the industry

Jon Favreau Will Direct ‘Iron Man 2,’ Thanks to America

Photo: WireImage


Internet 1, Agency 0: It turns out that nerd outrage on the blogosphere holds significant sway in the Hollywood halls of power, as Marvel has finally reached a deal with prodigal director Jon Favreau to helm Iron Man 2. Whether or not the studio actually buckled under fan pressure to pay the man his money, you can totally congratulate your nerd friends on making this movie awesome. [DHD]

Esparza Plows New Fields: Raúl Esparza, will play producer Charlie Fox in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow revival, joining and likely totally acting circles around Jeremy Piven. [NYT]

HBO’s Pilot Frenzy: HBO has a fever, and the only cure is more cowbell — er, pilots. First up is the hour-long drama Treme (from The Wire’s David Simon), about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, along with Martin Scorsese’s twenties Atlantic City drama, Boardwalk Express. Jessica Cutler’s Washingtonienne will also go into production, thus fulfilling the final step of her business plan: (1) Be hot, (2) have scandalous sex with a politician, (3) blog about it, and (4)PROFIT. [Variety]

Brown Has a Bone to Pick: Actor-singer Chris Brown is in final negotiations to star with Matt Dillon, Idris Elba, and T.I. in Bone Deep, a pretty standard cops-and-robbers heist movie from Screen Gems. Standard, that is, until we started imagining the possibility of Brown-T.I. musical dance numbers. [HR]

Heavy Metal Sinks: It’s not often that high-profile movies are immediately put into pseudo-turnaround, but that’s what’s sort of happening to David Fincher’s Heavy Metal. According to the animation studio involved, Paramount felt the project was “too risqué” and so the rocktastic adventure is on hold while Fincher and publisher Kevin Eastman shop it to other studios. Come on, Paramount, it’s not like nudity is the defining aspect of this movie to the extent that a parody would be solely devoted to boobs. [EW]

Jon Favreau Will Direct ‘Iron Man 2,’ Thanks to America