kieran mulroney Tagged Articles at Cinematical

While the husband and wife team of Kieran and Michele Mulroney wait for their Justice League script to finally make it to the big screen, the duo won't be sitting around idly. Instead, they will make their feature directing debut with an indie movie titled Paper Man, which they also wrote together. According to Variety, the film is a "coming-of-middle-age comedy" about a friendship between a failed author and a teenager, and the project was developed through the Sundance Institute's screenwriters and directors labs. Jeff Daniels, who did his best work recently as a successful novelist in The Squid and the Whale, has been cast as the author. The teenager part has apparently not been filled, but Daniels will be joined in the film by Ryan Reynolds and Lisa Kudrow in unspecified roles.

With a November 12 start date, we'll probably be seeing this before we see Justice League, even though Paper Man probably won't reach theaters until 2010, following a premiere at Sundance that year. Of course, we can at least hope Variety doesn't have the full plot details, and Paper Man is actually a supehero movie, too. Perhaps either the author or the teen has the power to take on the characteristics of paper (he'd always win in a fight against rock-like individuals such as The Thing, but lose to Scissors Man), hence the superhero-like title. Unfortunately, there's more likelihood that the teen is a gifted writer and Daniels becomes his mentor, Finding Forrester style.

Cinematical has learned conclusively that actress Shannyn Sossamon (A Knight's Tale, One Missed Call) has auditioned for director George Miller for the upcoming film Justice League of America. Details are scarce, but we know the following: Sossamon did audition for Princess Di and she apparently blew away the writing team of Kieran and Michele Mulroney and has heard back from them since. According to our source, the Mulroneys were so taken with Sossamon that they championed her to director Miller, even going so far as to state that they had envisioned Sossamon in the Amazonian role all along. But now comes the bad news ... our source also tells us that Miller was less than over the moon about Sossamon's audition (or just didn't see her as being the right casting fit), which means that a resulting stalemate will almost certainly break in his favor. The audition apparently took place sometime prior to the recent 'Young Hollywood' open casting call, and that's all we know at this point.

No further details about the project have leaked out in the last couple of days, and all of Hollywood is waiting for word on who will land the coveted roles of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern. Oh, and that Martian Manhunter guy, too. Other actors known to have thrown their tights into the ring include Adam Brody, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Common, and Teresa Palmer, of Wolf Creek, who I think would do a bang-up job. Stay tuned for Cinematical as we continue to try to eek out more details of this and other fabulous pre-strike projects! As a footnote, we can also confirm earlier reports that Warner Bros. is in a tizzy over how the film's title will play worldwide, considering how, you know, the rest of the world hates America.

In an article which talks about The Avengers and Justice League projects, the Hollywood Reporter tells us that Kieran Mulroney and Michele Mulroney have submitted such a great draft of their Justice League script that Warner Bros. is now searching for a director. Meanwhile, Zak Penn (who is slated to pen Avengers) has not started his script yet, and based on our conversation last month, he won't be doing so anytime soon. When I asked Penn what he'd be working on now that The Incredible Hulk was out of the way, he replied: "I'm also supposed to write The Avengers movie. I mean, I'm going to write that some day, but I don't think I'm going to write that soon. I think I'm going to write that down the line." And since that conversation took place only a month ago, I can't imagine "down the line" would only be 30 days later.

However, if Warner Bros. begins to heat up their Justice League project, perhaps Marvel Studios will begin putting some pressure on Penn to write a draft. So far, there's no word on which characters are being included in either script, although some sources have alluded to the fact that both Superman and Batman will be in Justice League, even though Warners is already knee-deep in reviving both franchises separately on the big screen. Avengers, on the other hand, include a bunch of characters who, as of today, have not appeared in their own big-screen revival(with the exception of Hulk, who is owned by Universal and probably wouldn't appear anyway). Iron Man is slated to be released next year, and we keep hearing about Thor and -- from time to time -- Captain America, but both Ant-Man and Wasp don't seem to be going anywhere. Will Marvel wait for all of them to have their own films before forging ahead on an Avengers film? Will they wait to see how Iron Man does first? Will they somehow find a way to get Robert Downey Jr. and Edward Norton (who's tapped to play the Hulk next summer) into an Avengers flick?

And what about Justice League? What about Christian Bale and Brandon Routh? While it's still a bit early to begin speculating (HR says the answers could be "years in the making"), the wrong move (or script) could seriously jeopardize some pretty massive franchises. In my opinion, both are pretty huge risks -- and if I were Marvel and Warners, I'd make two really cool CGI flicks instead. Leave the live action stuff alone. But that's just me.