What is Casting Couch? It’s the same casting news roundup that it’s always been, but today Cannes started up, so it’s got a little extra juice. Christoph Waltz, Bradley Cooper, Michelle Williams, Joel Edgerton: they’re all in here. Seeing as Jon Favreau made more money than science knew existed with his two installments of the Iron Man franchise, he’s basically the kind of director who now has the power to do anything he wants in the film industry. So it was kind of refreshing to hear that what he wanted to do was make a simple indie movie called Chef about a chef who falls on hard times and tries to make his comeback by opening a food truck. But now Variety has reported that he’s gone and hired Scarlett Johansson to play his love interest in the movie, and suddenly his motivations don’t appear to be all that down to Earth. Johansson is an underrated actress and will probably be fine in the film, but—come on! Try to not let all of that power go to your head, Mr. Favreau. We’re watching.

Short Starts presents a weekly short film(s) from the start of a filmmaker or actor’s career. With the role of Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby, actor Joel Edgerton continues his rise in stardom. He even has a couple of character posters to show for his fame. Long before he was embodying a character from classic American literature, though, and long before he was hunting Osama Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty and fighting his brother in The Warrior and even playing Darth Vader’s stepbrother in the Star Wars prequels, he was a regular figure in the short subjects scene. We can thank part of this on his nationality, as Australia is a great country for short films (it’s home of Tropfest, after all). On top of that, he came up through the film collective known as Blue-Tongue Films, alongside his writer/director/stuntman brother Nash (who is Joel’s double in Gatsby) and filmmakers David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) and Spencer Susser (Hesher). Joel made his film debut in Blue-Tongue’s first work, a nine-minute film from 1996 titled Loaded, which is directed by Nash with writer Kieran Darcy-Smith. I thought about simply posting that early baby-faced short start from the actor, but seeing as he’s in so many shorts, most of which are online, I’ve sampled five of his first appearances after the jump, two of which aren’t Blue-Tongue productions, all of which feature Joel pre-beard and pre-bulk. 

Okay, movies, we get it now. We shouldn’t go on vacation anymore, it only seems to lead to sex, drugs, criminal trouble, and death. What’s that, you say? That was only Spring Breakers? There are plenty of wholesome vacation-based films to enjoy out there? Fine, why don’t you go ahead and just book my ticket straight to Kieran Darcy-Smith‘s Wish You Were Here then? Ah, gotcha! Looks like there is nothing but sex, drugs, criminal trouble, and death in that one, too! Of course, the new film from Blue-Tongue Films members Darcy-Smith (who co-wrote the film with star Felicity Price) is very, very different than Harmony Korine’s latest opus, but it still will keep us away from beach vacations for quite awhile. The film features rising star Joel Edgerton as Price’s husband, Teresa Palmer as her sister, and Antony Starr as Palmer’s new boyfriend, with the four heading off on a Southeast Asian trip that ends in tragedy. Turns out, four might leave on that trip, but only three return, with Price, Edgerton, and Palmer forced home after Starr goes missing in a very peculiar fashion. Just what is going on here? While we can’t tell just yet (this one is definitely twisty), it certainly looks like Edgerton might need to retain a lawyer ASAP. Stay in the safety of your own home, in your own town, far away from tropical beaches and debauchery, and check out the first trailer for Wish You Were Here after the break.

The Jane Got a Gun news just does not stop around here. Just a day after original director Lynne Ramsay exited the project in spectacular fashion and mere hours after Warrior helmer Gavin O’Connor stepped in to direct, newly-minted lead Jude Law has now left the film. Deadline Hollywood reveals that Law has “formally withdrawn from the film. It is because he signed on to work with Ramsay, best known for the edgy drama We Need To Talk About Kevin.” Law only recently came on board the project after Michael Fassbender dropped out and Ramsay reportedly reshuffled other leading man Joel Edgerton into a different role to fill the gap. Edgerton will likely stick around, as he has a positive working relationship with O’Connor after their Warrior. Ramsay has still not commented on the situation.

A fair amount of critics are touting Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty as her masterpiece. While Bigelow has definitely directed films in her decades of filmmaking that are comparable to the overall quality of Zero Dark Thirty, it is great that between this and her Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, she is getting the acclaim that she deserves. What does set Zero Dark Thirty apart from the rest of the Kathryn Bigelow oeuvre is that is a far more deliberate and slower paced film that her others. At about two-and-a-half hours, it includes only perhaps two or three major “action/suspense” scenes, which are all impeccably executed in her usual fashion. Mostly, however, the film follows the mental unraveling and rise to power of CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) as she follows a seemingly-circumstantial hunch, which results in her looking over Osama bin Laden’s body bag. The film certainly is successful in what it sets out to do. Through Chastain’s Maya, it is a more nuanced study of the disappointments of losing the war on terror against Al Qaeda and then fighting back, resulting in less of a fist pump of exultation, but more of a quiet recognition of accomplishment.

If there’s one thing our culture never gets tired of, it’s tabloid news. Taking a promising young pretty person, anointing them with almost mythic stature, and then feasting on their misery like psychic vampires when they eventually succumb to scandal and fall from grace…that’s the name of the game! Seeing as the new trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby sticks pretty closely to this formula, and presents things with the flashy, kinetic visual style that the director has become famous for, chances are it’s going to do a good job of selling this story to a wider audience than was willing to read Fitzgerald’s novel in their high school English class. When it was first announced that Luhrmann was going to be tackling material as generally dry as Gatsby, and filming it in 3D no less, the entire notion seemed kind of absurd. But after watching this trailer, it starts to make a bit of sense. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is getting what he wants by entering and mastering a world of artifice. The main drama in the story is generally concerned with who’s sleeping with who. Plus, this is a period piece that affords its director the opportunity to stage several lavish parties. All of that isn’t too far off from what Luhrmann has already done with Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!

How awkward that the first piece of marketing for Baz Luhrmann‘s still-ludicrously-3D take on F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s most famous work to strike any sort of literary chord is this brand new batch of character posters for The Great Gatsby.Featuring the film’s six principle stars (that’s Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan, Isla Fisher as Myrtle Wilson, and Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker), each crisply-designed poster features a quote from the novel about their respective characters. What an idea! Using text to illuminate a new adaptation of a text. Drop the 3D, Baz, this stuff is what looks good. After the break, brush up on your high school lit, and meet Daisy, Nick, Jordan, Tom, and Myrtle.

What is Casting Couch? It’s the roundup of casting news that knows what Gillian Jacobs is going to be doing with her upcoming break from Community. All that time in the bushes finally paid off. Most people probably thought Wild Things director John McNaughton’s career hit its zenith when he directed Wild Things. That movie was basically the most ’90s thing ever, and it practically introduced the concept of the three-way to the square community through the communicative power of Denise Richards’ boobs. He may yet top that work though, because Deadline reports that he’s just recruited the best actor in the world, Michael Shannon, to star in his upcoming thriller The Harvest. The film will star Samantha Morton as a successful heart surgeon and Shannon as her co-dependent husband. Its conflict comes in when their sick son meets a new friend, and suddenly the very controlled routine that Morton’s character has created starts to break down. Sounds like a creepy mom.

Sure, this latest trailer for Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty is a lot of things: cool, collected, awesome, awesome, exciting, cool all over again, bold, vibrant, but it’s also dominated by one overwhelming force that encompasses all those adjectives. Jessica Chastain. Did we somehow miss that this film, Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal‘s true life take on the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, was really The Chastain Show? Looks like it, and we’ve already got our ticket in hand. Check out the latest Zero Dark Thirty trailer after the break.

Not only is Joel Edgerton a burgeoning star who looks like he’s on the brink of big things in the acting world, he’s also a creative type who’s been writing scripts and directing shorts for a while. So it should come as no surprise that the upcoming thriller, Felony, has his name on its credits as both the writer and the star. As we learned back in May, Felony is being directed by Matthew Saville (Noise) and will star Edgerton as a generally good officer of the law who makes a big mistake followed by a big moral compromise when his driving home drunk leads to an accident and then his lying about it. As it does in most thrillers, one decision bereft of morality inevitably leads to a downward spiral of very bad things. Seeing as the film is set to go in front of cameras in late October, the time to fill out the rest of the cast is nigh, and Saville has got himself off to a great start by bringing the experienced and exceptional Tom Wilkinson into the fold. Wilkinson, of course, is a veteran name who’s been working regularly since the early ’80s, but most recently you’ve seen him in joints like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Conspirator, and The Ghost Writer. Here he’ll be playing the role of Detective Carl Summer, the police investigator who arrives on the scene following the Edgerton character’s accident.

The trailer for Baz Luhrmann‘s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby was all kinds of flashy and promising, so when the news of the film’s Christmas release getting scrapped broke, it seemed as if the Oscar contender wasn’t exactly the awards picture everyone was making it out to be. Warner Bros. stated the release shift was only a matter of reaching the biggest audience possible, but if they really felt that confident in their 3D Luhrmann Fest, it’s doubtful the film would’ve had a difficult time reaching a broad audience come Christmas. Now, we’ve received news which raises questions over whether Warners was one hundred percent truthful with their reasoning. Luhrmann is currently seeking outside funds to “complete” the film, with Warner Bros. unwilling to sink any more cash into the $127m project. Luhrmann is attempting to privately raise funds for both additional reshoots and to polish the film’s substantial amount of effects.

Though he’s primarily known for the recent acting work he’s done in movies like Warrior and Animal Kingdom, Joel Edgerton is a man who’s been on the scene for a while, and not just as an actor, but as a writer too. As a matter of fact, the next project he has on his plate is a film called Felony, that he both wrote the screenplay for and is set to star in. Not much is yet known about the film, except that it’s about a decorated police officer who runs a cyclist off the road while driving intoxicated and then lies about it, and it’s going to be directed by fellow Australian Matthew Saville. Given Edgerton’s ability to work both as a performer and as a creator, one has to wonder if he’s ever considered taking that extra step and trying to direct a film as well as write and star in it. Well, it turns out he has. While he was doing some press for his current job, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, Cinema Blend asked the actor if he ever wanted to try his hand at sitting in the director’s chair, and he had this to say, “Yeah, absolutely! I’ve got plans to do that. There’s something that I want to make, if I can, next year.”

A loving couple who are unable to bear their own children imagine all the wonderful traits their offspring would possess and, drunk on equal parts wine and heartbreak, write down those traits, tuck them in a box, and bury them in their garden. It’s their attempt to finally lay to rest their dreams of having a little one, and it’s meant to be the final word on their journey to parenthood. And then something apparently magical happens, and their box (coupled with some suspect rain) sprouts into, of all things, a child. Their child, who emerges from the ground, muddy and plucky and school-aged (and sprouting leaves), sneaks into their house (and bed), and changes every single element of their lives. If The Odd Life of Timothy Green was edited even a smidgen differently, it would be one heck of a horror film. However, Peter Hedges‘ Timothy Green comes to us from Walt Disney Pictures and, in the vein of their non-animated family features like Enchanted, The Princess Diaries, and The Parent Trap, it’s a sudsy outing that hammers home all manner of sterling bits of life advice and will (at the very least) serve to entertain the entire family. It’s also absolutely bizarre, insane to the point that the “story by Ahmet Zappa” credit starts making sense within the film’s first ten minutes.

It’s in the title – The Odd Life of Timothy Green is, well, odd. But it is those oddities and the unexpected twists and turns that make this story memorable. Timothy (CJ Adams) is not your average child so bringing this character and his world to life required composer Geoff Zanelli to think outside of the box. Organic materials like dirt, wood, and leaves (of course) play a big part in not just Timothy, but all the character’s lives (and their futures) so it is no surprise that Zanelli took a more stripped down and inventive approach when creating the music for this film. Zanelli’s score is both magical and jaunty, much like Timothy himself, and creates a unique texture that helps make some of the more “out there” moments of the film still feel grounded in real emotion. I spoke with Zanelli about how he approached creating this score, what inspired him throughout the process, and what went in to creating music that sounded both familiar and new.

Forgive me if you disagree, but I can still see no earthly reason why Baz Luhrmann thinks that his take on F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby needs to be in 3D. And while the film’s first trailer should change that, should remove doubts about that pesky extra dimension, this one simply doesn’t. It’s classic Luhrmann in this new look – the energy, the colors, the splash, the spectacle, even the modern music over a classic story (cue Jay-Z and Kanye West) – and that should be enough to put the film in front of fresh eyes, but clearly the filmmaker doesn’t think so. Unfortunately, the effect of 3D made flat (and for computer viewing) means that all those big, clearly show-stopping shots come across with an air of fraudulence. It just doesn’t look real, even for Luhrmann and his trademark style. It’s also fairly obvious from this trailer alone the sort of shots Luhrmann will linger on to make the best use of his 3D – falling confetti, the swirl of a falling shirt, the curl of cigarette smoke, the swing of a polo mallet, and that’s all well and good, but it still feels remarkably pointless. Perhaps his cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, and Joel Edgerton, will breathe some life into the circus. Remember that real life is in 3D and love is blindness, and watch the first trailer for The Great Gatsby after the break.

Last we heard, hot commodities Jessica Chastain and Joel Edgerton were set to star as a married couple in Ned Benson‘s very ambitious double feature, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, but despite that official announcement back in February, it appears that Edgerton is out and James McAvoy is now in. Another press release from Myriad Pictures announces that McAvoy will now play the male lead in Benson’s perspective-bending marital dramas, with Chastain still a go to play the female lead. Benson (In Defiance of Gravity) has written both scripts and will also direct both films. Eleanor Rigby is an extreme case of using two perspectives to tell one story, as Benson wasn’t satisfied with making just one movie split between narrators, he’s now crafted two entirely different films to be told by each character. The films will be officially titled The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her. The plot of the films centers on McAvoy and Chastain’s couple, a married pair in New York City, and how they deal “with an emotional, life-altering experience, from the two different perspectives of the husband, Conor, a restaurant owner, and of the wife, Eleanor, who goes back to college.” While there’s no indication of just what that life-altering experience is, the film is also billed specifically as a love story, so take from that what you will. Of course, the title could be totally goddamn literal and Chastain could be named after a Beatles song and she

Aussie multi-hyphenate Joel Edgerton has a full plate (we will next see him in The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Great Gatsby, and Zero Dark Thirty orwhateveritiswerecallingitnow), but that’s not stopping him from expanding his resume to continue to include writing and directing ventures. News from Cannes reveals that Edgerton will next star in Felony, a film to be directed by Matthew Saville from Edgerton’s own script. Edgerton previously co-wrote The Square, a nasty little film noir with a big bite, and he’s also penned a number of shorts for Blue-Tongue Films (the Aussie conglomerate that also includes his brother Nash Edgerton, Kieran Darcy-Smith, David Michod, Spencer Susser, and more). Felony will center on Edgerton’s character, a lauded police officer who makes the critical mistake of driving home after imbibing “a celebration drink with his team after the long waited bust of a major gang, [he] runs a young cyclist off the road. As he gives CPR to the child, fellow officers arrive to take his statement. In a split second decision he tells them a lie about the accident which will change all their lives in this edge of your seat thriller.” If you’re familiar with The Square, you’ll know just how adept Edgerton is at crafting thrillers that spin wildly (yet believably) out of control. Felony sounds like a perfect fit.

Joel Edgerton and Jessica Chastain both had pretty big years in 2011. Edgerton broke onto the Hollywood scene with a big role in the high-profile The Thing remake and also turned a lot of heads with his powerful performance in the MMA drama Warrior. And Chastain, well she had a critically acclaimed supporting role in pretty much every art film that came out during the calendar year. So, to hear that these two budding superstars are teaming up on a movie should be pretty good news. But to hear that they’ve signed on to star together in two films with very unique premises, well that’s just downright intriguing. Deadline Liverpool has posted a press release from Myriad Pictures saying that the duo is set to star in both The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Hers. The two films, both from writer/director Ned Benson, will tell the story of the same rocky marriage, but one from the perspective of the husband and the other from the perspective of the wife. Edgerton’s character is said to be a restaurant owner, and Chastain’s a woman who is going back to school. Doing two movies that tell the same story but from different viewpoints sounds like it could have the potential to be very interesting, but are they really going to be able to get people to pay to see the same story twice? Myriad CEO Kirk D’Amico seems to think so. He says of the project, “Ned

Not only will Joel Edgerton be in at least four dozen movies this year, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that he’s just sold a spec script to Regency called One Night Stand that has them on the hunt for a director. The concept, which seems light-years away from The Square, involves an honest look at what happens when a guy and girl shack up for a single night. Consequences ensue. That’s a sadly inexact description of the script (considering that it describes a ton of movies), but hopefully there’s some magic hidden in it that caught the eye of the studio. Edgerton of course wrote The Square which caught a lot of attention, but seemed more than a bit clunky as a thriller. This new project is outside that wheelhouse just a bit as it’s described as a “drama with comedic elements,” which means someone gorgeously recites the To Be Or Not To Be speech before slipping on a banana peel. Or, if his Square sensibilities in tact, the main character will sleep with a dude no-string-style and then dump an illicit bag of money on his bed before leaving. All of this adds up to continued dominance from the Australian actor/writer/producer who just keeps making his presence known. At any rate, he’s come a long way from playing Owen Lars in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, eh?

Everyone is currently lining up to fictionally kill the mass-murdering asshole Osama Bin Laden (South Park) for Kathryn Bigelow. It’s obviously a wonderful opportunity for actors to work with the Oscar winner, especially considering how Jeremy Renner’s career blew up after defusing bombs for her. The good news is that all the names that are signing on the line happen to be worth their weight in statues. According to Deadline Destry, Jessica Chastain might continue her dominance with the now-untitled project alongside Mark Strong and Edgar Ramirez (Carlos). Meanwhile, Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation) is now confirmed, and Joel Edgerton is double confirmed. Bringing on Chastain, Strong and Ramirez would be a strong move for the production. Bigelow is of course re-teaming with writer/producer Mark Boal for a project that will most likely be controversial due to the subject matter. They’re currently slated for a December release (a date conspicuously after the Presidential election). It’s possible that the date might be moved back due to a congressional investigation into whether the production was given information it wasn’t supposed to have, but December is what to watch for currently. And all of it sounds fantastic. The big question is how star-spangled this thing can get.