Bruce Willis is negotiating to star in the increasingly weird-seeming G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation as Joe Colton, the original Joe. He'd join Dwayne Johnson, Adrianne Palicki, and RZA, and be inexplicably directed by Jon M. Chu, the guy who made the Step Up movies and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Grade: B [HR]
Oren Moverman (The Messenger) is writing and possibly directing The Terrorist Search Engine, a movie based on Wesley Yang's recent New York magazine profile of Evan Kohlmann, a young, Internet-savvy, counter-terrorism expert who earned the nickname "the Doogie Howser of Terrorism" for his testimony leading to the conviction of nearly 24 jihadists. Scott Rudin will produce and Jesse Eisenberg may star ("That's thousand. Twenty-four thousand jihadists"). Grade: A [Deadline]
He flirted with villainhood as a robber in A River Runs Through ItThe River Wild and a dancing miscreant in Footloose, but now Kevin Bacon seems to have fully embraced unlikability: He'll follow his roles as a Nazi in X-Men: First Class and the guy who wrecks Steve Carell's marriage in Crazy, Stupid, Love. with one as the bad guy in Robert Schwentke's (Flightplan, Red) comic-adapted supernatural actioner R.I.P.D., about a murdered cop (Ryan Reynolds) who joins other undead officers in the Rest In Peace Department, then tries to catch the guy who killed him (Bacon, presumably). Grade: B+ [Variety]
Terry Gilliam is developing another movie, this one an adaptation of Paul Auster's highly Gilliam-y novel Mr. Vertigo, about a levitating sideshow performer and the mentor who teaches him to fly. Even Gilliam sounds doubtful that this project will ever advance beyond the screenplay he's writing, but just to be safe, everybody should probably buy more insurance. Grade: B+ [Playlist]
Nicolas Cage hasn't quite paid off that tax bill yet! Following last week's encouraging news that he may appear in Charlie Kaufman's presumably good next movie comes word that he's also in talks to costar with John Cusack in The Frozen Ground, about a serial killer (Cusack) being pursued by an Alaskan state trooper (Cage). Among Ground's producers is Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, who has some experience helping actors settle with the IRS. Grade: C- [Deadline]
In keeping with Hollywood's plan to cast her in pretty much everything (of which we completely approve!), Emma Stone is negotiating to join Ruben Fleischer's Tales From the Gangster Squad as a "a sharp-tongued siren" in a love triangle" with police officer Ryan Gosling and mobster Sean Penn, who is 50. Grade: B- [Variety]
