British actress Sienna Miller (G.I. Joe) portrays Tippi Hedren in the BBC2 network’s Alfred Hitchcock-based tele-pic The Girl, premiering on HBO on Oct. 20. Directed by Julian Jarrold from a script by Gwyneth Hughes, the film examines the iconic filmmaker’s obsessive relationship with Hedren.
According to Hughes’ research, which includes interviews with a now 81-year-old Hedren and surviving members of Hitchcock’s film crews, Hitchcock grew obsessed with the alluring blonde starlet—then an aspiring fashion model—while taking her under his wing during the making of The Birds and Marnie.
Hedren, who refused to work with Hitchcock after Marnie, was kept under contract by the director and forced to pass on other projects up until he finally sold her contract to Universal Pictures some two years later. Hedren has often said that Hitchcock ruined her career.
The Girl costars character actor Toby Jones (The Hunger Games) as Hitchcock, Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) as his wife Alma Hitchcock and Penelope Wilton (Shaun of the Dead) as his assistant Peggy Robertson.
Magnet Releasing has acquired the North American rights to writer/director John Hyams’ Universal Soldier 4: Day of Reckoning, the latest entry in the cyborg-action series first introduced by Roland Emmerich in 1992. The film arrives on home video Nov. 30.
The new sequel will once again pit Jean Claude Van Damme’s reanimated war hero Pvt. Luc DeVeraux against Dolph Lundgren’s bio-mechanical baddie Sgt. Andrew Scott, now leading a cyborg revolution. The duo last faced-off in Hyams’ surprise 2010 DVD hit Universal Soldier: Regeneration.
Universal Soldier 4: Day of Reckoning costars Scott Adkins (Expendables 2), Van Damme’s son Kristopher Van Varenberg (Welcome to the Jungle) and the film’s only non-sausage carrying star Mariah Bonner (Shadow People).
If you thought Sony Screen Gems’ Resident Evil franchise was about a hot chick in a slinky dress who discovers sexier fetish wear with every new sequel, you are apparently wrong. The series actually has something to do with an evil corporation and a viral outbreak… if this new featurette is to be believed.
I saw each flick in the theater and I don’t recall any of that. I do remember seeing Alice crawling naked on a floor in part one; some imagined lesbian tension between her and Jill Valentine in part two; Alice in sexy shorts in part three and Alice in latex in 3-D in part four.
I’m guessing director Paul W.S. Anderson pulled a George Lucas and went back to the series to add all this viral outbreak and zombie stuff. Resident Evil: Retribution opens in theaters on Sept. 14.
Paramount Pictures has released the first full-length trailer for the fourth installment in its Halloween horror franchise Paranormal Activity. The creepy clip introduces a pretty blonde neighbor as the film’s new victim and reveals that the action will pick up where Paranormal Activity 2 left off.
Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman return to helm the project. The duo, first known for their 2010 social media suspense thriller Catfish, shot Paranormal Activity 3 for a reported $5 million, and watched as it grossed over $200 million worldwide, making it the most profitable film in the franchise.
Paranormal Activity 4 arrives in theaters on Oct. 19.
Vanessa Hudgens (Sucker Punch) has joined Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills, a sequel to the director’s 2010 grind-house actioner Machete. Not much is know about Hudgens’ role in the film other than her character’s name is Cereza.
Machete Kills follows the ex-Federale as he’s recruited by the U.S. government to bring down a billionaire arms dealer and a drug cartel kingpin threatening global warfare with a high-tech space weapon. Shot in Austin, Texas, the film is slated for release next year.
Hudgens will next be seen playing a teen hooker/survivor in the serial killer Robert Hansen biopic Frozen Ground opposite John Cusack, Nicolas Cage and Radha Mitchell.
“Wonderfalls” star Caroline Dhavernas has joined the cast of NBC’s “Hannibal,” an hour-long crime drama chronicling the early days of Hannibal Lecter, the notorious cannibal/serial killer first introduced in the Thomas Harris novels “Red Dragon” and “Silence of the Lambs.”
Bryan Fuller, creator of ABC’s Emmy-winning series “Pushing Daisies” and Showtime’s “Dead Like Me,” is penning “Hannibal,” which stars Mads Mikkelsen as the eponymous villain, Hugh Dancy as FBI agent Will Graham, Aaron Abrams as forensic investigator Brian Zeller and Lawrence Fishburne as Jack Crawford.
According to THR, Dhavernas will play Dr. Alana Bloom, a Chicago-based psychology professor and FBI profiler who befriends Graham and falls for Crawford. Her previous genre creds include the Adrien Brody vehicle Wrecked and producer M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil.
A trailer for writer/director Josh Stolberg’s new indie frightener Crawlspace has gone online. The Vuguru production stars Lori Loughlin (“Full House”) and Jonathan Silverman (Weekend at Bernie’s) as a married couple who soon discover that Steven Weber (“Wings”) is living inside the walls of their new home.
Costarring in the flick are Sterling Beaumon (young Benjamin Linus on “LOST”) and a bikini/panty-clad Nikki Moore (Sorority Row) as the couple’s children. Look for Crawlspace later this year on VOD, Netflix, HULU, and various other digital platforms.
