Emma and Steve Carell to star in Fox Searchlight's new movie ‘Battle Of The Sexes'

EXCLUSIVE: A surprise entry in the race to mount the seminal film about the gender battle tennis match that scored the highest TV ratings since the Moon Landing: Fox Searchlight has set a fall start for Battle Of The Sexes, with Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris directing Emma Stone as Billie Jean King and Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs. Simon Beaufoy wrote the script and the film’s being produced by Danny Boyle through his Decibel Films and Christian Colson through his Cloud Eight banner. That gives Searchlight a project with as good a prestige pedigree as you’re going to find, by the makers of some of Searchlight’s biggest hits: Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours (Beaufoy, Boyle, Colson), Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton & Faris and Carell) and Birdman (Stone). Beaufoy (who also scripted the FS hit The Full Monty) has quietly been working several years on the script, with cooperation from King (Riggs died in 1995). It is ready to go.

This puts Searchlight in fine shape against two rival projects. HBO and Playtone just set Proof scribe David Auburn to write one that has Elizabeth Banks to play King and Paul Giamatti playing Riggs. Chernin Entertainment and Gary Sanchez are percolating the film Match Maker with Steve Conrad writing and Will Ferrell attached to play Riggs.

Battle of the Sexes will be ready for release in 2016, when the public will likely again be focused on the subject of gender and what a woman is capable of. Hillary Clinton should be full swing into her campaign to re-enter the White House, this time as president. The story of King and Riggs became a zeitgeist event back in 1973, when the 29-year old No. 2 ranked female star rose to the challenge and beat the 55-year old retired former Wimbledon champion Riggs.

The film will be presented as a comedy with dramatic and political overtones, handled in the quirky warm and engaging way that Little Miss Sunshine was. King and Riggs became the representatives for their gender, even though each was a complicated person trying to figure out their place in the world. At that time, they had to do it under the glare of an unprecedented media spotlight.

WME reps Boyle, Carell, Stone and King; Dayton & Faris are repped by UTA.

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Emma to star in 'Birdman'

Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, and Zach Galifianakis, will star in Birdman, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu’s latest project that is being made by Fox Searchlight and New Regency.

As opposed to his usual soul-searing dramas, Birdman is a dark comedy piece follows a former actor, who once played an iconic superhero, as he mounts a Broadway play based on a Raymond Chandler short story in a bid to reclaim past glory. However, the play’s egotistical leading man threatens to throw everything down the tubes.

Keaton, who ironically played Batman in the early 1990s Tim Burton movies, is the comic book movie star trying to regain his credibility. Stone will play Keaton’s daughter, fresh from rehab and now his assistant. Watts will be an actress in the play while Galifianakis will play the production's conniving producer. The other main parts to be cast include the play’s leading man and the ex-wife.

Innaritu co-wrote the script with Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo. Inarritu is producing with Robert Graf and John Lesher.

An early April production start is being eyed.

Stone is currently shooting The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and is attached to star in Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak while Watts, who worked with Innaritu on 2003's 21 Grams, is coming off an Oscar nomination for her performance in Summit’s The Impossible.

Galifianakis next reprises his breakout role as Wolf Pack member Alan in The Hangover III while Keaton recently wrapped shooting a turn in MGM’s remake of Robocop.

Stone is repped by WME, Anonymous Content, and Ziffren Brittenham while Watts is repped by CAA, Untitled and Hanson Jacobson.

Galifianakis is repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Morris Yorn. Keaton is repped by ICM and Ziffren Brittenham.

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New infos about 'Crimson Peak', Emma's next project with Guillermo del Toro

It was reported last month that Emma is in talks to be part of Guillermo del Toro's new project, Crimson Peak. Here's a little more info about the movie.

[...] we also found time to question GdT on two of his future projects, namely Pacific Rim 2 and haunted house horror Crimson Peak.

And when we asked if GdT could share a few details on Crimson Peak with us, he obliged, saying, “It’s the turn of the century. So it’s at the turn of the century and half of the movie takes place in America, and the other half takes place in a crumbling mansion in Cumbria. And basically it’s a ghost story and gothic romance, trying to subvert the rules of the usual gothic romance.

“It’s very much... the first half is a love story, then that love story turns darker. And it’s at the same time a ghost story. I’m working at this moment with Lucinda Clarkson who is a really great playwright from the UK. She has the proper degree of perversity and intelligence to turn it into something interesting to watch. “It’s sort of a very compelling version of the classic gothic romance, where you have the spookiness and the windswept landscape that dooms the characters, you know?”

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Emma in Talks for Guillermo del Toro Thriller Crimson Peak

Guillermo del Toro has found the first occupant for his haunted house thriller "Crimson Peak" -- Emma Stone is in early negotiations to star in the Legendary Pictures movie.
While the deal is not completed, Stone is expected to sign up for the chiller that del Toro will direct.
Plot details are being kept under wraps as del Toro and Lucinda Coxon rewrite the original script penned by del Toro and Matthew Robbins.
Legendary will produce and be a participating financing partner on the movie, with Universal Pictures retaining an option to finance at a later date. The film is set to begin shooting in February 2014.
Haunted house pics have seen a resurgence in recent years after FilmDistrict's "Insidious" and Paramount's "Paranormal Activity" franchise hit big at the box office.
Jessica Chastain is following up her Oscar-nominated role in "Zero Dark Thirty" with Universal's horror pic "Mama," which bows this weekend and is also exec produced by del Toro.
New Line has "The Conjuring," which stars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson with James Wan directing. The studio is so high on the project that they have dated it to bow in the thick of the summer box office season on July 19.

Stone was most recently seen in Warner Bros. "Gangster Squad," which opened last weekend and lends her voice to the DreamWorks Animation pic "The Croods." She is also expected to start shooting Sony's "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" sometime this year.

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Emma to star in Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy, Deep Tiki

According to THR, it should start filming in the fall.

Cameron Crowe has settled on his next movie -- a yet-to-be titled romantic drama starring Emma Stone. Crowe's reps confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Sony has picked up the project, based on Crowe's original script. Scott Rudin will produce, with Crowe hoping to start shooting this fall. The hunt is now on for a leading man.

Reese Witherspoon and Ben Stiller were attached to the movie but it seems like they aren't anymore.
Here's a brief synopsis of the project from Movie Insider but it's from 2008 so some things might be different now. We'll post more infos when we get them.

Synopsis: Ben Stiller stars as a disgraced U.S. military weapons consultant who is deployed to a dormant base in Hawaii to supervise the launch of an advancedspy satellite as a response to aggression from China. Once there, he starts to discover himself and the relationships he left behind against thebackdrop of mythical island lore and cold war-esque diplomacy.

 Source: Variety