thor freudenthal Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Wimpy Kid is gaining some muscle! Jeff Kenney's bestselling series was optioned by Fox 2000 last year, and they put Thor Freudenthal in the director's chair this past December.

But just who is going to play the title Wimpy? It's not as big of a casting announcement as, say, Captain America but Greg Heffley has his fans and they want to know! According to The Hollywood Reporter, it's Zachary Gordon, a young up and comer who has been looking for his first major leading role. While a lot of sites (I'm looking at you Wikipedia) portray Greg as an unpleasant sort of fellow, his various schemes (haunted houses, giant snowmen) towards popularity sound pretty hilarious.

He may be the title character, but Gordon won't be playing the movie solo. He'll have the friendship of Chloe Moretz (currently the talk of geekdom with her gun-wielding, sword-swinging ways in Kick-Ass), who'll be playing the class Daria, a student with a penchant for black and "a wry sense of humor." Naturally, he also needs a mommy, and that role will be filled by Rachael Harris, who has just the right glasses for the part. It should be a fun, snarky movie for the younger set -- and given how many adults are reading the series, one that could cross over well if handled right. 16 million readers can't be wrong, can they?

What would Hollywood do if there were no books?

First up, Variety reports that New Regency has grabbed Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity for a trip to the big screen. The time travel novel is set in a future where humanity is controlled by a ruling class called Eternity -- a lucky group who can alter history, remove undesirable people, the usual. But then one of the time cops falls for a girl back in time (like Somewhere in Time?)... I imagine we can expect a pretty big visual production with this puppy -- before a writer is chosen, the project is hunting for a director.

Next, The Hollywood Reporter posts that J. Saunders Elmore's debut novel The Amateur American has been picked up by Likely Story. A political thriller, the novel centers on an American expat in France who has a job translating for "a shadowy powerbroker" who "draws him into violent political intrigue, corruption, and murder." I tell ya -- no job is safe these days! Ross Katz will adapt and direct the book, which hits shelves next summer.

Finally, Thor Freudenthal is picking up more family-friendly material, according to Variety. He's going to direct Ian Ogilvy's Measle and the Wrathmonk for Warner Bros. -- a piece that was purchased four years ago. The tale centers on a young kid who gets sent to live with his eccentric uncle, who happens to be a wizard. Gee, is it any surprise that this is part of a trilogy? I wonder if it will come out just as Potter mania wraps up...

I don't know about you, but I was sure hoping that Hollywood would give us more movies about women and their love of shoes. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Beth Harbison's Shoe Addicts Anonymous is heading to the big screen. The plot is exactly as you'd imagine it -- four women who meet up and chat about shoes. Tapping into the Sex and the City sort of scenario, there's the trophy wife of a senator, a phone sex operator, a nanny, and the lead, a woman in massive consumer debt. Actress and writer Laurie Taylor-Williams has been tapped to adapt the novel.

And while these women join over love of shoes, a couple might be heading for the dumping bin for a classically stupid reason. The Hollywood Reporter also posts that we've got a new wedding-centric comedy on the way called The Big Question. Written by TV writer Andrew Lenchewski to be directed by 30 Rock's Michael Engler, the film focuses on a couple's mind games as he plans to propose on New Year's Eve and his girlfriend plans an unspoken deadline of Christmas Eve.

Finally, we've got a female-centric film that is blissfully lacking the overused stereotypes. Variety reports that Paramount has grabbed the screen rights to Dave Roman's graphic novel Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery for Thor Freudenthal to direct and Evan Spiliotopoulos to adapt. Agnes is a 16-year-old girl who inherits not only her grandfather's estate, but also his ability to talk to the dead. So just like Ricky Gervais got swamped by the dead masses in Ghost Town, Agnes becomes the focus of her town's passed population. It sounds cute, and could certainly make for a fun tale.

With production set to begin next month, the Hotel for Dogs is about to turn off its vacancy sign. In June, I alerted you to the project when Thor Freudenthal was tapped to direct Lois Duncan's children's book from the '70s, about two orphaned teens who hide stray dogs in an abandoned hotel. After getting a director, Eric Roberts' offspring, Emma Roberts, was tapped to star as one of the kids, and then Don Cheadle signed on to play the orphans' social worker. Now we've got much of the cast in place, although there's still no familial cohort for Roberts in sight.

Topping the recent additions is Friends alum Lisa Kudrow, fresh off the upcoming Butler/Swank romance, P.S., I Love You. She will play the foster parent of the two dog-loving kids, which will be a bit of a contrast to her other upcoming work -- she's going to produce and star in a black comedy called Intense Girl Scouts. The other new cast member is Johnny Simmons, who recently hit the screen in Evan Almighty, and who is already set to play the young Denny Colt in The Spirit. Since the brother spot is still open, Simmons will be playing Roberts' crush.

They don't have too much time left, so hopefully they pick a co-star soon. Otherwise, it'll be mighty weird to see Roberts act with an imaginary person, and it will be an entirely different story. Instead of a feel-good tale of two kids and some cute canines, she'd be talking to people who aren't there and surrounding herself with dogs -- first step, foster, second step, asylum!

Replace Rwandan refugees with dogs and what do you get? Don Cheadle's next film. The actor, who earned an Oscar nomination for Hotel Rwanda, has been cast in the similarly titled yet very differently themed movie Hotel for Dogs. It isn't just the title of the new project that reminds us of the earlier film; the synopsis provided by Variety tells us that Hotel for Dogs features a hotel that serves as a refuge and sanctuary for beings that would otherwise be dispose of. Of course, this time they are in fact dogs and not human victims of a civil war in Africa. Last month, when Monika brought you the story of Hotel for Dogs, it was said that Emma Roberts (I'll continue reminding you that she's Julia's niece) would star as one of two orphaned teens who hide stray dogs in an abandoned hotel. We had also learned that it was based on a 1971 children's book by Lois Duncan and that it would be effects artist Thor Freudenthal's directorial debut. The adaptation has been scripted by Jeff Lowell (John Tucker Must Die) and is being produced by Jon Gordon, Lauren Shuler Donner (Unaccompanied Minors) and Jack Leslie.

Cheadle apparently will not be a hotel manager this time. Instead, he will play a social worker who keeps the teens out of trouble. I can't find a plot description of the book, but I have a feeling that his role will not be too huge. Seeing as how he mostly appears in R-rated films (including his other 'Dog' title, The Dog Problem), Cheadle is probably just doing this for his preteen daughters. Despite coming from a book by Duncan, who also wrote the source of I Know What You Did Last Summer, this movie will likely be more family friendly. Hotel for Dogs begins shooting in early November, which is probably just after Cheadle finishes the espionage thriller Traitor and should fill some time while he continues to wait on start date announcements for the biopics about Toussaint L'Ouverture and Miles Davis.

Back in June, I posted that Thor Freudenthal, an effects guy from Stuart Little, was going to tackle Lois Duncan's children's book, Hotel for Dogs for his feature directorial debut. Unlike Duncan's young adult thriller novels, Hotel is about two teen orphans who hide stray dogs in an abandoned hotel. Now Reuters is reporting that Emma Roberts, the next in the line of Roberts successes, is going to star. Unlike her family, who got their start with more adult fare, the young Emma is definitely taking the bubble-gum kids route.

I'm torn. I loved that she took on Nancy Drew, but she's really racking up the kid fare -- Unfabulous, Aquamarine, Wild Child... That's not bad on its own, but young acting lives filled with big smiles and perfect skin seem to often end in a mess -- and the last thing I want is for Emma to become the next in the line of celebrity crashes. The eerie correlation between smiling on the outside and dysfunction on the inside goes back for years. Well before Britney was shaving her head and Lindsay was driving drunk, there were seemingly perky stars like Patty Duke and Judy Garland struggling with drugs and personal demons.

I know not every kid falls onto that path, but it's hard not to fear it when you see someone going down a road riddled with young celebrity roadkill. (And seeing that my last favorite teen star was Lohan, I'm trying not to curse the poor girl.) Sometimes I wonder: if we showed the world lots of realistic, pissed off, negative teens, as opposed to what we usually get, would they grow up differently? At the very least, they'd have a real, true outlet for their adolescence and angst.

If his upcoming projects do well, Thor Freudenthal might just become the it-guy for family film. In January, he was picked up by 20th Century Fox to direct his first feature -- They Came From Upstairs -- from successful family film screenwriter Mark Burton. Now the Stuart Little CG artist-turned director (who was also the second unit director for Disney's The Haunted Mansion) is getting another feature to add to his schedule -- DreamWorks' Hotel for Dogs. The film is based on the Lois Duncan children's book about two orphaned teens who hide stray dogs in an abandoned hotel, and has been adapted by John Tucker Must Die writer Jeff Lowell. I imagine production will be pretty interesting, beyond all the dogs they'll need on-set, one of the producers, Lauren Shuler Donner is apparently such a dog lover that she has over a dozen dogs all for herself. And I thought I loved animals.

I'm sure this will be the usual type of feel-good family fare, but I can't help but with that one of Duncan's other books would get picked up -- for a good movie treatment. By the time Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine had popped up on the young adult circuit, she'd already been writing children's and adolescent books for over 20 years. If you never read her books, you might recognize her name from the slew of crappy television adaptations/direct-to-video fare starring everyone from Soliel Moon Frye and Michelle Williams to Patrick Duffy and Dennis Hopper. And, of course, you can't forget the one feature film that made it big: I Know What You Did Last Summer.

In an interesting twist, the film that was one of the biggest spec sales of 2006 is getting a less-than-famous name to head it. 20th Century Fox was the winner who grabbed Mark Burton's They Came From Upstairs -- about a group of kids in a vacation home in Maine who have to fight aliens that have invaded from the home's upstairs. The British screenwriter is responsible for many of the leading family films to be released over the last few years -- Chicken Run, Madagascar and Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Considering the success that Burton has had so far, it might seem logical that a big name would head the directorial ship. However, Barry Josephson, of 20th Century Fox's Josephson Entertainment, has chosen Thor Freudenthal.

Thor was chosen because of his advertisements for the likes of Ritz and Reebok and for his short noir film, Motel. Apparently his other work had a tone that reminded Josephson of Men in Black. Variety really went in-depth into the producer's picking process, with a lot of justification. In case his film experience isn't enough to sell you, the new director has also worked with children and done some creature design.