Welcome to Development Hell, the fiery pit into which we fling recent developments in casting, distribution, and everything else that’s new and mildly interesting in the Boschian phantasmagoria of the entertainment industry.
Billy Joel is out here proving that he’s kind of a badass, which shouldn’t be particularly surprising to anyone who has ever heard one of his transcendent musical compositions, but it’s still nice to hear that the maestro who gifted “Piano Man” to the world thinks it would be funny to do a farewell tour that involves him putting a couch onstage and taking a nap. It would be funny! Anyway, there’s some other pop culture news happening in the world that isn’t about Mr. Joel, and we’re going to talk about it posthaste!
- First up Stephen King’s From A Buick 8, which is getting an adaptation from The Boy’s William Brent Bell—making this the 700th King adaptation currently in the works. The original book is about a car that happens to be the gateway to a terrifying, monster-filled dimension. The original story is sort of a low-key drama told from the perspective of the cops who keep an eye on the spooky car, but the movie will almost certainly expand it into something closer to the car-based horror of Christine. The original is also loosely connected to The Dark Tower, like a lot of King books, but ignoring that seems like the right choice. [via Deadline]
- Queen Latifah and Octavia Spencer are developing a movie about the 1925 divorce trial between an upper-class New York man and a working-class biracial woman called The Rhinelander Affair. The marriage between Leonard Rhinelander and Alice Jones was controversial from the moment they got together, because America was and is super racist, and pressures from the Rhinelander family and the general public eventually forced the couple to divorce. The script apparently has “many meaty roles,” so this might be a big one. [via Deadline]
- Zoey Deutch is set to star in Buffaloed, a “dramedy” about debt collectors. It takes place in Buffalo, New York, and also the word “buffalo” can refer the act of intimidating somebody (an important tactic when collecting debt), but there’s no word on if Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. [via Buffalo, err, Deadline]
- Australian comedian Tim Minchin is set to star in Upright, a limited series for British and Australian TV about a couple of misfits moving a very important piano from one side of Australia to the other. It might not air in the U.S., but if it’s a hit, somebody will definitely make an Americanized version of it someday. [via Deadline]
- Sony is looking to bring on a partner to help manage its streaming platform Crackle, with an internal email suggesting that the company is looking to sell off some of the streaming service in hopes of making it more competitive with Netflix and Hulu. Maybe Walmart would be interested? [via Deadline]
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