‘Whiplash’ Director May Take Emma Stone And Ryan Gosling To ‘La La Land’
Emma StoneandRyan Goslinghave teamed for a film twice before. One wasCrazy Stupid Love, and that worked out alright. The second movie wasGangster Squad(above), and the less said about it, the better. But that film’s problems weren’t related to the casting, and we’d be happy to see them work together again. Now they’re looking atLa La Land, the musical thatWhiplashdirectorDamien Chazelleis assembling as hisfollow-upto the conservatory nightmare that blew minds in 2014.Deadlinereports that Gosling and Stone are “circling” the film, so deals aren’t done.
In Gosling’s case, he’s reportedly stepping up to a role that we assumed would go toWhiplashstar Miles Teller, but reportedly that deal didn’t work out. And the other lead roleonce belongedto Emma Watson, butBeauty and the Beasthas her locked up for a while. The idea is to shootLa La Landthis fall, so there’s some heat on this process.
(There’s also talk thatEddie Redmaynecould end up taking the lead male role here, as reported byThe Wrap. But he may do the JK Rowling adaptationFantastic Beastsinstead.)
We don’t know much about the script, which Chazelle also wrote, but it is called “an old fashioned romantic musical” that is set in modern Los Angeles with a script that “centers on an aspiring actress and jazz musician who fall in love but see their relationship tested by the high-stress environment of the city’s arts and entertainment community.”
Chazelle has described the movie like so:
I’d like to make a contemporary musical about L.A., starting with the L.A. we know but slowly building to a vision of the city as romantic metropolis–one that is actually worthy of the dreams it inspires. I’d like to make a musical about the way L.A.’s peculiar rhythms can push its residents to the edge of their emotions–be they hope, desperation or love. Think the kind of teetering-toward-madness you see in “The Graduate” or “Boogie Nights”, and imagine if you were to push that further. In this case, the city pushes its residents all the way: it pushes them into song.
Lionsgate is behindLa La Land, and with the studio pushing to shoot this fall, we’ll probably know final cast details soon.
Stone has a couple completed films coming soon, Cameron Crowe’sAlohaand Woody Allen’sIrrational Man, while Gosling long ago shot for Terrence Malick’sWeightless, and just finished Shane Black’sNice Guys. He’s also in Adam McKay’sThe Big Short, which will be in the can beforeLa La Landneeds to roll, andmay doGuillermo del Toro’sHaunted Mansion, which would likely shoot later.
