Tuesday Night Rushes – The Hulk Versus The Tree Of Life, And More

Excuse me if I keep this brief. There’s a lot to get through, and I’m afraid I’ll have to do it in a fuss-free fashion.

Ang Lee wanted his Hulk film to look like The Tree of Life. He says:

I see [in The Tree of Life] a lot of the elements I was thinking about in The Hulk. Some I put in, some I didn’t. The non-drama part of Tree of Life was stuff I was thinking about when I was doing The Hulk.

Non-drama? He said it. [Vulture]

Michael Chiklis, Ray Liotta and Forest Whitaker are to start shooting Pawn this Thursday. It’s a hostage-scenario-gone-wrong thriller. [Deadline]

There’s going to be one more episode of Pan Am. Let’s see how much wrapping up can be squeezed into 42 minutes. [Deadline]

The BBC have officially announced that The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe, this year’s Christmas special for Doctor Who, will be airing at 7pm on Christmas day. [BBC]

Here’s a video look behind the scenes at the next American Pie film, American Reunion. I was a little disappointed it’s not a tour of a bakery.

Microsoft might start producing scripted shows. These would presumably be premiered, if not kept exclusive to, streaming via the X-Box marketplace. They’ve definitely been keen to make the ol’ box a bit of a media centre. [Deadline]

Chris Baldi has sold his spec script, Guy’s Night. Here’s the premise:

Guys Night is about four men working at dead-end jobs and involved with less-than-satisfying relationships. Their lives get more adventurous as they set out for a mystery island off the coast of New Jersey

Vague. [The Wrap]

Angelina Jolie appeared on 60 Minutes this past Sunday to discuss her new career behind the camera. She’s already planning her follow up to the imminent Bosnian war drama Blood and Honey:

Angelina’s already writing and planning to direct another war film about Afghanistan and she knows as a director her beauty and her acting skills won’t be worth a nickel.

That’s pretty full on, going from Bosnia to Afghanistan, and I can only admire her for it.[CBS]

Paul WS Anderson is to produce new found footage TV show, The Reel. It’s about a documentary maker seeking evidence of the paranormal. Spoiler: he finds it, weekly. [Variety]

Little Asa Butterfield is locked for Enders Game. He tweeted:

now that I’ve real eased all my pent up emotion, I’m going to talk a wee bit more civilised. I have just booked Enders Game. :)

Alan Cumming is going to star in a one man version of Macbeth for the National Theatre of Scotland. How the heck will that work? [Arts Beat]

After Ellen have taken a look at the lesbian plot cut from Love, Actually. I recall it from the deleted scenes on my DVD copy and wish it had been left it. [After Ellen]

There’s a new trailer for The Sitter. [Apple]

John Jarratt has been spilling on Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek 2:

It’s more of a road film this time with a lot of chasing going on on everything from cars to horses. There’s also a chase that ends up back in a cave, his lair. And of course, there’s plenty of blood and guts.

Jarrat gives an outstanding performance throughout most of the first film. I’m keen to see more. [Bloody Disgusting]

Daniel Radcliffe is writing a screenplay – an “arthouse” film that he believes no one will want to see. I could show him several message boards worth of people who’d probably be prepared to get every last word of it tattooed on their asses. [MTV]

And… Radcliffe again. He’s apparently going to play Allen Ginsberg (yes, that Allen Ginsberg) in a thriller called Kill Your Darlings. Also on the dramatis personae for this one will be Jack Kerouac and Lucien Carr. It’s probably Carr that makes it a thriller – he was convicted for murdering his lover, David Kammerer, in 1944. [Twitch]

Neil Gaiman says:

I don’t know if I’m allowed to say much because huge, cool, strange, interesting things have been happening in the background with the Graveyard Book movie, but I do not believe I’m allowed to tell you any of them until official announcements, actual press releases, come out…

…and I get excited. [Hero Complex]

The BFI have earmarked £1 million to pay for making prints and advertising some upcoming releases including Coriolanus and Shame. Jeez – do we really live in a world where films starring Ralph Fiennes and Michael Fassbender need a leg up? What’s wrong with people? [BFI]

Here’s the main plot thread of the last seven episodes of The Walking Dead stripped down to fit in two minutes. I don’t think we’re missing anything important. [Vulture]

Martin Noxon has been called in to rewrite Ouija - just as she was called in to fix up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Basically, she seems to be the studios’ last line of defense before a spiralling project crashes into the bottom circle of development hell. A shame – she’s bloody good. [THR]

The latest actress to be handed the lead in “college aged Strangers on a Train but with lesbian f**kbuddies” picture Breaking the Girl is Agnes Bruckner. Perhaps she’ll even stay with it until cameras roll. Best reason to be interested? That Guinivere Turner co-wrote the script. [Dread Central]

Superb directors of photography Vilmos Zsigmond and Yuri Neyman are setting up “an advanced cinematography educational program for postgraduate students and veteran filmmakers to be called the Global Cinematography Institute.” [Variety]

Shekhar Kapur has added an adaptation of Martin Amis’ ultimately frustrating satire London Fields to his slate, alongside a third Elizabeth film and sci-fi allegory Paani. Michael Winterbottom had been working on London Fields, with Gemma Arterton interested in the key role of Nicola Six. I’m curious if she’ll end up in Kapur’s cast – she’s certainly had a lot of good things to say about the part before now. [THR]

Con Air and Expendables 2 perpetrator Simon West is negotiating to take the director’s chair for Dust and Glory:

A romance adventure project is set during [some car races,] the 1950s’ Redex trials… a cross between Mad Max and Jewel of the Nile… follows the rivalry between an American hotshot and an Australian legend.

You never know – maybe this time he won’t make me want to thump my own eyes to a pulp. [THR]

Here’s the first trailer for Takashi Miike’s Ai To Makoto. I’m still in shock that 13 Assassins was so well crafted and expecting Miike to go back to his rougher, readier approach any minute now. [Twitch]

Are the posters for My Week With Marilyn riddled with dirty tricks so that we’ll conflate Michelle Williams and Marilyn Monroe? And if they are, isn’t that kind of the point? I mean, Michelle Williams spent the whole film trying to acheive that end.[Slate]

Tom Hanks is to co-produce and may star in an adaptation of In The Garden of the Beasts, a non-fiction book about:

William Dodd, the United States’ reluctant and mild-mannered ambassador to Berlin in 1933, and his daughter Martha, a vivacious socialite who had romantic affairs with a Gestapo official and a Soviet spy.

And from there, things only got more and more scary… [THR]

That’s my lot for this Rushes, I’m afraid. I think I’m about to go blind.