the industry

Will Ferrell to Make a Scene on the Front Lawn

Yard Sale: Will Ferrell has signed on to star in low-budget indie flick Everything Must Go, the first film from commercials-director Dan Rush. Ferrell will play a Brillo-headed guy who sells all his belongings on the front lawn after his wife kicks him out. The whole shebang is budgeted for $10 million, or, as Ferrell refers to it, the price of one velvet tracksuit. [Variety]

Dead President: The cast of Robert Redford’s Lincoln assassination pic The Conspirator keeps getting better, as Tom Wilkinson, Evan Rachel Wood, Kevin Kline, and Alexis Bledel have signed on to join James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn in the period piece. Wilkinson will play former attorney general Reverdy Johnson; Kline will play Lincoln’s war secretary, Edwin Stanton Wood; Wood will play the daughter of Mary Surratt (Penn), the only woman charged in the conspiracy to kill Lincoln; and Bledel will play Sarah Weston, the wife of war hero and lawyer Fredrick Aiken (McAvoy). For his part, Redford is producing and serving as a script adviser, as he personally knew many of the characters portrayed. [Variety]

Devil in Blue Slacks: Chris Messina is on board to star in Devil, a psychological thriller based on an M. Night Shyamalan story. Brothers John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle will direct. Most of the plot is unknown, except that Messina will play a sobered-up homicide detective. This being M. Night Shyamalan though, he’s probably a chair who thinks he’s a sobered-up homicide detective. [Variety]

Still Lost: Vampire Diaries star Ian Somerhalder is sticking to the world of gothic fairy tales for his next film. In Cradlewood, Somerhalder will play a wealthy heir who’s afraid he’s going to be killed because of a bizarre pact his ancestors made with a demon. Producer Michel Shane described the film as “a perfect segue for the kids who have outgrown Twilight but want something romantic and scary.” Which is a coincidence because we are exactly those kids! [HR]

Father Knows Best: Warner Bros. has snagged writer Will Fetters to pen the adventure tale Crazy for the Storm, a coming-of-age story about a young man pushed by his father to embrace adventure. At the age of 11 he’s stranded in the mountains after surviving a plane crash that killed his father. The film is based on Norman Ollestad’s memoir. Fetters has become something of a go-to scribe for Warner Bros., which also has him working on its A Star Is Born reboot and the screenplay for a Nicholas Sparks book. If he does well with these, they’ll let him take a crack at a real movie. [HR]

Will Ferrell to Make a Scene on the Front Lawn