* After what was a pretty disappointing 2011, Colin Farrell has a couple of major irons in the fire for this year. Of course he has the summer tentpole leading Total Recall, and later he'll star in Seven Psychopaths from writer/director Martin McDonagh. He also has the WWE Studios actioner, Dead Man Down currently in the works. Next up for him, though, is a Disney film that has some serious Academy Awards potential. He'll join Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks, the true story of how Walt Disney(Hanks) convinced author P.L. Travers(Thompson) to allow him to make a movie using her most famous character, Mary Poppins. She relented, but ended up hating the film, vowing never to allow that to happen again. Farrell will play Travers' father, who died when she was a child. Kelly Marcel wrote the script, with John Lee Hancock(The Blind Side) directing. [Deadline]
* Japanese horror maestro Hideo Nakata(The Ring 2) is set to direct an adaptation of The Suicide Forest, based on the series of graphic novels written by El Torres. It tells the tale of the Aokigahara forest, which is the most popular spot in Japan for committing suicide. In 2010 alone more than 200 people attempted to kill themselves there, with more than 50 succeeding. The story follows an American named Alan, who heads into the forest to confront the spirit of his girlfriend, who committed suicide there. A screenwriter is being sought now, but this definitely sounds like the perfect, haunting material for Nakata.
* One supermodel simply isn't enough. Not for Michael Bay, who loves putting them in his blockbuster flicks. And apparently the same goes for George Miller. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who Bay camera fu**ed unashamedly in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, has joined Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, and fellow model Abby Lee Kershaw in the long developing Fury Road. Just like Kershaw, she'll play one of the five wives being transported across the apocalyptic wasteland, on the run from some mysterious forces. Zoe Kravitz and Riley Keough make up two of the other wives. After an eternity of waiting, filming on Fury Road begins in July, and is planned as the start of a new trilogy. [Deadline]
