The line between being a huge star on the small screen and big screen keeps getting blurred, and eventually it seems it won’t exist. Or at least that’s the way it seems when Ben Stiller agrees to star in an HBO show. But – working with Scott Rudin – Deadline Hollywood reports that Stiller will be starring, producing and directing in the HBO show All Talk, with Alan Alda in negotiations to co-star.
Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy join forces in Brett Ratner‘s new action comedy, Tower Heist. It’s about a heist that takes place at a Tower – Donald Trump’s tower in Manhattan, to be exact. Stiller is the head of a talented ensemble which includes the likes of Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Stephen Henderson, Michael Peña and Gabourey Sidibe. In Tower Heist, Stiller and company are a group of working class heroes who attempt to bring down one of Wall Street’s greats. This is a comedy about getting even, and with the events currently making news (Occupy Wall Street), it couldn’t have come at a better time. But the big deal in this movie isn’t its topic, it’s Mr. Murphy, who come February will be hosting one of the most anticipated televised events. You might be asking yourself if good old Eddie can still tell a joke. Well, let me ask you this, can Shaq still dunk?
Though he’s got a full plate, it appears that Ben Stiller has signed on for 20th Century Fox’s Rentaghost. Though no director is currently attached, it appears Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garrant (the scribes of Stiller’s Night at the Museum movies) have been hired to get a working draft in order – according to Deadline Hollywood. The film would be based on a British kids series that ran in the 1970′s and 80′s.
The L.A. Times has a story about how Tower Heist, the Brett Ratner-directed, Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy comedy will be hitting VOD in two markets for $60 a pop three weeks after it hits theaters. We recently wrote about how 8 Ways Television has changed, and this may be a part of that evolution. But what does this mean for theatrical distribution?
Update: Looks like Brett Ratner has selected Eddie Murphy as the host for the next Academy Awards broadcast!
As we reported in July, the trailer for the Brett Ratner directed, Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller-starring heist film Tower Heist has been released, and it features many things—Eddie Murphy seems to be at least kind of trying to be funny again, it also stars Casey Affleck (which is odd, since the film appears to be a total rip off of the Ocean’s trilogy, also starring… Casey Affleck), and that Brett Ratner is once again helming a picture with the totally faceless, directed-by-studio-committee direction that he brought to such not-good films as Red Dragon, the Rush Hour series, and X-Men 3: Seriously Can You Believe How Bad We Screwed This Franchise Up With This One?. And it appears that the trailer features one other thing—an offensive remark about epileptics.
The Heist movie genre is filled with a number of great films, and usually a solid premise. Enacting a plan and following through – regardless of the unforseen complications – is inherently gripping, whether it’s perpetrated by heroes or anti-heroes. But Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Michael Pena, Casey Affleck, Gabourey Sidibe and Eddie Murphy in the Tower Heist looks like heroes, and Alan Alda looks a fairly repellent bad guy with a big safe. Well, the real bad guy may be director Brett Ratner if he blows a great cast and what appears to be the best material he’s worked with. Take a look at the trailer…
The remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a 1947 film in which a “writer/perpetual daydreamer spends all of his time pretending that he’s an action hero until, one day, he actually finds himself in the middle of a real life scenario where he’ll be able to turn those dreams into reality,” has long been in development hell—it’s bounced from names like Sacha Baron Cohen to Gore Verbinski—but it looks like Ben Stiller is set to remake and star the film.
UK actor-comedian Richard Ayoade ( Maurice Moss from The IT Crowd) wrote the screenplay and directed this coming-of-age film, starring Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine, and Noah Taylor. Ben Stiller steps in as Executive Producer and Alex Turner (The Arctic Monkeys) supplied the music for what looks to be a witty adaptation of Joe Dunthorn’s 2008 novel of the same name. Will it be a comic tour de force, or another hipster indie let down?
If you’ve been living in a dreamworld hoping, waiting, and praying for a sequel to Zoolander, you’re in luck. Star and director Ben Stiller has delivered some good news via Empire regarding the status of Zoolander 2. The script has been completed and submitted to the studio, and he offered up some details regarding what we can expect from Derek and Hansel this second time around.
