* Disney has pegged November 27th 2013 as the release date for the animated musical, Frozen, based on the Hans Christian Anderson Anderson fairy tale, The Snow Queen. Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel(Rent) will voice the film, which follows a land that has been trapped in an eternal winter. Anna(Bell) teams up with a great mountain man to locate the Snow Queen(Menzel) and put an end to her icy spell. Chris Buck(Surf's Up) will direct, with Broadway greats Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez providing original songs.
* Neil Burger(Limitless) will direct Animal Rescue, based on the short story by acclaimed crime author, Dennis Lehane(Mystic River). Fox Searchlight has been trying to find someone to take on the flick for awhile, with David Cronenberg, Alexander Payne, and George Clooney circling it at different points. The story centers on a heist gone wrong, a pit bull, a killing, and a man trying to leave a life of crime behind. [Variety]
* Penelope Cruz sees herself confirmed for two movies that couldn't be more different, one from a director she's extremely familiar with; the other with an actor she definitely knows a thing or two about. First, Cruz has been confirmed to star in The Counselor, the Ridley Scott directed film based on a script by Cormac McCarthy. She'll get to hang out with her husband Javier Bardem, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, and Cameron Diaz in a story that's been described as similar to McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. It follows the titular counselor who ventures into the drug trade to make a quick score, only to find it's not so easy to get out of that life. It looks like she'll be playing Laura, the counselor's wife.
Before she films that, she'll join her longtime collaborator, Pedro Almodovar for Standby Lovers. The comedy has the director enlisting a number of his former stars, including Cecilia Roth, Paz Vega, and Lola Duenas. We're finally learning more about the plot, which is about an affair that takes place on an airplane. Filming is set to begin this summer in Madrid. We'll see if that title sticks, also. It's also been referred to as The Brief Lovers. This will be Cruz's first time working with Almodovar since 2008's Broken Embraces.
