Ben Affleck will star in his upcoming directorial project Argo!

The Playlist has the story:

Directing isn’t easy. It’s a lot of little decisions and delegating jobs to other people who you hope can execute the vision you have in mind down to the last detail. It’s communicating with actors and crew and hoping that you can bring everybody together under one unified, specific goal and sometimes, you just have to take on a little more to get the job done right.

With that in mind, Variety reports that Ben Affleck has cast himself in the lead of his next directorial effort, “Argo.” The film is based on the true story about a C.I.A. plan to rescue a group of diplomats from Tehran after the 1979 Iranian revolution by claiming that they were part of a Hollywood movie crew shooting a film in the country. Alan Arkin is on board to play Lester Siegel, a former O.S.S. spy, now a movie producer, described as “equal parts bookie and rabbi,” who helps get the fake movie rolling, with John Goodman playing the Oscar-winning “Planet of the Apes” makeup artist John Chambers who is brought in on the elaborate scheme. As for Affleck, he’ll take the central role of Tony Mendez, the CIA exfiltration expert who gets the whole scheme up and running.

Affleck previously directed himself in the heist pic “The Town” and seems to listen very well to his own instructions. Still no start date just yet, but it looks like it will be imminent with casting continuing to move along steadily. Though the film will be lighter in tone than “The Town” or “Gone Baby Gone”—the fake movie stuff should be pretty amusing—it will also have a strong dose of realism too, as Affleck plans to have the actors who will play hostages live together in a “safe house” for two weeks prior to the start of filming so they can become acquainted with what their real life counterparts went through. No release date yet, but an Oscar season 2012 bow seems inevitable.

-Joey's Two Cents: I think he directed himself incredibly well in The Town, so I'm anxious to see him do it again...thoughts?

George Clooney's project The Ides of March will open the Venice Film Festival!

Via Variety:

George Clooney's "The Ides of March" has been tapped as the opening film of the 68th Venice Film Festival on Aug. 31.

Fest hasn't made an official announcement but a source not authorized to speak for the event confirmed the selection Monday.

Sony's dated the political thriller for an Oct. 7 limited release. Clooney directed from a script he co-wrote with Grant Heslov. He also stars in the film, which is based on the Broadway play "Farragut North," written by Beau Willmon.

Pic centers on a young press spokesman, played by Ryan Gosling, who falls prey to backroom politics. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei Jeffrey Wright and Evan Rachel Wood are also starring.

Sony nabbed U.S. distribution rights to "March" in November, with Exclusive Media Group handling overseas distribution.

Venice competition berths have been set previoulsy for Roman Polanski's "Carnage," David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," Russian auteur Aleksandr Sokurov's "Faust," the fourth and final installment in his "Men of Power" series, and Philippe Garrel's "Un ete brulant" (A Burning Hot Summer).

-Joey's Two Cents: It's shaping up to be a real good fest...thoughts?

Warren Beatty will step behind the camera again?

The Hollywood Reporter says yes:

Warren Beatty, who hasn’t directed a film since 1998’s Bulworth, has pacted with Paramount Pictures to write, direct, produce and star in an untitled project based on his original screenplay.

The project will mark a return to Paramount for Beatty, who directed 1978’s Heaven Can Wait and 1981’s Reds for the studio.

“Warren’s script is quintessential Beatty, elegantly written and wonderfully entertaining,” said Paramount chairman and CEO Brad Grey, who announced the project Monday. “It is our privilege to have one of the great artists in the history of the film industry come home to Paramount.”

The film is scheduled to go into production later this year.

-Joey's Two Cents: He's always been an interesting filmmaker, so I'm in for this...thoughts?

Ben Affleck might have his 4th directorial endeavor coming together...

...and it's his first remake. Here's what Deadline has to say:

Harlan Coben, one of the biggest selling mystery writers in America, is finally in line to have one of his books made into a major Hollywood film. And all he had to do was make a detour through France.

Warner Bros and Universal Pictures have optioned rights to turn Coben’s thriller Tell No One. Ben Affleck is attached to direct and the script will be written by Chris Terrio. Terrio scripted Argo, the film Affleck is preparing to direct next for Warner Bros. Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will be the producers. The studios will co-develop the picture, with Warner Bros releasing domestically and Universal Pictures International launching it overseas. The deal involves Luc Besson’s Europacorp and that’s where the French connection comes in. The new project is basically a remake of the French film adaptation of Coben’s book, which was directed by Guillaume Canet.

Coben originally set up his book at Sony Pictures in 2002. The studio hired Star Trek scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, no less. Coben has a page-turning writing style, but his mysteries aren't seamless screen transitions. It never quite came together and Sony let it go. Canet then got involved, figured out how to make the premise work onscreen, set it up at Europacorp and turned it into French film. The plot involves a pediatrician who is out one night frolicking by a lake with his wife when she suddenly vanishes and he is severely beaten when he tries to find her. When she turns up murdered, he is prime suspect. That’s until she’s declared a victim of a caught serial killer. Years later, bodies turn up in the same spot and the nightmare is repeated as the pediatrician is again under suspicion. Right around that time, he’s given evidence that his wife wasn’t dead at all. Canet managed to make all that work, anchored by the fact the protagonist never got over the death of his wife. Sara Schechter and Greg Silverman are running the project for Warner Bros and Adam Yoelin is steering it for Kennedy/Marshall.
Maybe this gives hope to Coben's other books. That includes the series revolving around hoops star-turned sports agent and sleuth Myron Bolitar. John Calley bought those rights at Sony Pictures years ago but could never get a script he could make. Do they have sports agent/sleuths in France?

-Joey's Two Cents: At this point, anything Affleck directs I'm interested in...thoughts

Alan Arkin joins Ben Affleck's next directorial project Argo...

...and here's the story, via Variety:

Ben Affleck has tapped "Little Miss Sunshine" star Alan Arkin as the first actor to join his Tehran hostage crisis pic "Argo."

Arkin is in negotiations to play Hollywood producer Lester Siegel, an O.S.S. veteran described as equal parts bookie and rabbi.

Chris Terrio adapted Joshuah Bearman's April 2007 Wired magazine article, titled "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue American from Tehran," which told how the CIA and the Canadian government teamed to rescue six U.S. dipomats who'd been taken hostage at the American embassy by a group of Iranians in 1979. The CIA's ruse involved the explanation that the six hostages were actually a Hollywood film crew scouting a movie titled "Argo," and using those fake identities, they were able to flee the country.

George Clooney and Grant Heslov are producing Warner Bros.' political drama through their Smoke House banner along with David Klawans ("Nacho Libre").

Arkin will soon be seen playing Ryan Reynolds' father in Universal's comedy "The Change-Up," and he also appears in Disney's "The Muppets."

Arkin is repped by ICM and Principal Entertainment.

-Joey's Two Cents: It's an interesting sounding project, and I'm very curious to know what the tone will be...thoughts?

John Krasinski will star in Matt Damon's directorial debut...

...according to Collider:

Never one to be outdone by his Good Will Hunting buddy Ben Affleck, Matt Damon will soon follow that old actor’s cliché and admit that all he ever really wanted to do was direct. Damon has been considering stepping into a director’s chair for a while now, initially planning to cut his teeth on the long discussed baseball wife-swap movie The Trade, which also would have featured himself and Affleck in the lead roles. However, that movie is now on hold due to undetermined legal troubles and Damon plans to move on to Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses. The wheels are already in motion on the project, with a rough start date in place for next year with John Krasinski attached to star. Hit the jump for further details on Damon’s directorial debut.

Though he’s never made a big stink out of it, Matt Damon has been planning to try his hand at directing for quite some time now and according to a recent interview he did with Vulture, the experiment could be happening quite soon. “I am coming closer to a directorial thing, yes,” claimed the actor. “I’ve got a few things that I really want to direct, and one I’m actually going to start at the first quarter of next year.” He then added “John Krasinski’s in it.” Though no official announcement has been made by a studio regarding Father Daughter Time, but it’s hard to imagine that Damon doesn’t have the power to get a reasonably-budgeted movie greenlit in Hollywood with him in the director’s chair.

So what is this mysterious movie all about? Apparently it’s follows a man who embarks on a cross-country crime spree with his daughter. Presumably it’ll be something along the lines of Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon, but with a little Bonnie and Clyde thrown in for good measure. Though Damon didn’t mention who Krasinski would play in the movie, it wouldn’t be out of the question to assume that he’ll be playing the father.

Damon could have a knack for working behind the camera. After all, the guy has worked with some of the finest filmmakers in the business like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, and Steven Soderbergh, just to name a few. He must have learned something about directing through osmosis alone and let’s not forget that Damon has an Oscar on his mantle for writing, not acting and the guy who shared that award with him certainly had no problem transitioning to behind the camera. Even if Father Daughter Time proves to be a one off career oddity for Damon, it will be worth taking a peak at just to see if he has any directorial chops.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'm eager to see Damon direct...thoughts?

Ryan Gosling won't be making his directorial debut anytime soon...

...according to Deadline, at least:

Here's how fast things move in Hollywood. At Cannes, I got my confirmations and revealed that Ryan Gosling would direct and star in MGM's remake of The Idolmaker. Now, a couple weeks later, I get to report that he's had to back out of the picture, at least for now. He just informed the studio he would be too busy. He's in pre-production on A Place Beyond the Pines, which reteams him with Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance, and then Gosling moves immediately into the Ruben Fleischer-directed Gangster Squad, starring with Sean Penn and Josh Brolin in the period crime drama for Warner Bros. MGM is convinced that Idolmaker is a plum project and the studio and will continue developing the picture. If Gosling is available, they will revisit it down the line. It is fun to watch Gosling's transformation from darling of the independent film set to arguably the most coveted young leading man for studio films. After turning down lead roles in recent years I've heard included Superman, Jack Ryan, Akira and The Lone Ranger, Gosling is suddenly giving the studios a chance. He impressed the Cannes set with the Nicolas Refn-directed Drive, and Warner Bros is offering him everything after testing Crazy, Stupid, Love, with the studio getting Gosling to reteam with Refn in a remake of Logan's Run. It looks like MGM will have to find another star for its Idolmaker, the remake of the Taylor Hackford-directed film that starred the late Ray Sharkey as a music promoter.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'd like to see Gosling direct something eventually, but he's certainly busy these days...thoughts?

Ryan Gosling will make his directorial debut with a remake of The Idolmaker?

Apparently so, according to Deadline:

Ryan Gosling is set to star and direct a remake of the 1980 movie The Idolmaker for MGM. It would be the Oscar-nominated actor's directorial debut. Idolmaker, directed by Taylor Hackford, starred Ray Sharkey in a story about the life of rock promoter/producer Bob Marcucci, who discovered Frankie Avalon and Fabian. Gosling -- in Cannes this week for the premiere of the competition film Drive, co-starring Carey Mulligan and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn -- has been shifting his focus from indies to more mainstream fare of late. He's co-starring alongside Steve Carell in Warner Bros' Crazy, Stupid, Love, which opens July 29, and he is starring in Logan's Run and Gangster Squad, Warner Bros' big Will Beall-scripted crime drama that also will star Sean Penn and Josh Brolin.

-Joey's Two Cents: I wonder if this is part of the reason that he's been taking part in larger scale movies of late. Either way, I'm very interested to see what he's got as a filmmaker...thoughts?

Matt Damon might be making his directorial debut soon...

...according to Deadline:

In a $500,000 against $800,000 deal, Warner Bros is finalizing a deal to acquire Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses, the Matthew Aldrich spec that Deadline told you yesterday had five bids on the table. The deal is just happening, and I expect the next development to be that Matt Damon is working on this picture as its star and also eyeing it as potentially the one on which he'll make his feature directing debut. He will also produce through his WB-based company Pearl Street, with partner Ben Affleck, Chris Moore and Drew Vinton also producing.

This has been a spec auction with some big twists and turns, because one of the bids that rivaled the one from Warner Bros was made by Damon and Moore, with money from a private financier. Other bids came in from Paramount (with JJ Abrams attached to produce), Fox (for Peter Chernin), Mandate, Walter Parkes through his discretionary fund, with Relativity Media and others also in the mix.

The script focuses on a man who goes on the lam with his daughter, his accomplice on a three-state crime spree.

CAA, Aldrich's manager Jewerl Ross and attorney Jamie Feldman were working on the auction all day yesterday and by last night, it looked like Damon and Moore would land the deal, but this morning Warner Bros upped the ante. Since the studio has a first-look deal that Damon made with his and Moore's former Live Planet partner Affleck, it shouldn't be a difficult maneuver to plug Damon right into the center of the film.

This is a strong spec sale at a time when not a lot of money is being paid in the marketplace for scripts that don't come with attachments. Adrich said that he wrote his script on and off, putting it down when he was hired on assignment and picking it back up. "The spec road wasn't really the plan, I finished the draft, gave it to my manager and new agents, who loved it, and the idea was to attach a director," he said. "It took off from there." While specs are considered the riskiest form of employment right now, Aldrich said it has worked well for him.

"The one film I've had produced was a spec, so I guess I'm batting 2 for 2," he said. "Specs are turning out to be a pretty good business model. But the idea wasn't to make a deal, it was to make a movie. The script is not high concept, it's a smallish, very personal, dark but playful road movie about a father and daughter."

The reason they were heading for the independent offer, according to Ross, was becasue they wanted to protect the vision of the film and feared that would be difficult at a studio. But they sparked to the continued involvement of Damon, who has pledged just that.

"When one of the biggest movie stars in the world, who also happens to be an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, gets on the phone with your client and offers to protect the writer's vision and opens his hand to be a creative partner, it's hard to say no," Ross said. "The money becomes secondary. This script is not the obvious studio movie. There are no explosions. It will require delicate handling. Avoiding years of development hell was our goal."

-Joey's Two Cents: It sounds like an interesting project, and I can't wait to see what Damon can do as a director...thoughts?

Is Russell Crowe about to make his directorial debut?

Perhaps, according to Deadline:

Russell Crowe is seriously considering starring in and making his feature directorial debut in 77. The period cop movie has a script by David Matthews, a rewrite of an original screenplay by LA Confidential's James Ellroy. Dick Wolf and Tony Ganz are producing. Crowe has been itching to make his directing debut for years and this sounds like a dynamite premise. The drama connects two stories from 1974. It deals with the unsolved murder of an LAPD officer, and the nationally televised shootout in South Central L.A. between the Symbionese Liberation Army and the LAPD, where 50,000 rounds of gunfire were exchanged. The events will be seen through the eyes of two police partners, one black and one white. Crowe was attached to Bra Boys, the dramatic adaptation of the documentary about outlaw surfers in Australia, and before that flirted with directing the Australia-based WWII drama The Long Green Shore, based on the novel by John Hepworth. He's awaiting a rewrite of the 77 script to see if this one will be the charm. WME reps him and the agency reps Matthews with Schiff Company.

-Joey's Two Cents: It sounds like a potentially compelling project, and I'm always interested to see how an actor makes the transition to being behind the camera...thoughts?

George Clooney to make a movie about the Wall St. bailout?

So it seems, according to Variety:

George Clooney and Grant Heslov's production shingle is onboard to produce a Wall Street bailout pic based on 2009 Washington Post article "The $700 Billion Man."

Project is being developed as a potential directing vehicle for Clooney. Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment optioned the rights to Laura Blumenfeld's article about TARP mastermind Neel Kashkari for Clooney and Heslov's Smoke House banner.

Kashkari, a top official under then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, helped develop the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out the big banks following the economic collapse in 2008. Kashkari subsequently left Washington and moved to an isolated cabin in Northern California.

Zach Helm ("Stranger Than Fiction") has been tapped to write the pic. Clooney will produce with Heslov and Double Feature Films partners Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher.

Shamberg and Sher last worked with Clooney on Steven Soderbergh's 1998 pic "Out of Sight."

Clooney is currently filming "The Ides of March." in which he co-stars alongside Ryan Gosling. Sony will distribute the political drama on Oct. 14. Clooney also stars in Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," which Fox Searchlight will release on Dec. 16.

Clooney is repped by CAA.

-Joey's Two Cents: Clooney is a talented director, so if he sees something in this project, I'm willing to go along with it, especially since I dug Helm's script for Stranger Than Fiction...thoughts?