Well, this is interesting. We’re coming off of an explosion of Angelina Jolie coverage, some of it good and some of it bad. When Jolie is speaking on her own behalf, the coverage is great. When Page Six is swearing a blood oath to Team Brad, the coverage is not so great. But what happens when The Hollywood Reporter chimes in with some interesting industry gossip? Page Six’s story was about how Brad Pitt has “custody of Hollywood” and that Hollywood people are tired of Jolie’s whole deal. THR seems to indicate that Jolie’s relationship with some Hollywood people is actually tenuous, but that Jolie is still getting offers. I don’t know? Ugh. You can read the full THR piece here. Some interesting tidbits:
Is Netflix going to back up Jolie’s ‘First They Killed My Father’? Noticeably absent from the low-key [Cambodia premiere] affair — held in the Cambodian city of Angkor — were Hollywood A-listers, including Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, who, sources say, paid a whopping $25 million for the Khmer-language release, due out this fall, with an awards-qualifying rollout from a to-be-determined theatrical partner. Netflix executive Sarah Bowen stood in for her boss, joining the evening’s hosts, Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni and Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk.
Jolie’s next project: Sources close to Jolie say she is mulling a number of acting offers including reprising her role as the vengeful fairy in Disney’s Maleficent 2 and is in active development on two large-scale Universal projects: an adaptation of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Catherine the Great and Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair and World War II espionage drama The Spy Who Loved (based on Clare Mulley’s 2013 book). All the while, she is quietly prepping what may be her next directing vehicle: an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco’s 2004 novel Without Blood, which chronicles the cruelties of an unnamed war. She also has signed on as a producer on Disney kid pic The One and Only Ivan.
Is Jolie interested in acting at this point? …She is long overdue to move back in front of the camera. Her last work as an actress was voicing Tigress in last year’s Kung Fu Panda 3. All the while, she has turned down safe bets like Wanted 2 and a Salt sequel. But there are signs that Jolie is no longer a negotiate-at-all-costs star to the studios. In August, Fox chairman Stacey Snider pulled the plug on the actress’ involvement with Murder on the Orient Express after months of to-and-fro over her script notes. “Stacey said, ‘Thanks, but we’re moving on,’ ” says a source. As to talk that she might play the eponymous role in Universal’s remake of The Bride of Frankenstein — once such a high priority that the studio was willing to bear with her on 2015’s By the Sea (a debacle she directed and starred in opposite then-husband Pitt that cost as much as $25 million and earned a mere $500,000 domestically) — that now may be years down the road, as the studio is still searching for a writer.
She still has Sony’s Shoot Like a Girl in the pipeline: It’s the true story of Mary Jennings Hegar, an American Air Force major and helicopter pilot who served three tours in Afghanistan before challenging the military’s combat policy, which excluded women. The film, initially penned by first-time screenwriter Frank Baldwin, is getting a new draft from Oscar nominee Jason Hall (American Sniper). “It’s the kind of role she gravitates toward, because it’s a courageous woman,” says the film’s producer Ellen Goldsmith-Vein.
The Cambodian premiere cost a lot: Her Cambodian odyssey may mark her last red-carpet for a while, and possibly the last one funded by Netflix. Arranging for travel, accommodation and the other requirements of the star, her family and her entourage, who flew in on a private jet, is estimated to have cost the company more than $1 million. Netflix was so willing to appease its star that Jolie’s 15-year-old son, Maddox Jolie-Pitt, received an executive producer credit on the film. Holding the premiere near the famed Angkor Wat temple complex was a logistical nightmare, which one source called “her Tropic Thunder moment.” The plan was hatched by Jolie and the two women who, multiple sources say, have become her closest confidantes, Lady Arminka Helic and Chloe Dalton, once aides to former British Foreign Secretary and Conservative party stalwart William Hague. Helic, a survivor of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, last year was named to the international relations committee of England’s House of Lords.
THR goes on to say that Jolie still has a Hollywood team in place, with an agent at UTA, an entertainment lawyer and her back-again manager Geyer Kosinski. There are rumors that some in Hollywood thought Jolie was trying to wage a “smear campaign” on Brad and that there could possibly be a “backlash” against Jolie for that. Brad still has projects with Netflix too, which is probably why Netflix is treading very carefully with Jolie right now. Oh, and Brad and Angelina were once going to do that Richard Leakey bio-pic together but now, obviously, they are not going to. The technical reason is “budget issues,” as in Angelina wanted to direct it and her proposed budget would have been $130 million. So, no, it probably won’t happen any time soon.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmbmplZX1ze8Cnnp6kmaOuoLbOpaCel5mou7Wrw6ilnpennsGpq8eoo6Wxp6S8pavSoZysl52qua21zaCWqK6Vp6y0u8yelqielpq%2FtHs%3D