If you want to be an entertainment reporter, here’s some free advice: Always scroll to the bottom of any Deadline story written by the site’s co-editor-in-chief Mike Fleming Jr., because he often includes little nuggets of information that are too early to merit their own headline. Sure enough, Mike ‘pulled a Fleming’ this morning in a story about new hires and promotions at power producer John Lesher‘s production company, Le Grisbi, which was very clearly involved in the release.
Now, if you read all the way to the bottom, Deadline says that Lesher is planning a new project with Hostiles star Christian Bale and that film’s writer-director Scott Cooper. The project is evidently called Valhalla, and while plot details are a mystery, it’s apparently “percolating” at Netflix. This is something I’d been chasing since mid-May — I’d also heard Joel Edgerton may co-star — though representatives for all involved denied it was happening. And that may very well be true! Collider isn’t saying this is “real” yet. Perhaps Deadline is trading in some old information. Or, perhaps not. Perhaps something changed in the last five weeks. I mean, if I were an executive at Netflix, which I probably should be, I know I’d be jumping at the chance to work with an A-lister like Bale, especially when he’s joined by a solid filmmaker like Cooper.
Speaking of whom, Deadline also reports that Cooper and Lesher are developing a film titled Over Tumbled Gravesover at Cross Creek. I think it’s safe to assume, given the unique title, that OTG is an adaptation of Jess Walter‘s acclaimed thriller of the same name, which follows a female detective as she searches for a serial killer in Spokane, Washington. First of all, this sounds awesome, and I’ve already added the book to my Amazon shopping cart. Next, I love the idea of Cooper tackling a female-driven serial killer thriller. I know his next film, Antlers, boasts a female protagonist in the form of Keri Russell, but for the most part, Cooper has made thoughtful macho movies about men, from Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace to the more violent Black Mass and Hostiles. I’m hoping this one comes together soon, but I completely understand if Cooper wants to move fast on Valhalla while Bale has an opening in his schedule.
There were even more nuggets in the Deadline piece, such as the fact that Ana Lily Amirpour‘s next movie looks to have been retitled Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, and that Oscar winner Ezra Edelman, whose O.J. Simpson documentary Made in America is one of the best films of the decade, will make his narrative directing debut with a movie called V.I.N., which is also in the works at Netflix. The streaming company has its fingers in many pies, but here’s hoping both V.I.N. and Valhalla are high on its list of priority projects. Stay tuned for more as these little nuggets of information blossom into full-blown stories…
