Mark Ruffalo

Todd Haynes and Mark Ruffalo go after DuPont


By Romeo San Vicente

Three-time Academy Award nominee Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight) will leave his Hulk responsibilities alone long enough to star in the latest movie from Todd Haynes. Socially conscious production company Participant Media will produce the film – once known as Dry Run, though currently untitled – about corporate lawyer Robert Bilott, who shepherded an environmental lawsuit that turned his career upside down and, most importantly, exposed decades of chemical pollution on the part of DuPont. Ruffalo will co-produce the film, based on Nathaniel Rich’s New York Times Magazine article, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.†It will be interesting to see what Haynes can do with this material, as his adaptations of other work always wind up bearing his auteurist stamp, and it’s great to see one of Marvel’s most beloved superheroes take time out to remind audiences that the only real-life heroes are the people who stick out their necks and take on the Big Bad themselves.

Get ready for a Roy Cohn-ucopia

Did you miss the Roy Cohn lesson in queer history class? Do you still not know about the closeted, Trump-mentoring, McCarthyite lawyer who hated the LGBT community and himself? Well, soon you won’t be able to blame media erasure for not knowing about one of the most dastardly homosexual villains of the 20th century, because Michael Sheen (Masters of Sex) is about to star opposite Christine Baranski, Cush Jumbo and Rose Leslie, playing a character based on Cohn in the upcoming third season of the CBS All Access series The Good Fight. Sheen will play a charismatic lawyer named Roland Blum whose wickedness and corruption provides plenty of resistance fodder for Baranski. Meanwhile, we already reported on the upcoming Matt Tyrnauer (Scott and the Secret History of Hollywood) documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn? (formerly titled Don’t Mess with Roy Cohn) But brace yourself for a second Cohn doc, this one still untitled, from Ivy Meeropol (_Heir to an Execution_). She’s the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were prosecuted by Cohn in the 1950s, and then executed. Word is that this one will focus intently on Cohn’s private life, based on information from people who knew him, as well as on candid audiotapes of Cohn himself. Not to worry, none of this drops between now and the holidays to bum you out; it’ll all be part of 2019’s gift basket of deplorables instead.

Daniel Kaluuya joins Lena Waithe’s Queen & Slim

Powerhouse lesbian creator Lena Waithe has a new project going before the cameras. Called Queen & Slim, it’s the story of a black couple on a first date that goes horribly wrong, forcing them into a series of consequences they never anticipated. Starring Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) and up-and-comer Jodie Turner-Smith (soon to be seen as Grace Jones in the upcoming Marvin Gaye biopic, Sexual Healing) have signed on, while helming duties will fall to acclaimed music video director Melina Matsoukas. It’ll be her first feature film, but she’s already directed cinematic stunners like Beyoncé’s “Formation†video as well as dozens of clips for artists like Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Whitney Houston, Kylie Minogue, and Katy Perry. And the Waithe connection? She directed the Emmy-winning “Thanksgiving†episode of Master of None. In other words, bring on this encore collaboration right now.

Will Ferrell, Gus Van Sant crown Prince of Fashion

Gus Van Sant, fresh off the critically well-received biopic, Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot, is about to bring another real-life subject to the screen: the 13-year-old son of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay). Chabon wrote a 2016 piece for GQ titled “My Son, The Prince of Fashion†in which he detailed a trip to Paris’ Men’s Fashion Week with his young son, a devoted design fan. The heartwarming father-son bonding story went viral, especially among queer readers, and now Will Ferrell has signed on to play Chabon’s role in the film version. Currently titled Prince of Fashion, we’re hoping it turns out to be the kind of film befuddled dads in need of a map for raising their own fashion-loving boys turn to for advice. Then we hope they buy plane tickets to Paris for that boy. Trust us, we guarantee that kid has already been through a lot and deserves a break.

Romeo San Vicente knows more queens of fashion than princes.

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