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Fri/Sat/Sun March 23~25, 2018

Amy Poehler to Direct, Star in Comedy ‘Wine Country’

AMY POEHLER is hopping into the director’s seat with a little vino in hand.

The actress-turned-producer will make her feature directorial debut with “Wine Country,” a Netfl ix comedy she will also star in and produce.

Poehler has assembled an all-star lineup of fellow comedians for her project, with Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Maya Rudolph and Emily Spivey joining her on the call sheet. Longtime partner in crime Tina Fey will also be on hand.

The script was written by Spivey, who worked with Poehler on her NBC show “Parks and Recreation” as well as on “Saturday Night Live,” and Liz Cackowski, who also worked on “SNL.”

“Wine Country” tells the story of old friends who go to Napa for a weekend

getaway to celebrate a 50th birthday.Poehler is producing via her Paper

Kite Productions. Also producing are Paper Pictures’ Carla Hacken and Dun-shire Productions’ Morgan Sackett, a veteran TV producer who counts “Parks and Recreation,” “Veep” and “Seinfeld” among his credits.

Principal photography will begin toward the end of the month in Los Angeles and Napa.

Poehler has directed episodes of “Parks and Recreation” and “Broad City.” She will next be seen hosting, along with Nick Offerman, the NBC competition series “Making It.”

The cast confi rmed the news of the fi lm in a musical post. (SD-Agencies)

Dakota Johnson stars in thriller

YOUTUBE has picked up “Vulture Club,” from director Maryam Keshavarz and starring Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco and Matt Bomer.

The terrorist thriller will have a theatrical release later this year, before bowing on You-Tube Red, the Google-owned streamer’s US$10-per-month subscription service. “Vulture Club,” produced by Anna Gerb,

Neal Dodson and J.C. Chandor, portrays a veteran emergency room nurse (Sarandon) secretly struggling to free her grown son, a journalist, from capture by a terrorist group.

After running into roadblocks with government agencies, she discovers a clandestine commu-nity of journalists and advocates who might be able to help her. Keshavarz co-wrote “Vulture

Club” with Jonathan Mastro.“Maryam Keshavarz lends

her powerful perspective as an Iranian-American fi lmmaker, and Susan Sarandon’s moving performance immediately drew us into this compelling fi lm,” said Susanne Daniels, global head of original content at YouTube. Julian Morris, Lola Kirke and Sheila Vand round out the ensem-ble cast for “Vulture Club.”

YouTube has begun acquiring fi lm projects, including Joseph Khan’s rap battle comedy “Bodied,” Nick Cannon’s “King of the Dancehall” and documen-taries “Kedi” and “G-Funk.” It also acquired Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me” sequel, but sub-sequently dropped the project following the fi lmmaker’s admis-sion of sexual misconduct. (SD-Agencies)

YouTube buys Susan Sarandon thriller ‘Vulture Club’

“FIFTY Shades of Grey” fran-chise star Dakota Johnson and “Atlanta” actress Zazie Beetz are in talks to join Armie Hammer in a thriller from Annapurna Pictures.

Iranian fi lmmaker Babak Anvari will write and direct the feature that follows a New Orleans bartender whose life starts to unravel as a series of disturbing and inexplicable events happen after he picks up a phone left behind at his bar.

Lucan Toh of Two & Two Pictures and Christopher Kopp of AZA Films will produce along with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna, which has already slated the fi lm for a March 29, 2019 release.

Johnson has just reprised her role of Anastasia Steele in “Fifty Shades Freed.” Beetz had a breakout role in “Atlanta” and will appear alongside Ryan Reyn-olds and Josh Brolin in 20th Cen-tury Fox’s upcoming “Deadpool” sequel. (SD-Agencies)

Chace Crawford joins drama ‘Charlie Says’ACTOR Chace Crawford, best known for his work on “Gossip Girl,” has joined Matt Smith in “Charlie Says,” an indie fi lm centering on the Charles Manson murders.

Mary Harron, who directed “American Psycho,” is helming the project that sees Smith por-traying the infamous cult leader. Suki Waterhouse, Hannah Murray, Odessa Young, Mari-anne Rendon and Carla Gugino are among those on the call sheet.

The script by Guinevere Turner is based on the 1971 Ed Sanders book “The Family” as well as “The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten” (2001),

written by Karlene Faith. Faith is also a key character played by Merritt Wever in the movie.

“Charlie Says” will focus on the three young women (played by Murray, Young and Rendon) who were sentenced to death following the infamous murder case of Manson (Smith). When the death penalty was lifted, their sentence became life imprison-ment. One young graduate stu-dent, Faith (Wever), was sent in to teach them, and through her the fi lm follows the girls’ trans-formations as they face the real-ity of their horrifi c crimes.

Crawford will play Tex Watson, a murderous member of the Manson family who was

involved in the killing of actress Sharon Tate.

“Charlie Says” is the fi rst of two Manson-themed movie projects that are being made this year, with Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” the other. The latter, which will star Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, will shoot this summer.

Crawford played Nate Archibald for six seasons of “Gossip Girl,” and also starred with Don Johnson on the ABC drama “Blood & Oil.” He is also due to star in the Amazon series “The Boys,” based on the edgy Garth Ennis comic book, which will begin shooting in May. (SD-Agencies)

Amy PoehlerAmy Poehler

Dakota JohnsonDakota Johnson