* While Steven Soderbergh's "retirement" still looms, fans of his work must still be in pure Heaven at the director's recent output. Contagion is just now wrapping up it's run, while his spy thriller Haywire will hit in January. Soderbergh is also currently shooting his male stripper pic, Magic Mike. And now the film that he's been trying to get made forever has found a home. HBO Films has picked up Soderbergh's Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as the famed entertainer and Matt Damon as his lover, Scott Thorson(who wrote the book it's based on). The plan is for filming to begin next summer, which may cause a rift in shooting Soderbergh's adaptation of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. [THR]
* Biopics of famous authors continues to be big business. A film based on Scottish writer Kenneth Grahame, creator of the Wind in the Willows children's books, has been in the works for years, recently with Bruce Beresford(Driving Miss Daisy) attached to direct. That was before the Irish banking crisis caused a shutdown. Now he's been replaced by Mexican helmer, Luis Mandoki(Angel Eyes). Ioan Gruffudd(Fantastic Four) is no longer on board to star. Titled Banking on Mr. Toad, the film will be a live-action/animation hybrid, and focus on Grahame's beginnings as secretary of the Bank of England to the acclaimed writer he would eventually become. [Variety]
* Michael Fassbender just can't get enough of director Steve McQueen. The two will team-up for the third time in 12 Years A Slave, which McQueen will both helm and co-write along with John Ridley. Chiwetel Ejiafor is already attached to star in the film, an adaptation of Solomon Northrop's 1853 autobiography about his own kidnapping and forced enslavement. McQueen and Fassbender have previously worked together on Hunger, and the upcoming sexual addiction flick, Shame. [Variety]
