, Variety reports. Paramount Pictures is set to distribute the film, which is being directed by David O Russell. The Fighter is based on the true story of Micky Ward, an Irishman who became the lightweight champion of the world. Adams could most recently be seen in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
The German director Wim Wenders has postponed a 3D film on Pina Bausch following the sudden death of the legendary German choreographer last week, The Hollywood Reporter writes. Bausch is credited with having revolutionised modern dance in Germany through her Wuppertal-based dance company. Wenders' Neue Road Movies production company said it would resume discussions on the film, which was to be the first 3D dance movie, after a period of mourning.
Michelle Trachtenberg and Jason Lee have been cast alongside Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in the new Kevin Smith film, Variety reports. The storyline follows the adventures of two police officers on the trail of a Mexican beauty and a money-laundering scheme. Marc Platt is producing for Warner Bros. In a previous incarnation, the film had Robin Williams and James Gandolfini attached to star alongside Sean William Scott and Adam Brody.
India is to get its own Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, with outposts set to open in Mumbai and Hyderbad next year, writes The Hollywood Reporter Asia. The new schools will be run in collaboration with the Bollywood producer Rahul Rawall and the Connecticut-based company Optimus Management. Rawall told the paper that he hopes "to offer the next generation of talented Indian actors the chance to compete globally as the country continues to export more of its films and its stars to the international market". Strasberg is the founder of the fabled Actors Studio in New York whose alumni include Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Robert De Niro.
Universal Studios has reportedly won a bidding war to acquire rights to the classic Atari video game Asteroids. The noted action film producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce a feature-film adaptation of the title, which was first released as an arcade game in 1979. The studio has to create a storyline from scratch for the game, in which a player controls a triangular spaceship in an asteroid field.
The British producer David Thompson has secured the film rights to William Boyd's novel Ordinary Thunderstorms ahead of its September publication. Thompson is developing the adaptation through his Origin Pictures together with his former employer, BBC Films. Boyd will write the screenplay based on his London-set novel about a drug-testing conspiracy in which a man is accused of a crime he didn't commit. Boyd has previously adapted several of his books for the screen and penned the script for the Charlie Chaplin biopic Chaplin, starring Robert Downey Jr.
A Los-Angeles-based property developer, Creative Kingdom, has announced the development of a $650 million (Dh2.4 billion) film studio and residential complex near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. The CNX Movie World Studio will be the first part of the facility to open. It will house eight sound stages as well as workshops, post-production facilities and sound-mixing studios. The new facility is being touted as a way to create a central hub for the fast-growing Asian film industry and will be completed within three years, Variety reports. The development comes as the Thai government looks to increase the number of foreign productions shooting in the country each year. Last year, 56 foreign productions were filmed in Thailand, including Rambo and Street Fighter.
