Tracking Shot September 2010: Yellow, Wuthering Heights, Super 8, Return, My Week with Marilyn, Drive and Contagion

At the beginning of each month, IONCINEMA.com’s “Tracking Shot” features about a handful of projects that are moments away from lensing and that we feel are worth signaling out. This September, we’ve got a car and motorcycle-load of studio pics grabbing our interest, as well as, some indie items shooting locally and abroad.

On the indie film front, Liza Johnson (featured in our 2010 American New Wave 25 list) is directing her feature film debut with Linda Cardellini playing a mother, wife and soldier back from a tour of duty. Nick Cassavetes’ is going the indie route as well, with his addiction drama with names like Ben Foster, Lucy Punch, Sienna Miller and his mom, Gena Rowlands. And working towards a late Sept start in Detroit, we have no logline, but the reason for my curiosity in Devil in My Shoes (now called The Reasonable Bunch) is the pairing of Ellen Barkin and Ellen Burstyn in a so far, female only cast.

On the studio side of things, we have a couple of items here drumming up interest. J.J. Abrams might not have announced his cast or plot, but we have this teaser to get a sense of what he’ll be doing in Virginia this month. Steven Soderbergh’s virus outbreak action thriller for Warner Bros features the million dollar dream team of Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hawkes. A Universal Pictures project that I’m really curious about is Drive. Dane filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn’s first studio film should be interesting because of its odd casting choices in Gosling, Mulligan, Emmy-winner Cranston and Albert Brooks. Speaking of Scandi, Columbia Pictures is setting up shop in Sweden, might begin lensing this month or next on the Dragon Tattoo remake – David Fincher directs with a pair of bankable stars — but the real question is: besides language, how different can this be from the original?

Across the pond, I’m liking the sound of the new Michelle Williams’ film – a take on Marilyn Monroe while on a 1957 set with Laurence Olivier to be played by Kenneth Branagh. Weinstein Co. is onboard My Week with Marilyn, which should begin shooting soon in the U.K. Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights still needs its Heathcliff and supporting cast. I imagine that long list is a short list by now, and that we should hear some casting news probably during TIFF with filming, at best, beginning at the very end of the month.

Contagion
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Screenwriter: Scott Z. Burns
Producer: Soderdergh, Gregory Jacobs, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon , Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hawkes
Filming in Chicago and Los Angeles.

The Reasonable Bunch
Director/Writer: Sam Levinson
Producer: Celine Rattray
Cast: Kate Bosworth, Demi Moore, Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Thomas Haden Church, Martin Landau and Ezra Miller
Filming in Detroit.

Drive
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Screenwriter: Hossein Amini (The Four Feathers)
Producer: Michel Litvak, John Palermo, Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker and Adam Siegel
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston and Albert Brooks
Filming in Los Angeles.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Director: David Fincher
Screenwriter: Steve Zaillian
Producer: Scott Rudin 
Cast: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Robin Wright
Filming in Sweden.

My Week with Marilyn
Director: Simon Curtis
Screenwriter: TBD
Producer: David Parfitt (Shakespeare in Love)
Cast: Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench
Filming in London, England.

Return
Director/Writer: Liza Johnson
Producer: Noah Harlan
Cast: Linda Cardellini, Tim Blake Nelson and Michael Shannon
Filming in Winnipeg.

Super 8
Director/Writer: J.J. Abrams
Executive Producer: Steven Spielberg
Cast: TBA
Filming in Weirton, West Virginia.

Wuthering Heights
Director: Andrea Arnold
Screenwriter: Olivia Hetreed
Producer: Robert Bernstein, Kevin Loader and Douglas Rae
Cast: Kaya Scodelario 
Filming in Yorkshire.

Yellow
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Screenwriter: Cassavetes and Heather Wahlquist
Producer: Jordan Gertner, Chris Hanley, David Hillary, Timothy Wayne Peternel
Cast: Lucy Punch, Ben Foster, Sienna Miller, Melanie Griffith, Gena Rowlands and Wahlquist
Filming in Los Angeles and Oklahoma.