So, here’s the least surprising news in the world: James Franco, who is in just about every movie being made right now and has already played such real-life gay cultural figures as Allen Ginsberg, Hart Crane, and Harvey Milk’s boyfriend Scott Smith, will star as Robert Mapplethorpe in a new biopic. Called simply Mapplethorpe, the film will be directed by Ondi Timoner — who’s known for her cult-favorite documentaries Dig! and We Live in Public – and has just been blessed with a grant from Tribeca Film Institute’s Tribeca All Access Program. Oh, and Joss Whedon fans? Today’s James Franco pop-culture Madlib is rounded out by Eliza Dushku, who is a producer on the project. [via THR]
When Wonder Woman first appeared in 1941, she was intended to be a “distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men.” Since then, the DC Comics character has inspired multiple TV series, an animated movie, and several other film projects that never made it past the production phase. Today it was announced that famed TV producer and screenwriter David E. Kelley is working on a new Wonder Woman TV series. Excited by the news, we decided to do a quick casting call of our own for the title role.
As Whedon fanatics already stumbling through the five stages of grief already know well, Fox has officially pulled the plug on Dollhouse. We could place the blame on everything from overcomplicated plotting to the limited acting talents of star Eliza Dushku… or we could simply lament TV audiences’ contempt for intelligent programming. But we prefer to heal by looking to the future. As PopWatch put it, the cancellation will “free Whedon from a show that, let’s be frank, was never going to climb out of the hole it was in. Dollhouse had too much viewer attrition and too little network support.”
So, what should Joss Whedon’s next project be? We have a few ideas.
Word on the street is that with TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES picked up for an entire season, DOLLHOUSE, the new project from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER creator JOSS WHEDON will be delayed — perhaps permanently.
But we’ve got a plan.
Terminator star SUMMER GLAU was working with Whedon on an original ballet (we’re imagining something similar to his fantastic direct-to-web release, DOCTOR HORRIBLE’S SING-ALONG BLOG), but progress was held up by prior commitments to their respective FOX series.
While Dollhouse star ELIZA DUSHKU is a few years older than Glau, they both have a similar tough-but-hot vibe, plus Dushku and Whedon are already BFF from working on Buffy and ANGEL. We ownBRING IT ON; this girl has got moves.
