* First announced back in January, Lindsay Lohan has been confirmed to play legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor in Liz & Dick, a television film for the Lifetime network. At the time I speculated Lohan's name was just being used to hype the production and that she'd quietly be dropped from the project, just as she was from Gotti: Shadow of My Father and Inferno. However it's stuck, and this is clearly her best opportunity for a comeback in ages, far better than playing a gun-toting nun in Machete. The film has some solid pedigree, with Christopher Monger(Temple Grandin) penning the script, and a story that focuses on the chaotic relationship between Taylor and on again/off again husband, Richard Burton. Filming begins in June, but first a director needs to be found.[THR]
* Although she's a part of two big popcorn franchises in The Hunger Games and X-men: First Class, Jennifer Lawrence is no stranger to weighty material. In fact she seems to gravitate towards it. Her next project might be the toughest of the bunch, as Lionsgate has just picked up the rights to Jeanette Walls' best selling novel, Glass Castle: A Memoir, for Lawrence to star. The book, which spent five years on the New York Times Best Seller list, follows the authors early years growing up under two very eccentric parents. Her mother was an artist, and an admitted excitement junkie, who rarely could spare the time to take care of her children. Her father was smart and adventurous when sober, but when drunk he became a thief and could never hold down a job. No director has been named for the film yet, but Marti Noxon(Fright Night) will write the script.[Deadline]
* Melissa Leo(Frozen River) and Til Schweiger(Inglourious Basterds) have joined the cast of The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, the Fredrik Bond directed film which just recently saw Shia Labeouf step back into the lead role of a normal guy who falls in love with the wrong girl as her ex-husband is a violent crime boss. Charlie suffers multiple beat downs in a desperate bid to rescue the woman of his dreams. Evan Rachel Wood plays the love interest, with Mads Mikkelsen as the bad guy. Melissa Leo will play Charlie's late mother, whose spirit still guides him. Schweiger will play a Serbian gangster and ex-paramilitary fighter. The script comes from Project X scribe, Matt Drake. [Variety]
