Tracking Shot January 2010: The Descendants, Pariah and Cartel

Our very first feature of 2010, is an item which we begin at the top of every month. January’s Tracking Shot makes up for a lack of production in December – and at the top of the productions that are beginning this month we find George Clooney toplining Alexander Payne’s The Descendants for Fox Searchlight. Casting is still underway with this project – and I guess we’ll be hearing more from it in the next couple of weeks.

Among the half dozen, we see Sundance alumni in Shana Feste’s sophomore pic after The Greatest (for Screen Gems) picking up Gwyneth Paltrow for the lead. This is about a young rising singer-songwriter who becomes involved with a fallen country singer (played by Paltrow). One production we’ll try keeping an eye on is the Brooklyn shot lieu for Dee Rees’ film (which actually began shooting in mid-December, but we only got word of it late). The pic is actually based on an original screenplay that was downsized to a short and is now a feature project once again. This is about a lesbian teenager who juggles multiple identities to please friends and family, but pressure from home, school, and within corrodes the line between her dual personas, with explosive consequences.

Shooting outside the States, we have Lionsgate backing Jim Sheridan’s next project – a thriller starring Daniel Craig and is about a family who move to a house in a small New England town and find out it was the scene of a murder. In Europe we have Nanni Moretti with a drama focusing on the Pope, and finally we have Asger Leth heading south of the border for a drug drama (Cartel) for Universal.

Cartel
Director: Asger Leth – Screenwriter: Peter Craig
Producer(s): Brian Grazer and Robert Stone
Cast: Josh Brolin and Mike Sharpe
Filming in Mexico City.

The Descendants
Director: Jim – Screenwriter: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
Producer(s): Ad Hominem’s Payne, Jim Burke and Jim Taylor.
Cast: George Clooney 
Filming in Hawaii.

Dream House
Director: Jim Sheridan – Screenwriter: David Loucka
Producer(s): Daniel Bobker, Ehren Kruger, David C. Robinson and James G. Robinson
Cast: Daniel Craig
Filming in Ireland, Turkey and spots in the U.S.

Habemus Papam
Director: Nanni Moretti – Screenwriter: Moretti and Francesco Piccolo and Federica Pontremoli
Producer(s): Moretti, Jean Labadie and Domenico Procacci
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti 
Filming in Italy.

Love Don’t Let Me Down
Director/Screenwriter: Shana Feste
Producer(s): Tobey Maguire and Jenno Topping
Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Leighton Meester, Tim McGraw and Garrett Hedlund
Filming in Nashville, Tennessee.

Pariah
Director/Screenwriter: Dee Rees
Producer(s): Nekisa Cooper
Cast: No Clue.
Filming in Brooklyn, New York.