Recent Oscar-nominee Laura Dern (Wild) is in talks to join Michael Keaton in The Founder, about restaurateur Ray Croc who helped turn McDonald's into the top fast food chain in the world. Croc used some dubious tactics to claim ownership of the restaurant, with his firs wife Ethel (Dern) forced to put up with his questionable business schemes. John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) is directing from a Robert Siegel screenplay. Jeremy Renner is among the producers for the film, which has been set for release November 25th 2016, right in the awards hunt. [THR]
James Caan, most recently seen in the unfortunate comedy Preggoland (review here), will join It Follows' Keir Gilchrist and Night Moves' Logan Miller in The Waiting, a thriller from director Kasra Farahani. Penned by Mark Bianculli and Jeff Richard, the film has a pair of high school filmmakers deciding to spook their neighbor by creating the illusion he's being haunted. Farahani is considered a hot prospect after directing episodes of the Halo 4 web series, plus his short film Noon was optioned by 20th Century Fox within hours of being released. [TheWrap]
Abbie Cornish (Sucker Punch), Dermot Mulroney (August: Osage County), and Diego Klattenhoff (The Blacklist) will star in the psychological thriller, Lavender. Directed by Ed Gass-Donnelly (The Last Exorcism II), the film has Cornish as a photographer suffering from severe memory loss after an accident, who begins to suspect she's responsible for the murders of family members she didn't know she had. [TheWrap]
