Dakota Fanning and Jake Johnson to star in upcoming romance drama from Joe Swanberg
The 31-year-old actress and the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse star, 47, have signed on to the Uncle Kent filmmaker's untitled romance movie, Deadline has said.
Cory Michael Smith, 38, is also said to be attached to the project.
While plot details about the film are unknown, Deadline reports the movie - which is being written by Swanberg - is set in several different locations across Alaska.
As well as starring in the flick, Fanning will produce alongside Swanberg and Ashleigh Snead, while Dan Johnson, Kathy Gitibin Parsa and Ariana Parsa serve as executive producers.
The upcoming film will be the fourth collaboration between Swanberg and Johnson, with the pair having worked together on 2013's Drinking Buddies, Digging for Fire in 2015 and Win It All in 2017.
Dakota Fanning is known for her role in The Equalizer 3, where she stars opposite Denzel Washington's grizzled Robert McCall as Emma Collins.
In the film, retired assassin Robert McCall (Washington) seeks peace in a quiet Italian town but discovers it's under the grip of a violent mafia.
As danger escalates, he unleashes his brutal skills to protect the people he now calls family.
After The Equalizer 3 released in 2023, Washington confirmed a fourth and fifth movie were in the works.
He told Esquire magazine: 'I told them I would do another Equalizer, and we're doing four and five. More people are happy about that - people love those daggone [God damn] Equalizers.'
The Gladiator II actor, 70, added the franchise was as much for audiences as it was for him, because he loved getting the chance to be an action hero.
He said: 'But I've come to realise that the Equalizer films are for me, too, because they're for the people.
'They want me to go get the bad guys: 'We can't get them, so you go get them.' And I say, 'Okay, I'll get them! Just wait right there. I'll be right back!''
At the time of The Eqalizer 3's release, director Antoine Fuqua said he saw the movie as the final chapter of the franchise, but hinted he might explore a prequel using CGI to de-age Washington.
Speaking to NME, the filmmaker said: 'I definitely thought about it a lot. Especially now with the new technology and the AI and all of that kind of stuff.
'Is there a story to be told how [McCall] became this person - the younger version. I've had the conversation with [writer] Richard Wenk quite a bit.'
While de-aging technology has been used for actors like Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Robert De Niro in The Irishman, Fuqua admitted he was unsure if Washington would be open to the idea.
He explained: 'I haven't talked to Denzel about that yet. It's all so fresh and new. I'm still watching [de-aging technology advance]. I've watched Harrison Ford's film and I know there are other movies coming out.
'I think Sony has one coming out with Tom Hanks soon [Here]. And I'm hearing the technology is getting better and better and better. So I'm kind of watching it to see where it goes.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
18 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Hairless ‘gentle soul' Petunia claims World's Ugliest Dog Contest title
Washington: She does not stand in triumph. She does not strut. Instead, Petunia rides in someone's arms, her small, hairless body balanced against a loop of pink leash. Fairground trophies shine behind her, but she looks away, folds of skin settling like soft hills along her neck. Petunia, a two-year-old hairless English-French bulldog mix from Eugene, Oregon, arrived at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, California, not as a polished show dog but as herself. The World's Ugliest Dog Contest, a decades-old tradition meant to promote the adoption of dogs and remind people that 'pedigree does not define the pet', has never sought perfection. In this competition, the missing fur, the misaligned teeth, the eyes that wander in different directions – they are not flaws, but badges of honour. Petunia was one of 10 contestants that sought to join the reign of oddity champions from the past. In 2024, there was Wild Thang, remembered for a pink tongue forever lolling and glittering eyes set in a tiny head beneath a frizzed crown of brown-and-white fur. In 2023, there was Scooter, a glossy black jelly bean of a dog with a shock of mohawk-like hair. And in 2022, there was Mr Happy Face, a Chihuahua mix likened to a hyena, a mandrill baboon, or perhaps a gorilla in miniature.
The Age
18 hours ago
- The Age
Hairless ‘gentle soul' Petunia claims World's Ugliest Dog Contest title
Washington: She does not stand in triumph. She does not strut. Instead, Petunia rides in someone's arms, her small, hairless body balanced against a loop of pink leash. Fairground trophies shine behind her, but she looks away, folds of skin settling like soft hills along her neck. Petunia, a two-year-old hairless English-French bulldog mix from Eugene, Oregon, arrived at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, California, not as a polished show dog but as herself. The World's Ugliest Dog Contest, a decades-old tradition meant to promote the adoption of dogs and remind people that 'pedigree does not define the pet', has never sought perfection. In this competition, the missing fur, the misaligned teeth, the eyes that wander in different directions – they are not flaws, but badges of honour. Petunia was one of 10 contestants that sought to join the reign of oddity champions from the past. In 2024, there was Wild Thang, remembered for a pink tongue forever lolling and glittering eyes set in a tiny head beneath a frizzed crown of brown-and-white fur. In 2023, there was Scooter, a glossy black jelly bean of a dog with a shock of mohawk-like hair. And in 2022, there was Mr Happy Face, a Chihuahua mix likened to a hyena, a mandrill baboon, or perhaps a gorilla in miniature.
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
Senior Trump officials struggling to figure out how to deal with South Park mocking them
Top officials in the Trump administration can't quite figure out how to deal with the mockery they're copping from the notoriously ruthless comedy show South Park. President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have all been parodied, to quite brutal effect, across the two episodes that have aired so far in the long-running show's newest season. The wisest response might have been to ignore the show entirely, depriving it of oxygen. Instead the White House, Mr Vance and Ms Noem have flitted between at least three distinct and conflicting reactions, seemingly unable to settle on one. In episode one, Mr Trump was portrayed as an echo of the show's Saddam Hussein character, with a high-pitched voice, thin skin, tiny genitalia, and a tendency to threaten lawsuits against anyone who noticed said smallness. He was also in a romantic relationship with Satan, who in South Park's universe is actually quite a nice guy with an unfortunate tendency to fall for toxic boyfriends. The episode ended with an AI generated video of a naked Mr Trump walking through a desert, and yet another joke about his equipment. For whatever reason, Mr Trump's staff chose to engage with it. A spokeswoman for the White House, Taylor Rogers, argued the show had become irrelevant. 'Just like the creators of South Park, the left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows,' said Ms Rogers. 'This show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread, with uninspired ideas, in a desperate attempt for attention. 'President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country's history, and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump's hot streak.' A few things made that stance less-than-viable. One: if South Park is so irrelevant, why is the media team for the President of the United States, the most powerful man on the planet, bothering to issue statements about it? There's a glaring contradiction at the heart of the message. Two: the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, had just signed a new deal with Paramount, worth well over a billion dollars, to deliver 50 episodes. Hardly sounds like they're 'hanging by a thread'. Three: the show's ratings are strong. Roughly 430,000 Americans viewed the first episode when it aired on the Comedy Central network, and the figures rose to almost six million once viewers who streamed it on Paramount+ were added. We don't have the streaming figures for episode two yet, which aired after the White House's statement, but the initial cohort who watched it live almost doubled to 840,000. So yes. The 'South Park hasn't been relevant for 20 years' thing was never going to fly. Mr Parker and Mr Stone were asked about the White House's response during a Comic-Con panel, held between the two episodes. 'We're terribly sorry,' Mr Parker deadpanned. Anyone who failed to pick up on his sarcasm would have been corrected by the second episode, which shifted its focus to two targets: Mr Trump's crackdown on immigrants, and the influence of right-wing media grifters. Ms Noem, who as the Secretary for Homeland Security oversees America's immigration enforcement agency ICE, featured heavily. She led a couple of ICE raids, one on a Dora the Explorer concert and then another on Heaven, where she instructed agents to only arrest 'brown' angels. In a rather cruel extended dig at her cosmetic overhaul during the MAGA years – you can read a bit about it here, if you care about such things – Mr Parker and Mr Stone showed Ms Noem's face repeatedly drooping and falling off. And the character also kept shooting dogs, about half a dozen throughout the episode, perceiving them as mortal threats. That was a reference to the time the real Ms Noem shot her family's dog in a gravel pit after she grew tired of its behaviour. Yes, true story. It became a problem for her last year, when she was a contender to become Mr Trump's vice presidential nominee. The man who actually went on to become Vice President, Mr Vance, had a brief cameo towards the end of the episode, which took place at Mar-a-Lago. Mr Trump and a miniature Mr Vance were portrayed as parodies of characters from the TV series Fantasy Island. Little J.D. got kicked around a bit by Mr Trump, but the most insulting joke poking at his subservience to the President saw him offer to, ahem, prepare Satan for sex. I shan't get any more descriptive. Mr Vance and right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk, who was mocked for considering himself a 'master debater' in the episode's B-plot (I'll leave you to interpret the pun), adopted the same approach in their response to the episode. 'Well, I've finally made it,' Mr Vance posted on social media, sharing the image of him above, and leaving it at that. Mr Kirk posted a clip of the character Eric Cartman parodying him. 'Not bad, Cartman,' he wrote, adding a couple of laughing emojis. He also changed his profile picture to a shot of Cartman dressed up like him. Not bad, Cartman 😂😂 — Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 7, 2025 About as harmless a reaction as you can offer, there, from Mr Vance and Mr Kirk. Ms Noem, however, was not quite so deft. She initially responded by slamming South Park for going after her looks. 'It's lazy to constantly make fun of women for how they look,' she told podcaster Glenn Beck, adding that only 'extremists' and 'liberals' (that means 'progressives' in the United States) 'do that'. Apparently Ms Noem has missed the many, many times Mr Trump has mocked women for their appearance. Many times. 'If they wanted to criticise my job, go ahead and do that, but clearly they can't. They just pick something petty like that,' Ms Noem said. You must acknowledge there is a kernel of a fair point in there, though South Park tends to mock the appearance of everyone, not just women, so it would probably be better to accuse it of being overly rude, rather than sexist. And as for the other part of the quote, the episode's plot involved a heap of implicit criticism of the way Ms Noem is doing her job. But Ms Noem claimed not to have watched it. Anyway, that response apparently didn't land quite as well as the Secretary had hoped, because a day later she reversed course and tried to copy Mr Vance and Mr Kirk. Ms Noem posted a screenshot of her South Park avatar with glowing red eyes – the same thing Joe Biden's staff used to do when they were trying to make 'Dark Brandon' happen – and changed her profile picture to it. — Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) August 8, 2025 The Department of Homeland Security reposted it, declaring in all-caps: 'THE DEPORTATIONS WILL CONTINUE.' Both posts included a link to ICE's online recruitment page. The incoherence of Ms Noem's response – first getting agnry, before doing a 180 and trying to own the joke – summed up the Trump officials' struggles rather nicely. They are genuinely unsure how to handle the situation. They could have just ignored it! But now it's too late for that. And you get the sense South Park is far from done mocking them.
