Vince Vaughn, David O Russell Talking 'Old St. Louis'

[Paroxysm]

EXCLUSIVE: After weeks of talks, it is looking like Vince Vaughn and director David O. Russell are likely to team on Old St. Louis, a script written by Russell. The discussions have the film landing at Universal, which would co-finance and distribute. The film will be produced by Vaughn and sister Victoria Vaughn through their Universal-based Wild West Picture Show Productions.

Old St. Louis is the story of a traveling salesman who has been an absentee father, and how his life changes when his daughter becomes part of his life. Vaughn would play the salesman, and actresses including Kick-Ass star Chloe Moretz have been mentioned as possibles to play the daughter. I'm told Russell would like to make the film his followup to The Fighter, the film that stars Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Amy Adams, with Paramount distributing the Relativity Media/Mandeville co-production.

CAA, which reps both Vaughn and Russell, continue to work to tie down the rights, but I hear it's going to happen. Vaughn has been starring with Kevin James in What You Don't Know, an Allan Loeb-scripted comedy about infidelity that Ron Howard is directing for Universal. Vaughn is producing with Imagine's Brian Grazer.

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/vince-vaughn-david-o-russell-talking-old-st-louis/#more-57868

They MUST cast Chloe Mortez.

 

[Paroxysm]

Scarlett Johansson in Talks for David O. Russell’s ‘Old St. Louis’

We only just heard about Old St. Louis, the film that now looks to be David O. Russell’s next after The Fighter. Vince Vaughn is set to star in the film and there was talk of interest in Chloe Moretz to play his daughter. (No actual word on that latter casting, however, so don’t get too attached to that idea just yet.)

Now Scarlett Johansson is likely to sign on to be the female lead.

Vulture says Johansson would be Vaughn’s ” paramour, a secretary who accompanies them on their cross-country sales jaunt.” The ‘them’ in that sentence is the father-daughter pair to be played by Vaughn and whatever young actress does eventually sign on. Recall the logline from our first piece about the film, which said that Vaugn is “a travelingsalesman who has been an absentee father, and how his life changes when his daughter becomes part of his life.”

Vulture also has some more details on the film, which were thin when it was first announced. It’s not an original Russell script, for one. Apparently it’s been kicking around for a few years, and was originally called Toy Men when it looked like Columbia might make it. Multiple writers have had a crack at rewriting. Steve Pink (High Fidelity writer and Hot Tub Time Machine director) and Allen Loeb (writer of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) both did work at one point.

But the site does say that the new title and current script credit for David O. Russell are a result of the fact that ” it’s been so thoroughly rewritten by Russell.” So that hopefully puts it squarely back in his wheelhouse. As I said when first covering this, I’m fairly interested to see him return to the sort of work that really made his name in the first place.

ScarJo