Screen Talk: Gloria in excesses

Demi Moore is to play feminist Gloria Steinem in a biopic of the porn star Linda Lovelace.

Moore joins the cast alongside Adam Brody and Eric Roberts on the film, which is currently shooting in LA. The project, being made with the cooperation of the Lovelace estate, stars Amanda Seyfried as the star of one of the most famous pornographic movies of all time, Deep Throat. The ensemble cast includes Peter Sarsgaard as her husband, Chuck Traynor and Hank Azaria as Jerry Damiano, the director of Deep Throat. Also in the cast are Bobby Cannavale, Chris Noth, Sharon Stone, Juno Temple, Wes Bentley, Romeo Brown and Robert Patrick. James Franco is set for a cameo as Playboy's Hugh Hefner.

Atom research

The director Atom Egoyan is preparing a feature based on the infamous 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas for which three men were convicted and sent to jail before being proven innocent and released 18 years later. Egoyan's movie is based on Mara Leveritt's book Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, which details the murders, the court battles and the eventual quashing of the sentences for the trio. First chronicled in Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's Paradise Lost documentaries, Egoyan's subject-matter has attracted strong interest from Reese Witherspoon, who is attached to star as the mother of one of the murder victims. She would portray a woman who is convinced of the trio's guilt at first but ultimately begins to doubt it. Scott Derrickson and Paul Boardman (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) wrote the screenplay, which Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) has also been working on.

Korea opportunities

Hollywood partnership Route One Films, led by managing partners Jay Stern (Rush Hour, Horrible Bosses), Russell Levine and Chip Diggins (Awol), cracked out the soju after entering into a $110m film and television fund partnership with the South Korean government, CJ E&M, Lotte Entertainment and Sovik Venture Capital. The venture, the Sovik Global Contents Investment Fund, is the largest entertainment fund in Korean history. Route One will produce a slate of films financed by the fund that are intended for US and international audiences. Audiences can expect thrillers, comedies and action pics budgeted in the $15m to $30m range. The new fund also will finance international co-productions and a slate of Korean-language television dramas to be distributed throughout Asia.

'Hot' just doesn't do her justice

Leah Rachel is enjoying her moment in the sun. Her original comedy screenplay, The Young, the Hot, and the Bothered, has been optioned by heavyweight production company Mandate Pictures to be turned into big-screen entertainment. The script is billed as a coming-of-age comedy surrounding the joy and heartbreak of first loves. Rachel also has Starf*cker set up at HBO and Bamfs set up at ABC. And back on the big-screen résumé, she is writing an adaptation of the book Here Lies Bridget for Preferred Content.

OK commuter

A spec script by the director-writer team Spenser Cohen and Zach Luna called The Driver has been bought by Voltage Productions and Solipsist Films. Cohen is a recent University of Southern California graduate and is in line to direct the project. Driver details the story of a man whose suburban existence is flipped when he finds himself coerced to be the getaway man of an assembled group of criminals, on his drive to work. Voltage is the company behind The Hurt Locker while Solipsist recently attracted attention by setting up vampire thriller Undying Love, based on a comic created by Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman.