'Beginners' Director Mike Mills will Next Helm '20th Century Women'

Know who hasn't been seen in awhile? Mike Mills. His name may not be household just yet but chances are you know his last film, Beginners, a sensitive and funny film that has only grown in stature over the last five years. Hard to believe it has been that long, but Mills is finally moving on to his next project thanks to the fine folks at Annapurna Pictures.

Mills will direct 20th Century Women, which Annapurna Pictures will produce,continuing their practice of working with some of today's most challenging filmmakers. Here's the synopsis:

Set in the wonderfully disruptive days of punk's arrival to suburban America, Jimmy Carter's last summer in office and the oil and fiscal crises of the late 70's, the story is about three very different women teaching a boy what men are, what women are, about love and freedom and finding your own form of sanity in Santa Barbara 1979. When the boy's mother takes in a male border, his world view is further shaken by the man's desire to understand and be loved by these seemingly unknowable women. 

Casting is underway now with the plan to begin filming later this year.  

Read More

Ana Lily Amirpour Lines Up Dystopian Love Story 'The Bad Batch'

We're in the midst of a sea change when it comes to the top directors in Hollywood. While the old guard remains, a crop of hot indie filmmakers are moving up to the big time. Gareth Edwards, Rian Johnson, Jim Mickle, and now you can add Ana Lily Amirpour, director of last year's buzzy Iranian vampire Western A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, to the list of rising stars.

Annapurna Pictures and Vice have agreed to back Amirpour's next film, a dystopian horror titled The Bad Batch. Details are few at this point but it will be set in a Texas wasteland, and hopefully she gets to play around with different genres as she did before.

Here's what exec-producer Eddie Moretti had to say about the deal...

“Ana Lily is a force of cinematic nature. She inhabits that special place where the pop sensibility of the movies meets the deep sensuality of film art. It’s a tricky thing to pull off – creating this kind of wildly entertaining visionary cinema – but Ana Lily is powerful, so she can pull it off. I’m thrilled and honored to help bring The Bad Batch to life with my friends at Annapurna. This is going to be a lot of fun.”

Read More

Is Annapurna Pictures Developing a 'Starship Troopers' Remake?

The films of Paul Verhoeven have proven enduring enough that Hollywood can't stop remaking them, albeit with mediocre results. Over the last couple of years we've seen remakes of Total Recall and Robocop, neither quite matching Verhoeven's sharp political wit and campiness (at least Robocop made an effort). About three years ago, screenwriters Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were hired to start work on a possibly remake of Verhoeven's satirical war flick, Starship Troopers, and nothing ever happened. But now Collider seems to think Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures may be involved in bringing it back.

To be fair, the site's assumption is based on some deli thin evidence. It began when Ellison Tweeted this...

Would you like to know more?
— Megan Ellison (@meganeellison) May 31, 2014

That was when Collider replied with the below image, part of the government's pro-war marketing campaign in the story...

Ellison's response was a simple "Yes". That could mean just about anything. She could have been acknowledging that, yes, she was indeed watching Starship Troopers at that moment. But this is the woman who helped jump start the current Terminator reboot (Annapurna is no longer backing it financially), and Starship Troopers seems like the kind of offbeat project she likes to take on. She gave us Spring Breakers last year, after all.

Read More

Tom Hardy and Kathryn Bigelow Team Up for Post-9/11 Drama 'The True American'

If you happened to catch MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes last night, a segment he ran featured the story of Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi American military veteran who was shot in the face by Mark Stroman in the days following 9/11. Stroman was swept up in the anti-Muslim hysteria and sought ought to kill anybody he perceived as an Arab. Stroman killed two other people that day but Bhuiyan survived, and a decade later he came appealed to have Stroman saved from the death penalty. That remarkable story is now being brought to the big screen, placed in the capable hands of Oscar winning director Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hardy, and Annapurna Pictures.

Bigelow will direct and produce The True American, which is also the title of journalist
Anand Giridharadas' book on the subject. Hardy will star, possibly as Stroman, the Texas man who referred to himself as the "American Terrorist". This will be a reteaming of Bigelow and Annapurna Pictures, the studio previously producing Zero Dark Thirty.

Bhuiyan's story has been all over the news of late due to the renewed controversy over the death penalty, so count this as another timely effort from Bigelow that's sure to make some waves.

Check out the below video of Giridharadas on Chris Hayes' show, followed by the official press release.



Annapurna’s Megan Ellison, who previously worked with Bigelow as a producer on ZERO DARK THIRTY, is set to produce. Annapurna’s Matthew Budman, who co-produced ZERO DARK THIRTY, will serve as Executive Producer.

THE TRUE AMERICAN meticulously reconstructs two lives that collided in horrific fashion. In the charged, angry days after 9/11, self-styled “American Terrorist” Mark Stroman murdered two immigrants in Texas, while a third man survived being shot in the head during Stroman’s spree: Raisuddin Bhuiyan, a Bangladesh Air Force veteran, was working at a Dallas-area convenience store as he established himself in America.

With Stroman identified and apprehended, the tale begins its tack toward deeper emotional waters. THE TRUE AMERICAN is a richly detailed, affecting account of two men bound, as it turns out, by more than just an act of violence.

The deal was brokered by Annapurna’s Paul Hanson and Christopher Corabi with CAA, which represents Rais Uddin Bhuiyan and Anand Giridharadas, as well as Bigelow and Hardy. Anand is represented for publishing by Katherine Flynn at Kneerim Williams and Bloom. Bigelow’s attorney is Warren Dern of Sloane Offer Weber & Dern; Hardy is represented by Lindy King at United Agents in the U.K. and attorney Jason Sloane of Sloane Offer Weber & Dern.

Read More