the industry

Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore Will Play Big Edie and Little Edie

Photos: Getty Images; iStockphoto (cats)

Barrymore, Lange Tend Gardens: HBO Films green-lights Grey Gardens, nonmusical feature adaptation of the 1975 documentary by Albert and David Maysles, set to star Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as the eccentric aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who spent most of their lives shut up in a grotesquely decaying mansion on Long Island. Only a fraction of HBO viewers will be able to compare Lange’s and Barrymore’s performances to their Tony-award-winning Broadway counterparts Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, which is probably just as well. [HR]

Maguire, Gyllenhaal Now Sworn Brothers: Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal are in negotiations to star in Jim Sheridan’s remake of the Danish film Brothers, in which an older brother (Maguire) fights in Afghanistan while his younger ne’er-do-well brother (Gyllenhaal) looks after Maguire’s wife and children. Future Rule No. 1 on the Brothers set: “Don’t mention Spider-Man 2.” [Variety]

Arteta Gains Velocity: Miguel Arteta (Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl) will direct feature adaptation of the Dave Eggers novel You Shall Know Our Velocity, a.k.a. That Eggers Book You Read the First 125 Pages Of. [Variety]

Freeman, Walken, Macy Guard a Lonely Maiden: Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy, and Christopher Walken will team up in The Lonely Maiden as art-museum security guards obsessed with the paintings they protect, under the direction of … Peter Hewitt? The Garfield guy? Gets to direct that cast? Did they maybe confuse him with Peter Howitt, helmer of Sliding Doors and Antitrust? No, that doesn’t make any sense either. [Variety]

Queen to Retake Throne: With her second vocal album, Trav’lin’ Light, set to drop next week, Queen Latifah says her following album will mark her first return to rap in nearly a decade. We’d like to humbly point out to Her Majesty that “Jimmy Fallon” rhymes with “gouged out by a talon” and “anthrax by the gallon.” [Billboard]

Jones to Transform for Lincoln Center: Fresh off the successful run of her multi-character virtuoso show Bridge and Tunnel, protean solo performer Sarah Jones accepts commission to create new play for Lincoln Center Theater. To top Bridge and Tunnel, for the new piece Jones will impersonate an Afghan, an Albanian, an Aztec, four dogs, dental floss, and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter. [Playbill]

Abrams Finds His Uhura: When a charming, undervalued actor like Zoe Saldana scores a potential breakout role like Uhura in J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek franchise reboot, it’s hard to think of a snarky joke to make about it. [HR]

From the Quill of Steven Seagal: On the other hand, when cameras are about to roll on a film called A Higher Form of Learning, written by and starring Steven Seagal, where do you start? [HR]

Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore Will Play Big Edie and Little Edie