Will Poulter (We’re the Millers) has joined the cast of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s The Revenant alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and (reportedly) Tom Hardy. The movie is based on the Michael Punke novel centering on an 1820s frontiersman on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling. Production begins this fall. [Variety]
Joe Carnahan (The Grey, “The Blacklist”) has had a tough go in the feature film world as his latest movie, Stretch, is currently sitting in limbo, but that isn’t stopping him from moving forward with another project as he’s set to direct Five Against a Bullet for Sony Pictures. The story follows five bodyguards hired to protect a Mexican politician over the course of a contentious election after his father is murdered by a drug cartel. Carnahan is expected to do a little rewriting on the script. [The Wrap]
Breck Eisner (The Crazies) has dropped out of directing The Karate Kid 2, reportedly “due to schedule conflicts”, which most likely has something to do with Sony bringing in Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer being brought in to rewrite the original screenplay by Zak Penn, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris. Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith are both expected back for the sequel. [Deadline]
Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell) is set to adapt Looking for Alaska, the debut novel from “The Fault in Our Stars” author John Green for Paramount with talk of possibly directing. The story centers on 16-year-old Miles Halter, who, after an antiseptic adolescence in Florida, moves to a boarding school in Alabama and learns coming-of-age lessons from his roommate and his beautiful and mysterious best friend, Alaska Young. [Deadline]
