Brad Pitt Is No Match for a 17-Year-Old Cartoon
The latest in film and television news includes: Amazon signs a new streaming deal of its own, Moneyball can't beat The Lion King, and Michael Fassbender is on everyone's short list these days.
Not to be overshadowed by the report of Netflix winning the rights to stream titles from DreamWorks Animation's library, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced in a message posted to Amazon's homepage that the company has struck a deal with Fox to add "a broad of selection" of movies and TV shows--including 24, Arrested Development, and The X-Files--to its own streaming service, Amazon Prime. According to Bezos, the Fox additions will be added later this year, and will raise the total number of titles available through the service to more than 11,000. [Amazon]
Moneyball opened to rave reviews and features one of the world's recognizable stars in Brad Pitt, but only earned an estimated $20.6 million during its first weekend. That number isn't terrible, but it wasn't good enough to beat out the rerelease of The Lion King, which grossed an estimated $22.1 million to hold on to the top spot at the box office for the second straight week. According to the Los Angles Times, Sony, which produced Moneyball on a $50 million budget, is hoping strong word-of-mouth from audiences and Oscar buzz for Pitt will help the film gross somewhere between $80 million to $100 million by the time its run is finished. [Los Angeles Times]
Who doesn't want Inglourious Basterds ensemble member Michael Fassbender in their reboots of beloved and semi-beloved properties? indieWire reports that Steven Soderbergh is considering Fassbender to replace George Clooney as the lead in his Man From U.N.C.L.E. adaptation, while director Jose Padhila went on Brazilian television last week and mentioned Fassbender as a possible candidate to fill Peter Weller's metallic crime-fighting shoes in his upcoming Robocop remake. If they want him, they'll have to pry him away from producer Laura Shuler Donner: she noted in an interview earlier this month that Fassbender's locked in for multiple sequels to X-Men: First Class. [IndieWire and Cinema Blend]
Casey Affleck has never struck us as angelic, or an action star, or someone who would be at home with the works of John Milton. He'll have a chance to prove all three of these impressions wrong, now he's signed on to play the Angel Gabriel in the rock-'em, sock-'em adaptation of Paradise Lost. [The Hollywood Reporter]
