Tracking Shot April 2010: Butter, Oranges, Help Me Spread Goodness, We Need to Talk About Kevin

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com’s “Tracking Shot” features a half dozen or so projects that are moments away from lensing and that we feel are worth signaling out. This April, we’ve got a huge batch of indie films, some foreign productions, three book adaptations and a miniseries — here’s the breakdown.

Fans of the annual Blacklist will notice top tier items from 2008 in Oranges (#2) and Butter (#3) are going into production. Butter still has some casting work before setting up shop in Louisana. The state will also be the host to the next Duplass comedy entitled, Jeff Who Lives at Home.

Some very fresh casting news: has the very busy vet actor John Hurt being added to the ensemble cast in Tarsem’s War of the Gods, which begins filming today in Montreal. Lynne Ramsay will finally start filming We Need to Talk About Kevin, and as I reported just a couple of hours ago, Ezra Miller has joined Swinton and C. Reilly to complete the trio.

In the category related to European projects, we have German helmer Dominik Moll shooting a thriller in Spain with Vincent Cassel, Geraldine Chaplin, Déborah François and Sergi López; while Polish helmer Pawel Pawlikowski is finally his next feature in seven years (The Woman in the Fifth) in Paris.

A pair of films that may be leaning more towards May are the Sundance lab project, Goodnight Moon from Elgin James – he’ll need to wait for Juno Temple who is on a film per month pacing, and Ben Stiller will need to cast more people than himself if he wants to get Help Me Spread Goodness off the ground.

Finally, Todd Haynes embarks on one more ambitious project as becomes part of a trend of established filmmakers hitting HBO for a mini-series. His Mildred Pierce might be ready before the end of the year, which would be perfect around the holidays if you ask me. I’m not sure when Melissa Leo was added (another casting bit not reported in the trades – but she is the latest name cast.

Butter
Director: Jim Field Smith
Screenwriter: Jason A. Micallef
Producer: Michael De Luca and Jennifer Garner
Cast: Kate Hudson, Jennifer Garner
Filming in Louisiana

Goodnight Moon
Director/Writer: Elgin James
Producer: Jamie Patricof
Cast: Juno Temple and AnnaSophia Robb
Filming in Los Angeles

Help Me Spread Goodness
Director: Ben Stiller
Screenwriter: Mark Friedman
Producer: Stuart Cornfeld, Jeremy Kramer, Ben Stiller
Cast: Ben Stiller
Filming in Africa and Chicago

Jeff Who Lives at Home
Directors/Writers: Jay and Mark Duplass
Producer: Jay and Mark Duplass, John Malkovich, Jason Reitman
Cast: Jason Segel, Judy Greer, Ed Helms
Filming in
Louisiana

Mildred Pierce
Director/Writer: Todd Haynes
Producer: Christine Vachon’s Killer Films & John Wells Prods.
Cast: Kate Winslet, Evan Rachel Wood, Guy Pearce, Brian F. O’Byrne, Melissa Leo, James LeGros
Filming in New York City

The Monk
Director/Writer: Dominik Moll
Producer: Alvaro Longoria and Michel Saint-Jean
Cast: Vincent Cassel, Geraldine Chaplin, Déborah François and Sergi López
Filming in Madrid, Spain

The Oranges
Director: Julian Farino
Screenwriter: Ian Helfer and Jay Reiss
Producer: Anthony Bregman, FilmNation’s Glen Basner and Leslie Urdang of Olympus.
Cast: Catherine Keener, Hugh Laurie, Leighton Meester, Alia Shawkat, Adam Brody, Allison Janney
Filming in New York City

Immortals
Director: Tarsem
Screenwriter: Christian Gudegast rewrote from the Parlapanides bros. screenplay
Producer: Mark Canton, Ryan Kavanaugh, Gianni Nunnari
Cast: Kellan Lutz, Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto, Henry Cavill, Luke Evans, Stephen Dorff, John Hurt
Filming in Montreal

We Need to Talk About Kevin
Director/Writer: Lynne Ramsay
Producer: Jennifer Fox & Luc Roeg
Cast: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller
Filming in Connecticut

Woman In The Fifth
Director/Writer: Pawel Pawlikowski
Producer: Haut et Court
Cast: Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas
Filming in Paris