Last we heard about Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, The Master it had a few financing troubles and The Hurt Locker star Jeremy Renner may not actually be in it. The new issue of Production Weekly (via The Playlist) can put us to ease. They say that production is set to go ahead in June, which could only mean a week away.

While I’m surprised it could start that soon, it looks like casting is moving along. As we already know, Anderson fav Philip Seymour Hoffman has the lead role and Jeremy Renner is indeed in. They also report that Reese Witherspoon has been offered to join the production.

The Playlist speculates she could play “one of the the Master’s daughters who acts as his caretakers and vigilant lieutenants (possibly the one named Mary-Sue).” The film is “very loosely based on the life and times of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology.” Renner would play his right hand man, a young drifter.

Paul Thomas Anderson hasn’t made a bad film yet and this cast is shaping up quite nicely. If Witherspoon decides to join it will mark her first serious role in quite some time and I’d be glad to see her do it.

From The Film Stage

I have updated the gallery with photos of Reese from the Stagecoach Festival that happened this past weekend, as well as some HQ photos of her at the White House Egg Roll from earlier this month!

Canadian indie producers Brightlight Pictures and Rhombus Media have joined up with Reese Witherspoon’s Type A Films to develop “Under the Bridge,” a true-crime feature about the 1997 murder of a 14-year-old Canadian high school student.

Witherspoon in 2007 initially optioned Rebecca Godfrey’s book about the gruesome murder of Reena Virk by eight fellow students under a small bridge in Saanich, B.C.

Virk’s death, and the subsequent trial and convictions of her slayers, provoked a national debate among Canadians over high school bullying and violence.

Vancouver-based Brightlight and Toronto-based Rhombus will partner with Type A Films to develop “Under the Bridge.”

Shawn Williamson and Stephen Hegyes will produce for Brightlight, Niv Fichman for Rhombus and Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Simpson will produce for Type A Films.

No word on creative elements and casting.

Brightlight and Rhombus most recently co-produced “Gunless,” a comic western starring Paul Gross and Sienna Guillory, and directed by William Philips, set for theatrical release here on April 30 by Alliance Films.

From the Hollywood Reporter

Sky Movies Magazine spends five minutes with the proud Oscar-winner and leading vocal talent of June premiere Monsters Vs Aliens.

On her Monsters Vs Aliens character…
She’s 49 feet tall and I’m 5’2”, so she probably wasn’t modelled after me. She looked fantastic in that cat suit.

On keeping her kids happy…
To say my kids liked Monsters Vs Aliens would be the understatement of the century. They were jumping around saying, ‘When can we see it again?’

On the advantages of fame…
I do feel so lucky. I never thought I’d have these opportunities to go to Paris and Rome and Madrid, meeting all kinds of people from different walks of life.

On getting older…
I used to think I knew everything, but now I’m old enough to understand that I know nothing.

On world peace…
I’d like to see some female presidents – all over the world. I can stop the fighting in my house very quickly. I just tell everyone to keep their hands to themselves. So that would probably work… mothering tactics!

On her next project…
I’m playing a softball player in my new movie [an as-yet-untitled James L Brooks project]. I’ve never played softball before so it’s a whole new experience.

Monsters Vs Aliens shows from Friday 11th June on Sky Movies Premiere/HD

From Sky

I just finished updating the gallery tonight with all the photos of Reese from her latest public appearances this year. You can see them all by clicking on the previews below!

There are a lot of stars booked for Monday’s White House Easter Egg Roll, where 30,000 folks are expected on the South Lawn, including Billy Jonas, a Hyde Park native who grew up across the alley from the Obama family.

Among the names:

J.K. Rowling, Reese Witherspoon, Apolo Ohno, Mariska Hargitay, Dylan and Cole Sprouse, Elmo and Maria of Sesame Street and Betty DeGeneres will read on the Storytime Stage

Former Chicagoan Billy Jonas, a native Hyde Parker who lived across the alley of the Obama family when they lived in their condo at 5450 S. East View will be performing on the Ellipse. The invitation to the Billy Jonas Band came from a staffer–not the Obama’s–but that was just fine for Jonas now based in Asheville, N.C. Jonas is a graduate of Kenwood High School.

Chef Art Smith–another Chicagoan who lives in Hyde Park– plus Chef José Andrés, Chef Cliff Wharton, Chef Nora Poullion, Chef Robert Wiedmaier, Chef Susan Limb, Chef Victor Albisu, and the White House Chefs will prepare healthy eating demonstrations.

Tennis great Billie Jean King–who lives part time in Chicago– plus sports figures Gigi Fernandez, Ilana Kloss, Delaney Rudd, Liezel Huber, Katrina Adams, Anna Rawson, Jane Geddes, Kris Tschetter, Martin Gramatica, Michele Smith, Al Bumbry and Earl Boykins will help organize games.

From the Sun Times

Exclusive: Could Tom Cruise and Reese Witherspoon be saddling up for a ride together?

Word in the development community has the A-listers eying the lead roles in “Paper Wings,” a love story set in the world of rodeo that’s being developed at Sony. Cruise would take the role of a rodeo champ who falls for an up-and-coming country singer, played by Witherspoon.

The actress has taken several rides into country-and-western territory, of course, with her Oscar-winning turn as June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line” and, most recently, signing on for Sony’s “The Pioneer Woman,” the story of a woman who falls in love with a cowboy while on a cross-country road trip and winds up living on an Oklahoma ranch. Cruise, as far as we know, has never played a cowboy.

The project has been around for some time — it was set up at New Line before it came to Sony — but the Cruise and Witherspoon interest could turn it into an arm jerker (yes, we had to look that one up).

Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment is producing the project, which has led producers to talk to Gabriele Muccino about directing; the Italian film maker and Smith favorite also directed Overbrook’s underrated drama “Seven Pounds” and Oscar nominee “The Pursuit of Happyness.” Several other directors are also in the mix.

Rodeo-set stories haven’t exactly been hugely popular in Hollywood — one of the most well-known is 1994′s “8 Seconds,” which starred Luke Perry and Stephen Baldwin, which tells you something. But with “Crazy Heart’s” breakout success, unlikely love stories set in the country-and-western world now seem to be in vogue. Or are, um, chasing the cans.

From the Los Angeles Times