Scott Strauss Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EXCLUSIVE: We are hearing that the top job at Screen Gems, which is being vacated by Steve Bersch, is poised to go to Paramount EVP Ashley Brucks.

EXCLUSIVE: After nearly 16 years on the Culver City, CA lot, Steve Bersch, President of Screen Gems, is departing Sony when his contract ends on Dec. 1.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor How did writer-director Jim Strouse get Celine Dion to play herself and write five new songs for his film “Love Again?”  “It took months, maybe even a full year,” Strouse tells Variety. “There was a lot of thought, eating, letters and lookbooks.”  The Sony feature-length stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Mira) and Sam Heughan (Rob) as depressed singles that meet in a not-so-ordinary way after inadvertently exchanging a series of intimate and embarrassing text messages. Dion makes her big-screen debut in the romantic comedy portraying a semi-fictionalized version of herself.

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Screen Gems has acquired The Rule of Three, an upcoming horror novel by Sam Ripley, a pseudonym for a well-established author.

EXCLUSIVE: Harriet Slater (Pennyworth) has signed on for a role in the horror feature Horrorscope, which Anna Halberg and Spenser Cohen are directing for Screen Gems and Alloy Entertainment, in their feature debut.

EXCLUSIVE: Larsen Thompson (The Midnight Club) and Olwen Fouéré (The Northman) have joined the cast of the upcoming film Horrorscope, from Screen Gems and Alloy Entertainment. The actors join an ensemble which also includes Jacob Batalon, Alana Boden, Adain Bradley, Avantika, Humberly González and Wolfgang Novogratz, as previously announced.

EXCLUSIVE: Legendary Italian actor Franco Nero (Django) has been tapped to play the Pope in Screen Gems’ supernatural thriller The Pope’s Exorcist, with Laurel Marsden (Ms. Marvel), Cornell S. John (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald) and newcomer Peter DeSouza-Feighoney also now set for the film from director Julius Avery. They join an ensemble led by Academy Award winner Russell Crowe, which also includes Alex Essoe and Daniel Zovatto, as previously announced.

EXCLUSIVE: Alex Essoe (Midnight Mass) and Daniel Zovatto (Station Eleven) will join Academy Award winner Russell Crowe in the Julius Avery-directed supernatural thriller The Pope’s Exorcist for Screen Gems.

EXCLUSIVE: Jacob Batalon, Alana Boden, Adain Bradley and Avantika have been cast as the leads in Screen Gems and Alloy Entertainment’s Horrorscope, based on Alloy’s same-name novel, written by Nicholas Adams. Humberly González and Wolfgang Novogratz have also joined the cast.

Russell Crowe (Thor: Love and Thunder) has signed on to star in Julius Avery’s film The Pope’s Exorcist for Screen Gems, Deadline can confirm.

Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose will executive produce “Two and Only,” an original screenplay by Latina and LGBTQ+ writer Jen Rivas-DeLoose (“Selena: The Series”) for Sony’s Screen Gems, according to an individual with knowledge of the project.The project will serve as a star vehicle for DeBose, who recently became the first openly queer woman of color to win an Academy Award for her portrayal of ‘Anita’ in Spielberg’s “West Side Story.”While plot details are being kept under wraps, the project is described as “My Best Friend’s Wedding” with a bisexual Latina pov, and will be overseen at Screen Gems by Scott Strauss and Giselle Johnson.Producing the project are Sad Unicorn’s Randall Einhorn and Jeremy Stern.DeBose was most recently seen in Steven Spielberg’s reimagining of “West Side Story,” for which she won the Academy Award, SAG Award, BAFTA, and Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is currently in production on Sony Pictures’ “Kraven,” which is set to release January 13, 2023.

EXCLUSIVE:  Alexis Ostrander, who has directed episodes of AppleTV+’s M. Night Shyamalan series Servant and Netflix hit series Sweet Tooth is set to direct Screen Gems’ Delilah, from screenwriter Harrison Query and his writing partner, Tommy Wallach.