Isla Fisher Set For Michael Winterbottom’s ‘Greed’

Isla Fisher Set For Michael Winterbottom’s ‘Greed’

Isla fisher has been set to star alongside Steve Coogan and David Mitchell in Greed, the Michael Winterbottom-directed film for Film 4 and Sony International. The film will begin shooting later this year in Europe.

Coogan stars as a self-absorbed retail billionaire. Fisher plays his wife, the only person who truly understands him and all his complexities.

Fisher was just seen in New Line’s Tag, and next stars alongside Zac Efron, Jonah Hill and Matthew McConaughey in Beach Bum.

She’s repped by UTA.

(Deadline)

Isla Fisher to Co-Star With Matthew McConaughey in ‘Beach Bum’

Isla Fisher to Co-Star With Matthew McConaughey in ‘Beach Bum’

Isla Fisher is set to star opposite Matthew McConaughey in Harmony Korine’s next movie, “Beach Bum,” sources tell Variety.

The film will be a co-production between Neon and Vice with Neon, which bought the rights for the film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, handling distribution. CAA will be negotiating the domestic sales while Rocket Science handled international sales.

“Beach Bum” is a comedy that follows the misadventures of Moondog (McConaughey), a rebellious and lovable rogue who lives life large. Fisher will play Moondog’s wife.

The film will be written and directed by Korine, whose unique filmmaking style gained recognition with “Spring Breakers,” which starred James Franco and brought in $31 million at the worldwide box office.

Le Grisbi Productions’ John Lesher, Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin, Iconoclast’s Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar, and Nicolas Lhermitte will produce. The film is executive produced by Tom Quinn and Tim League for Neon and Shane Smith, Eddy Moretti, and Danny Gabai for Vice.

Fisher had a busy 2016, which included “The Brother Grimsby,” “Keeping up With the Joneses,” and Tom Ford’s “Nocturnal Animals.” Fisher just recently wrapped production on “Tag” opposite Jeremy Renner and Jon Hamm.

She is repped by UTA and Sloane Offer Weber & Dern.

(Variety)

Isla to return to “Arrested Development”

Isla announced on her Instagram page a few days ago that she is “back on Arrested Development” – she will re-join the show for their 5th season, after her guest stint on season 4 back in 2013. Season 5 started development last month, and is set to air on Netflix in 2018.

Star Jason Bateman teased the premise of the 5th season to Entertainment Weekly a few months ago, saying:

Season 5 of the quirky comedy will involve a murder mystery, Bateman teased earlier this month on EW Radio (SiriusXM, channel 105), picking up with the events of season 4, which debuted on the streaming service in May 2013.

“The central spine of that story of is the death of Liza Minnelli’s character [Lucille], and a bit of whodunit, who may have done it, who had something to do with it,” Bateman explained. “That’s sort of a central thread around which [creator Mitch Hurwitz] is going to braid in all the colorful plot complications that he knows how to do.”

Unlike season 4, when episodes focused on individual characters rather than group scenes — a workaround due to cast scheduling conflicts and commitments — Bateman, who popped up in various scenes to help anchor the show, says the cast will be together for the new 15-episode season, which will debut in 2018.


CBS Lands Hot Gary Sanchez Comedy From Ben Schwartz & Laura Moses, Isla Fisher Comedy In Works At Gloria Sanchez

CBS Lands Hot Gary Sanchez Comedy From Ben Schwartz & Laura Moses, Isla Fisher Comedy In Works At Gloria Sanchez

In a very competitive situation involving a four-way bidding, CBS has landed Things You Should Already Know, an ensemble single-camera comedy about millennials from Ben Schwartz (House Of Lies), Laura Moses, Gary Sanchez Prods. and CBS TV Studios.

The project is part of a first-look deal Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company has at CBS TV Studios. It already has yielded a series order, No Activity at CBS All Access. Additionally, Gloria Sanchez, the female-centric production arm of Gary Sanchez, has a premium comedy starring and executive produced by Isla Fisher in the works at CBS TV Studios. The project, to be written by Erica Rivinoja (Trolls, Girl’s Trip, South Park) and directed by Jake Szymanski (HBO’s Tour de Pharmacy, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates), will be taken out in the next few months.

Things You Should Know is based on the upcoming illustrated guide to dating for millennials by Ben Schwartz and Laura Moses. The book, titled Things You Should Know About Dating, You F*ing Idiot, is set to be released this fall by Hachette Books.

Set in today’s culture of disposable love, the TV comedy — created and written by Schwartz and Moses — follows a group of millennials who realize they have to put down their phones and learn how to be actual adults if they don’t want to die alone.

Schwartz executive produces with Gary Sanchez Productions’ Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Kevin Messick for CBS TV Studios. Gary Sanchez exec Betsy Koch will also help guide the project for the company. The bidding for the comedy underscores how valuable IP, and especially books as source material, continue to be for getting network interest.

Schwartz was recently nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for Funny or Die’s “The Earliest Show,” which he also created. He is repped by WME, Haven Entertainment and Gang Tyre. Moses is repped by Kaplan-Stahler Agency.

Gary Sanchez/CBS Studios’ No Activity, based on an Australian format, was recently picked up by CBS All Access as the live-streaming and SVOD service’s first original comedy series. It is set to debut later this year.

Ferrell is repped by UTA and Mosaic; Adam McKay is with WME.

(Deadline)

Lobell & Bergman Set ‘Eisner’ As First Comedy Collaboration In 17 Years

Lobell & Bergman Set ‘Eisner’ As First Comedy Collaboration In 17 Years

Mike Lobell and Andrew Bergman, once partners in a thriving production company, are back together for the first time in 17 years. They are planning an October start in New York on Eisner, a film that Bergman scripted and will direct, and which Lobell is producing.

The film is a comedy about a young man trying to discover what happened to his family during WWll. Typical of Bergman’s scripts, nothing turns out the way Eisner had hoped or expected. The ensemble they’ve put together has Judith Light, Paul Reiser, Isla Fisher, the Serbian comic Branko Djuric, Rob Reiner and Audra McDonald. They are zeroing in on a lead actor for the title role. Robert Halmi Jr and Great Point Media are in discussions to finance.

In their heyday, the Lobell Bergman partnership brought films that included So Fine, The Freshman, Honeymoon in Vegas, It Could Happen to You and Striptease. Those were written and directed by Bergman, whose first two scripting credits were the Mel Brooks-directed Blazing Saddles and then the original Arthur Hiller-directed The In-Laws, which starred Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. Lobell and Bergman are using their old production moniker, but right now the plan is for a single picture. If it’s a hit, who knows?

(Deadline)

This project was also mentioned by producer Mike Lobell back in November 2012:

Mike Lobell interview with Screen Daily about ‘Gambit’
But as you say, you’re proud of the movie. What’s next?

ML: I’m back with Andy Bergman, my old partner from back in the day, for the first time since Isn’t She Great [2000]. We’re doing an ensemble comedy called A Film By Alan Stuart Eisner with Robin Williams, Isla Fisher, Shirley MacLaine, Rob Reiner and Oliver Cooper from Project X. I’ve also got a love story called This Man This Woman based on a script by Frederic Raphael and I’m in talks with a major lead. And I have Airtight from a script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais that Castle Rock’s Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer will produce with me.

(Screen Daily)

Isla Fisher Joins Ed Helms, Jeremy Renner in New Line Comedy ‘Tag’

Isla Fisher Joins Ed Helms, Jeremy Renner in New Line Comedy ‘Tag’

Isla Fisher has joined the all-star cast of the New Line comedy Tag.

The actress will team with Ed Helms, Jeremy Renner, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Jon Hamm, Annabelle Wallis and Rashida Jones for the film, which is set to begin shooting later this month in Atlanta.

Tag is based on a true story featured in The Wall Street Journal about a group of friends who have been playing a no-holds-barred version of the children’s game Tag for the last 30 years. Mark Steilen and Rob McKittrick penned the script.

Fisher will play Helms’ wife, who is the brains behind this latest and most important tag game in the men’s lives.

Jeff Tomsic is directing the pic, which is being produced by Todd Garner, Mark Steilen and Sean Robins.

Tag is slated for a June 29, 2018, release.

Fisher last starred with Hamm in Fox’s Keeping Up With the Joneses and was part of the high-wattage cast of Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals. She is repped by UTA and Sloane Offer.

(THR)

Isla attached to “Saint Judy” biopic?

A couple of weeks ago, Backstage.com reported that Isla was attached to star in Saint Judy, a biopic about an immigration lawyer, however, the report has since been removed for an unknown reason. Here is the original article, and we’ll keep you updated if this project does progress…

“Saint Judy”
Immigration is a hot button, and often polarizing, topic for a lot of Americans these days but for one woman the fight wasn’t to be had on Facebook, but in the courts. Isla Fisher is brushing up on her legal jargon and preparing to step into the shoes of Los Angeles-based immigration lawyer Judy Wood. Back in 2000, as the world was recovering from the non-apocalypse of Y2K, Wood was inadvertently changing the laws of asylum for women. While representing an Afghani immigrant who had been persecuted for opening a school for girls in her home country, Wood, by way of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, managed to have women, including female refugees, designated a protected class. Documentary director Sean Hanish will pilot the film with the help of Betty Mae casting. Currently Fisher is only attached but Alfred Molina has also been rumored, though unofficially, to join. Production on the biopic is expected to start at the beginning of May. Los Angeles will host the film.

(Backstage.com)

Keanu Reeves In Talks, Isla Fisher Negotiating For Dome Karukoski’s ‘The Starling’

Keanu Reeves In Talks, Isla Fisher Negotiating For Dome Karukoski’s ‘The Starling’

Dylan Sellers and PalmStar Media’s Kevin Frakes are pulling together a dramedy entitled The Starling which is a decided turn for actor Keanu Reeves who is coming off the $125M+ (and climbing) worldwide box office actioner John Wick 2. Reeves is in talks and Isla Fisher is in final negotiations to star in the feature film that will be directed by Dome Karukoski (Tom of Finland). The script, which is just a superb allegory written by Matt Harris, was once on the Black List of best, unproduced scripts.

The logline: A married couple lose a child and the wife goes into a recovery place to help her with overwhelming grief, leaving the husband at home alone. To help aid in her recovery, the husband decides to build a beautiful garden for his wife in their backyard, but as he does he is tormented by an aggressive, black starling. At his wits end with the relentless nature of the bird, he goes to see a veterinarian to find out if there is a humane way to get rid of it. The vet, the husband finds out, used to be a psychiatrist but gave it up to help animals instead. However, the quirky vet begins counseling the husband in a turn that neither of them really expected.

The theme of the story is how love can carry you through grief.

The Finnish director Karukoski is an award-winning filmmaker who has worked both in film and TV and he is currently receiving critical praise in Scandinavia for Tom of Finland. He also directed Heart of a Lion, a film about a Neo-Nazi who falls in love with a woman who turns out to have a biracial child. That film from 2013 put him on the map around Hollywood as a director to watch.

The Starling is being produced by PalmStar’s Frakes and Sellers who both have relationships with Reeves. Frakes has worked with the actor on multiple films including the John Wick series while Sellers has a history with Reeves on Chain Reaction and The Replacements. Also producing is Buddy Patrick of Windy Hill Films (John Wick 2, The Alchemist) and Michael Bederman (Spotlight, Collateral Beauty). An early June start date is being planned.

Fisher’s previous credits include Tom Ford’s gritty Nocturnal Animals, the comedy Keeping Up with the Joneses and Arrested Development.

Sellers is the former president of TWC who oversaw such gems as St. Vincent and Southpaw. He launched his River Edge Films and formed a strategic partnership with the finance/production company PalmStar about two years ago. PalmStar, Sellers and Patrick are all together on The Alchemist.

This is not the first time that PalmStar has tackled this subject matter — it also produced and financed Collateral Beauty (with the aforementioned Bederman) which starred Will Smith as a father dealing with the death of a child. PalmStar also is in the midst of production on Catcher Was a Spy with Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, Jeff Daniels and Guy Pearce.

Reeves, who also has the romantic-thriller Siberia directed by Matthew Ross on his plate, is repped by WME and attorney Melanie Cook. Fisher is repped by UTA, Shanahan Management and attorney Warren Dern. Karukoski is repped by ICM Partners.

(Deadline)