Copyright Deadline
EXCLUSIVE: Charlize Theron is in final negotiations to star and produce in the Amazon MGM Studios pic Tyrant from writer-director David Weil. Weil is directing from a script he wrote with The Picture Company’s Alex Heineman and Andrew Rona producing. Theron will also produce through her Secret Menu banner alongside her partners Beth Kono and A.J. Dix. Weil and producing partner Natalie Laine Williams will also produce. Tyrant is based on a story by Weil and Cody Behan. In a heated bidding war this past August, Amazon and Picture Company landed the coveted spec with the project being fast-tracked once Theron showed signs of wanted to star in the film. Theron will star in the film, but sources say there is another leading female role being cast now, which has been coveted around town as both roles suggest tour de force performances await. Plot details are vague other then the film is said to have shades of Wall Street and Whiplash set in NYC’s high end culinary world. Weil recently sold the spec Supermax to Miramax (which he co-wrote along with David J. Rosen) which now has David Gordon Green attached to direct and is also heading for a spring start with The Picture Company also producing. He is also currently adapting for United Artists and Conclave director Edward Berger the film about Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent who was thrown into a Russian prison for a year on bogus spying charges. Weil is also writing Extraction 3 for Netflix. Upcoming Secret Menu projects include the Netflix original thriller Apex, starring Theron and Taron Egerton and written by Jeremy Robbins with Baltasar Kormákur directing; a limited series adaptation of horror novel The Quiet Tenant with Blumhouse, written by Anthony E. Zuiker; Jane, a psychological thriller feature loosely based on the life of prolific science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, being written by Jack Thorne and to be directed by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón and Two for the Money, a love letter to the heist-film genre directed by Justin Lin, written by Dan Mazeau and starring Theron. Theron will also appear in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey next summer.
