Vulture hears that Meryl Streep may team up with James Gandolfini and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the Mike Nichols–directed drama Great Hope Springs. Written by Tell Me You Love Me scribe Vanessa Taylor (apparently a big fan of tortured couples), Springs is about a husband and wife (Gandolfini and Streep) undergoing an intense weekend of counseling to decide their future after 30 years of marriage. Back in June, The Wrap reported that Jeff Bridges was set to play the husband, but sources tell Vulture that that deal never materialized, and Streep and Gandolfini recently did a table read of the script, with Hoffman as the part of the therapist.
No deals are yet signed, but sources tell us that both men badly want to do the film with Streep, who has indicated she’d like to do it with them in March if distribution and talent deals could be assembled in time. Currently, the project has been set up at Mandate Pictures, the foreign sales company that keeps Sam Raimi’s Ghost House horror label in cash, but we hear that based on the fast-coalescing stellar cast, Mandate has gotten strong interest from several Hollywood studios about distributing the picture without even having to first sell the overseas rights.
