Screen Talk: Goon show

Evan Goldberg, a frequent collaborator of Seth Rogen, has co-written a low-budget, ice-hockey movie, Goon, based on the book Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey.

Goldberg's script, co-written by Jay Baruchel who also stars, is directed by Michael Dowse and also includes Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber and Alison Pill (above left) in the cast. It was good enough to secure a distribution deal from Magnolia Pictures' Magnet division after screening during this year's Toronto Film Festival. It means the ice-hockey picture will be slapped in front of North American audiences, and will likely find someone to push it out across British screens soon.

Lady in waiting

The film industry regards the Toronto Film Festival, which wrapped earlier this month, as the first North American showcase event in the lengthy awards season. From now until the Oscars, film backers and makers from all sectors will jockey for position to get noticed and make the nomination list. Already there are whispers about Luc Besson's cinematic portrait of Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Besson's The Lady secured US distribution via the Cohen Media Group to the film, which stars Michelle Yeoh (above centre) as Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader. Yeoh and her co-star David Thewlis have already been mentioned as possible contenders in this year's Oscar race following the film's premiere in Toronto.

Oyelowo to star in Reacher film

The Oxford born actor David Oyelowo's turn in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and his appearance in The Help has cemented his reputation in Hollywood as a man in demand. He's currently shooting The Paperboy, directed by Lee Daniels alongside Nicole Kidman and Matthew McConaughey and between takes Hollywood is atwitter with the fact he is talking to the backers of One Shot, the Tom Cruise crime drama project. One Shot is a Paramount-Skydance adaptation of a 2005 Lee Child crime thriller that centres on Jack Reacher (Cruise), an ex-Army cop who gets sucked into the mystery surrounding the arrest of a sniper accused of killing five random people in a shooting. Oyelowo (above right) is eyeing the role of a veteran homicide detective investigating the shooting. Rosamund Pike is set to play Cruise's love interest in the Christopher McQuarrie directed project. It is set to shoot this autumn in Pittsburgh.

A Thor thing

Ryan Craig, the director of Small Town Saturday Night, has been hired to adapt the Brad Thor novel Takedown for Warner Bros. Takedown is the fifth book in a series that centres on Scot Harvath, a former member of Navy Seal Team 6 who becomes a black-ops counterterrorism agent. In the novel, Harvath must track and thwart a terrorist mastermind that has unleashed chaos in New York City with his latest attack. Thor's series, of which the tenth, Full Black, was published in July, is being developed as a potential franchise of films.

French connection

Hollywood enjoys a foreign-language film every now and then. Especially if it lends itself to a good old-fashioned English-language remake. The lesser-spotted moguls – those in development and acquisitions of material – are abuzz with the potential of French-language thriller Sleepless Nights, which has been described as a cocktail of Die Hard in a nightclub with a dash of Taken thrown. The film follows a corrupt cop (Tomer Sisley) who with his partner steals some cocaine that belongs to a nightclub operator. The nightclub owner then kidnaps the cop's son and demands his drugs back in exchange. Things go quickly from bad to worse. The director Frédéric Jardin, a father of a 12-year old, said he wanted to make a film about being a dad. Hollywood is sniffing around for remake potential.