• AMC, Duvall to ride Pony Express
  Variety reports:
  

  Posted: Mon., Sep. 29, 2008, 9:00pm PT
  AMC, Duvall to ride Pony Express
  Donner expected to direct Western series
  By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER
  
  AMC is looking to get back on the trail with Robert Duvall, who's developing a new Western-themed series for the channel with the Donners' Company. Fox TV Studios is lined up to produce the untitled drama, which will center on the Pony Express. The pioneering service lasted only from 1860 to 1861 but remains a fabled part of Western lore.
  
  Erik Jendresen ("Band of Brothers") is attached to write the project, while Richard Donner is expected to direct. Duvall would play an as-yet undetermined character on the drama.
  
  Duvall's production partner, Rob Carliner, is also attached, through their Butchers Run Films shingle.
  
  Project is still in its early phase, with a script yet to be written. But given their success with the Emmy-winning Duvall telepic "Broken Trail," AMC scripted series/miniseries senior VP Christina Wayne said the project made sense for the channel.
  
  "We've known about this project and have tracked it for a while," Wayne said. "Clearly our interest peaked with Duvall, who we've had great success with. "
  
  The Pony Express project also extends AMC's relationship with Jendresen, who's also penning (with Chris McQuarrie) an updated version of the 1974 feature "The Conversation" as a series for the cabler.
  
  Duvall, meanwhile, is starring in and directing the four-hour thriller "The Line" for America Saga Prods.

  
  
  
• Trio 'Crazy' for CMT pic : Bridges, Gyllenhaal, Duvall onboard for drama
  Variety reports:
  

  Posted: Wed., Jul. 16, 2008, 9:00pm PT
  Trio 'Crazy' for CMT pic
  Bridges, Gyllenhaal, Duvall onboard for drama
  By TATIANA SIEGEL
  Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall have signed on to star in the music-based drama "Crazy Heart" for CMT Films and Informant Media. Scott Cooper wrote and will helm the film, which is based on the debut novel by Thomas Cobb. Story centers on a down-on-his-luck, alcoholic country music singer (Bridges) who is able to get his life and career back on track through his relationship and experiences with a female reporter (Gyllenhaal).
  
  Composer and producer T Bone Burnett will produce original music for the film and soundtrack. Duvall and Robert Carliner are producing via their Butchers Run Films banner. Judy Cairo, Cooper and Burnett are also producing. Bridges, Michael A. Simpson, Eric Brenner and Jeff Yapp exec produce.
  
  Shooting is scheduled to start next month in and around Santa Fe, N.M.
  
  CMT, a unit of Viacom's MTV Networks, produced "Broken Bridges" and "Dale."
  
  Indie film financing and production company Informant's upcoming slate includes a biopic on soccer star and social activist George Weah, with Sunu Gonera ("Pride") directing.
  
  Bridges, who is currently onscreen in "Iron Man," will perform original songs in "Crazy Heart."

  
  
  
• Duvall to serve as an executive producer for Cracker
  Reuter/Hollywood Reporter reports :

  TNT to remake Brit cop show "Cracker"
  Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:32am EDT
  By Elizabeth Guider
  
  LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - American viewers might get another, perhaps saltier, bite of the '90s Brit hit "Cracker" thanks to a second attempt at turning the quirky cop show into a series stateside.
  
  Cable channel TNT has bought the U.S. rights, and will produce the series with Granada America, whose U.K. parent was the original producer-distributor of the Robbie Coltrane vehicle. Robert Duvall will serve as an executive producer.
  
  Coltrane played Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald, who despite being a drinking, gambling, adulterous chain-smoker, managed to be both a sympathetic character and a savvy sleuth.
  
  An Americanized "Cracker" starring Robert Pastorelli ("Murphy Brown") aired on ABC in fall 1997, but it lacked the punch of the original and was canceled after one season.
  
  Why try again?
  
  "It was such a success in the UK and around the world -- such a great character and also a great procedural," Granada America senior vp Julie Meldal-Johnsen said. "We thought the timing was right and that American cable, edgier and more open, would be a better venue for it than broadcast."
  
  As for TNT's rationale for redoing "Cracker," it might well be that a strong male-led series -- and, if true to the original, eccentrically so -- will play nicely in the mix with the cable channel's established female-driven hits "The Closer" and "Saving Grace."
  
  The deal for "Cracker" is part of Granada's accelerated push to reconfigure its huge British library of scripted series for U.S. networks and cable channels.

  
  
  
• 'Get Low' gets financing from K5
  Hollywood Reporter reports:
  

  'Get Low' gets financing from K5
  Stars Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek
  By Stuart Kemp
  
  May 15, 2008, 11:39 AM
  CANNES -- Aaron Schneider's "Get Low," starring Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek, has sealed a co-financing deal with K5 International, the Germany- and U.K.-based worldwide sales and financier run by Bill Stephens, Daniel Baur and Oliver Simon.
  
  Produced by Richard Zanuck, Dean Zanuck and Harrison Zanuck, "Low" is written by Schneider, C. Gaby Mitchell and Chris Provenzano and centers on recluse Felix Bush.
  
  The movie is being presold internationally by K5 here and is skedded to shoot in the U.S. in the fall.
  
  The deal was negotiated by Dean Zanuck on behalf of the Zanuck Co. and by the principals at K5.

  
  
  
• Duvall rumored to be cast in post-apocalyptic pic
  ign.com reports:
  

  January 29, 2008 - Kodi Smit-McPhee, the 11 year-old Aussie actor recently cast as young Logan in Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, has reportedly been cast as Viggo Mortensen's son in the feature film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road.
  
  Smit-McPhee's casting was reported by Australia's The Daily Telegraph. He first gained notice for his role as Eric Bana's son in the Aussie drama Romulus, My Father.
  
  In related news, The Pittsburgh Business Times reports that The Road will commence production next month in Pittsburgh for an eight-week shoot. (ProductionCharts.com adds that the film will also shoot for one week each in Oregon and Louisiana.) The paper confirmed the film's Pittsburgh stint with both production company 2929 Entertainment and the Pittsburgh Film Office.
  
  The Times adds that the film, which stars Mortensen and Charlize Theron, has also cast Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall in unspecified roles. Pearce was rumored last fall as possibly replacing Mortensen in the lead role, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
  
  Given that the novel is essentially a two-character tale, perhaps Pearce and Duvall will, like Theron's character, appear in flashback. Pearce previously worked with Road director John Hillcoat on The Proposition.

  
  

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