Fresh off her second consecutive Academy Award nomination for Zerk Dark Thirty, Jessica Chastain is attached to play the title role in The Zookeeper’s Wife, which, surprisingly, is an adaptation of a 2007 Diane Ackerman book, and not a spinoff of We Bought a Zoo. Do you remember that movie? I only saw the first half, but frickin’ Matt Damon couldn’t do anything right.

Niki Caro (Whale Rider, North Country) has come aboard to direct the World War II story, which Panorama is financing and producing.
Wife is the true account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, who helped save hundreds during the Nazi invasion.
When the Nazi army overran Warsaw, destroying the city and its zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. The Zabinskis also took about a dozen Jews into their home.
While danger was always present, and her husband was part of the Polish resistance, Antonina Zabinski kept a mix of humans and surviving animals (lynxes and hyena pups, among them) humming in a one-of-a-kind community that included socializing and even the occasional piano concert. [THR]

No word on whether Kevin James will reprise his role as The Zookeeper. Either way, I feel like they missed a golden opportunity to call it “Jew Zoo.” Or perhaps “A Zoo for Jews.” What? I like the rhyme.

I just hope this is more Oscar-caliber material for Chastain, whose lines will hopefully include “Who am I? I’m the motherf*cker who raised the hyenas.”

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I never got around to seeing In the Land of Blood and Honey, Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut from 2011, which she also wrote. But I heard good things from people who saw it, and now I have even more reason to see her next one, because the Coen Brothers are writing it.

Ethan and Joel Coen are teaming up with Angelina Jolie to tell the story of World War II hero Lou Zamperini.
Universal picked up the rights to Unbroken, by Lauren Hillebrand, in January 2011, initially for Francis Lawrence to direct. Jolie boarded as director in December. She has spent weeks searching for top-flight writers to tackle the project, with sources saying the director was extremely choosy.

Well it’s not like she has to rush, that’s the advantage of having enough money to last you six lifetimes. At least she has good taste.

Zamperini was a Los Angeles high school track star who raced in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In 1943, his Air Force plane crashed in the Pacific. He survived without food and water for 47 days, enduring shark attacks, aerial attacks and hunger before washing ashore on a Japanese island behind enemy lines, where he was held as a prisoner of war for two years and tortured by his captors. [THR]

Here’s a little more from the Amazon description:

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.  Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion.  His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit.  Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

They say you write what you know, and so far, Angelina has taken on a love story set during the Serb-Croat war, and now a survival drama about a shipwrecked WWII POW. You might be wondering, what experience could she possibly bring to this story? Well, Zamperini was a runner, and if you’ve seen Salt, you know that Angelina Jolie is basically the Usain Bolt of emaciated Oscar actresses.

I’m excited to see her direct the running scenes. “That’s it! Now pump your arms faster than your legs, and really try to loll your head loosely from side to side like your neck is made of rubber!”

No one’s set to star as of yet, but I’m thinking… Tom Cruise?

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Coming off his awards-nominated turn as dark meat-loving abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens in Lincoln, professional Grumpy Cat Tommy Lee Jones stars as General Douglas MacArthur in Emperor, a film set during the not-depicted-often-enough period in the closing days of WWII, when we had to rush to forgive Japan for all the grimy sh*t they did during the war to pacify their people and turn our attention to fightin’ the commies. That it’s a period piece, but doesn’t involve any British royalty, is just the icing on the cake. It’s directed by Peter Webber (Girl with the Pearl Earring, Hannibal Rising) and co-stars Matthew Fox as General Bonner Fellers. Bonner Fellers! Please, General, don’t fell my boner, I just erected ‘er!

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“Nice marmot.”

According to reports, George Clooney is set to plant his bony ass back in the director’s chair this March, when he’ll be directing The Monuments Men – not to be confused with Kirk Cameron’s Monumental – with a cast that includes Daniel Craig, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, The Artist’s Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville and Bob Balaban. Holy hell, that might beat Moonrise and Seven Psychopaths for best cast ever assembled. I mean, except for Cate Blanchett. I can’t stand that showboatin Australian.

The drama, which was scripted by Clooney and partner Grant Heslov [who previously co-wrote Ides of March and Good Night and Good Luck], confronts the final chapter of Germany’s rule, which came down to the absolute destruction of everything that makes a culture keep its standing, including the lives that are lost and the sacrifices that are made.

Good lord that is a horrible sentence. My grandpappy didn’t shoot Nazis for you to spew passive voice horsesh*t like that. Sorry, carry on.

All of this is in danger of being lost forever as Hitler and the Nazis try to cover the tracks of a murderous regime. A crew of art historians and museum curators unite to recover renown works of art that were stolen by Nazis before Hitler destroys them. Alexander Desplat is doing the score, and the crew is the same as from the Ben Affleck-directed Argo. [Deadline]

Gee, I wonder if Daniel Craig will play one of the Nazis. Anyway, the Argo parallel is interesting, because coming out of Argo, we were arguing about who’d had the most successful directing career, Ben Affleck or George Clooney. I have to give the edge to Affleck, mainly on account of Leatherheads sucking so bad (Good Night and Good Luck was pretty dull as well). But maybe Mayor Cloonsberg can turn things around with this one – Bill Murray, John Goodman, and Bob Balaban is pretty much the most unstoppable cast ever. And finally we get to focus on the real heroes of the second world war, the art history majors.

In conclusion, here’s a gif of Jean Dujardin doing a French surf rap.

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