Fresh off the huge success of their massively viewed adaptations The Bible and Hatfields & McCoys, History is currently working on a miniseries project tentatively called Houdini, with Adrien Brody (The Pianist) signed on to play the famous magician and performer.  Gerald Abrams (Modern Marvels), father of the beloved J.J. Abrams, is on board to produce the series.  Although not much has been announced about the show, EW says it will depict Houdini’s rags-to-riches story as a magic man and stunt performer at the turn of the 20^th century.  Houdini’s release date is still TBA.  Hit the jump for more.

The first set photos and video from Wes Anderson‘s Grand Budapest Hotel have leaked online.  Details about the film are scarce, but we know it takes place in 1927 in a Hungarian hotel and has Ralph Fiennes and Saoirse Ronan in the lead roles. Plot details are scarce, but the movie is reportedly in the vein of the films of Billy Wilder (The Apartment) and Ernest Lubitsch (The Shop Around the Corner).  The impressive cast also includes Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, and Mathieu Amalric.  In addition to showing off the setting, the images also show us the colorful costumes (I like the purple coats) and Goldblum’s commanding facial hair.

Hit the jump to check out the set photos.  Grand Budapest Hotel should arrive some time next year.

Wes Anderson has never had much problem lining-up impressive ensembles for his movies.  Even his earlier movies have great casts albeit less famous ones.  In a recent interview with THR, Anderson revealed his next film, Grand Budapest Hotel, will have one of his best casts to date.  First, Anderson confirmed Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray, and Saoirse Ronan were in the flick (Fiennes and Ronan are the leads).  But they’re only a small part of the large cast.  Anderson will reunite with Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman. Owen Wilson might also have a small role.  The movie will also include Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, and Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace).

Hit the jump for more.

We’ve got some new posters to share from the American Film Market (AFM).  Briefly:

• Tarzan – A really poorly-made motion capture animated retelling of the classic story.
• InAPPropriate Comedy – A seriously terrible-looking “comedy” that tells the story of a computer tablet “full of the world’s most hilariously offensive apps” that sitrs up cultural anarchy.  The pitiful cast includes Adrien Brody, Rob Schneider, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lindsay Lohan.
• Ip Man: The Final Fight – The next film in the martial arts franchise.
• Switch – An action drama set within the world of art thieving.

Hit the jump to check out the posters and a full synopsis for Switch and InAPPropriate Comedy.

Writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash) has made a couple of last minute casting additions to his next project, Third Person.  Maria Bello and Adrien Brody are the latest to join a cast that now includes Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, James Franco, Kim Basinger, Mila Kunis, and Moran Atias.  In the vein of Haggis’ Oscar-winning 2004 drama Crash, the film follows three intersecting stories set in Paris, New York, and Rome, “with each storyline following a different stage of a love relationship from the beginning, middle, and the end.”

Variety’s report doesn’t provide details on Bello’s character, but Brody plays the love interest of Atias.  We also know that Neeson and Wilde play a journalist and a gossip columnist, respectively, in the New York storyline.  Production begins this week in Rome.  Hit the jump for casting news concerning the 9/11 drama September Morn.

Over the past ten years, a plethora of movies have been made about American schoolteachers. Some of our on-screen educators have been good (Hilary Swank inspiring at-risk students in Freedom Writers), some bad (Cameron Diaz sleeping off hangovers during class in Bad Teacher) and some downright ugly (Ryan Gosling smoking crack between his in Half Nelson).  But what we haven’t had much of in the past decade is a large cinematic output from Tony Kaye, the acclaimed filmmaker behind 1998’s American History X. This year, however, Kaye made a bold return to narrative filmmaking with Detachment, the story of a high school teacher who’s mostly good, sometimes bad and only occasionally ugly. Like American History X, Detachment features a strong central performance, and tells a powerful, if somewhat bleak tale of one generation striving to lead another toward grace and dignity.  My review of the DVD after the jump.

Merely a few weeks out from the start of filming, production has been halted on the revenge drama Motor City.  The film, from director Albert Hughes (The Book of Eli), has had a rather rocky development, with a number of actors (Dominic Cooper, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeremy Renner) flirting with the lead only to subsequently drop out.  Gerard Butler was finally set in the starring role of a felon who, after being released from prison, begins tracking down the men who framed him, with Adrien Brody onboard as the villain and Mickey Rourke in a supporting role.  Filming was set to commence on September 17th, but the crew has now been told to go home due to some complex issues that have arisen behind the scenes.  Hit the jump for more details.

Everyone loves a villain, especially when those villains are played by Adrien Brody (Predators) and Jason Momoa (Conan the Barbarian). Brody is in talks to antagonize Gerard Butler (300) in Motor City, a revenge thriller scripted by Chad St. John (The Punisher: Dirty Laundry) and directed by Albert Hughes (Fro Hell).  Momoa will star in Wolves, the directorial debut of David Hayter, the writer of 2000′s X-Men. The supernatural flick has Lucas Till (X-Men: First Class) going up against Momoa in a battle of werewolves (Good luck, Till).  Hit the jump for more on both pictures.

With Moonrise Kingdom still in theaters, quirky director Wes Anderson is already putting together a dream cast for his next film.  The as-of-yet-untitled picture would feature an ensemble that could include Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe and Angela Lansbury. Murray and Norton currently star in Moonrise Kingdom, while Wilson is a regular in the director’s films.  Depp, Law and Lansbury would all be first time additions to an Anderson picture.  Brody starred in The Darjeeling Limited and Dafoe previously voiced a character in Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  Details, via Twitch, are short at the moment and it’s unclear as to what state any of these casting negotiations are currently in.  We will update as more news becomes available.

Co-written and directed by John Stalberg, High School focuses on soon-to-be valedictorian Henry Burke (Matthew Bush) who smokes pot for the first time, then discovers that a mandatory drug test has been scheduled at school.  He teams up with his stoner friend Breaux (Sean Marquette) to make sure everyone fails.  Together they spike the school’s bake sale brownies with high-powered ganja stolen from law-student-turned-drug-, Psycho Ed (Adrien Brody).  Their half-baked plan goes up in smoke when Psycho Ed realizes his prized stash has been used to get everyone in the school stoned out of their minds.

At the press day for High School, we sat down for a roundtable interview with actor Colin Hanks and director John Stalberg to talk about their recent collaboration and how they set about turning the concept of a stoner comedy on its head.  Hanks described what attracted him to the role, what the directing process was like, why Psycho Ed has got nothing on Male Page, and his upcoming film, The Guilt Trip, and his plans to direct a documentary. Stalberg, an expectant father, compared delivering a film on time and on budget to impending parenthood and revealed his collaboration with Richard Kelly on Owen’s Manual and the possibility of a High School sequel called Juvie. Hit the jump to see what they had to say.

As it’s 4/20 and all, it seems appropriate that a red-band trailer for the stoner comedy High School go online.  Co-written and directed by John Stalberg, the film centers on a soon-to-be valedictorian (Matthew Bush) who smokes pot for the very first time, only to find out that a mandatory drug test has been scheduled at school.  In a moment of panic, Bush and his friend (Sean Marquette) conspire to spike the school’s bake sale brownies with the help of a law-student-turned-drug-dealer (Adrien Brody) in order to make everyone fail the drug test.  As with the first trailer, there are a couple laughs to be found.  It seems like a fun enough premise for a stoner comedy, and I could see it being a fun watch on a late weekend night.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Colin Hanks, Michael Chiklis, Adhir Kalyan, and Mykelti Williamson.  High School opens on June 1st.

The first trailer for the pot comedy High School has gone online.  Co-written and directed by John Stalberg, the film centers on a soon-to-be valedictorian (Matthew Bush) who smokes pot for the very first time, only to find out that a mandatory drug test has been scheduled at school.  In a moment of panic, Bush and his friend (Sean Marquette) conspire to spike the school’s bake sale brownies with the help of a law-student-turned-drug-dealer (Adrien Brody) in order to make everyone fail the drug test.  The trailer has a couple laughs, and I’ve heard that the full film is quite a bit better than this clip would have you believe.  The premise could be a lot of fun, and Brody and Michael Chiklis are nearly unrecognizable as the psycho drug dealer and school principal, respectively.  Moreover, it looks like there’s a Thurman Murman cameo, and every movie is automatically improved 100% with Thurman Murman.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Colin Hanks, Adhir Kalyan, and Mykelti Williamson.  High School opens on June 1st.

Tony Kaye made a big splash in 1998 with his directorial debut American History X.  He has kept busy in the years since, but maintained a low profile.  That could change with his new film Detachment.  The cast will bring name recognition to the film: veterans Adrien Brody, James Caan, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu, Marcia Gay Harden, Bryan Cranston, William Petersen, Blythe Danner, Tim Blake Nelson are joined by fresh faces like Betty Kaye and Sami Gayle.  Tribeca Films acquired the film in September, and has released trailers and clips over the last month that stand out from the vast collection of promotional material we host here at Collider.  The story follows a substitute teacher (Brody) on assignment at a failing public school.  The appeal of Detachment is in the execution, so hit the jump for trailers, clips, posters, and images from the film.

Actors Adrien Brody and Tim Robbins have joined director Xiaogang Feng’s new project about the Chinese famine of 1942, which resulted in the death of an estimated 1 million people. Though the movie does not yet have a title, Feng and his production partner, Huayi Brothers, say it will be based on the Liu Zhenyun novel Remembering 1942. The famine, unfortunately one of many in China’s history, took place during the second Sino-Japanese War from 1942 to 1943.

Feng is best known for his 2010 pic Aftershock, depicting the story of a family separated by a devastating earthquake in 1976 China. Aftershock earned him an Achievement in Directing nomination and a Best Film award at the 2010 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Hit the jump for more on the project.

Tribeca Film announced today that it has acquired all U.S. distribution rights for director Tony Kaye’s (American History X) drama Detachment. The deal means that Tribeca is responsible for all distribution including theatrical, VOD, digital and DVD. Written by Carl Lund, the film features an ensemble cast that includes Adrien Brody, Christina Hendricks, Bryan Cranston, Marcia Gay Harden, Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner and William Peterson.

Detachment revolves around Henry Barthes (Brody), a promising teacher whose apathy prevents him from forming emotional bonds with those around him. As luck would have it, his new gig at an equally apathetic public school begins to put Henry in a role model position. Hit the jump for the official press release (which features a little more plot info) and for a hi-res image from the film.