In today’s film news roundup, Maya Hawke, Charlie Plummer and Andrea Riseborough have joined “Please Baby Please,” “Downhill” gets a release date, “Jumanji: The Next Level” will open early in China and “Bully” finds a new home.
CASTINGS
Maya Hawke, Charlie Plummer and Andrea Riseborough have joined the cast of romance-drama “Please Baby Please.”
Amanda Kramer is directing “Please Baby Please.” Rob Paris is producing under his Paris Film Inc. banner alongside Gül Karakiz Bildik. Kramer co-wrote with Noel David Taylor. CAA Media Finance is handling sales and arranged the financing. Principal photography will start in February.
The story is centered on newlyweds who witness a murder in the gritty streets of a surreal 1950’s Manhattan and become the dangerous obsession of a gang that awakens a sleeping quandary into the couple’s own sexual identity.
The project will reunite Hawke with her “Ladyworld” director Kramer. She had a breakout role in Season 3 of “Stranger Things” over the summer and previously starred as Jo March on the BBC and PBS TV miniseries “Little Women.” Her film credits include Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Plummer starred in “Lean on Pete,” for which he won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor at the Venice Film Festival. Riseborough has appeared in “Birdman” and “Nocturnal Animals” and will star in Nicolas Pesce’s reboot of “The Grudge,” and Amazon’s true-crime drug series “ZeroZeroZero” alongside Dane DeHaan and Gabriel Byrne.
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RELEASE DATES
Fox Searchlight has dated the drama-comedy “Downhill,” starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14.
The title is a remake of Ruben Ostlund’s “Force Majeure.” Oscar winners Nat Faxon and Jim Rash are directing the story of an avalanche escape during a ski vacation in the Alps that throws a seemingly picture-perfect family into disarray as they are forced to reevaluate life.
“Downhill” is a Likely Story production with “Seinfeld” and “Veep” star Louis-Dreyfus producing with Anthony Bregman and Stefanie Azpiazu. “Downhill” will face competition from the openings of Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” and Sony’s “Fantasy Island.”
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“Jumanji: The Next Level” will open a week earlier in China on Dec. 6. The sequel had been dated for Dec. 13, the same date as the Sony Pictures sequel’s North American launch.
China was the top foreign market for 2017’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” with $78 million. Domestic grosses totaled $404 million, while the international take was $562 million.
Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan are returning, with Awkwafina, Danny DeVito and Danny Glover joining the cast. The four teens from the first film (Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner and Alex Wolff) are also returning.
ACQUISITION
Gravitas Ventures has taken over worldwide distribution rights to the dark comedy “Bully” from North of Two, which acquired the film in July.
“Bully” was directed and produced by Santino Campanelli, and written and produced by his father, Joe Campanelli.
Tucker Albrizzi stars as a quiet high-school student tormented by a school bully and his cronies. After an altercation on his way home from school lands him a chance meeting with a former professional boxer, played by Ron Canada, he decides to learn how to defend himself and start going to the boxing gym with a trainer, portrayed by Danny Trejo.