Its been a great week for musicals and death in the movies world, with Hugh Jackman snagging his first film musical lead in "The Greatest Showman on Earth" and "The Lovely Bones" trailer making its debut. Today, Jennifer Aniston and Josh Duhamel are joining the fray by each signing on to their own respective projects, "Goree Girls" and "Life As We Know It."
Jennifer Aniston is going to be belting out some tunes as a prison inmate in "Goree Girls," the story which feels a bit like a female version of "O Brother, Where Art Thou." But that's probably because the script is based off Skip Hollandsworth's article for Texas Monthly called "O Sister Where Art Thou," a true story of eight female inmates in Texas' Goree Prison who formed one of the first all-woman country and western acts in the US. Jen is the only actor so far Variety has confirmed for the role, but Just Jared rumored back in November Gerard Butler might also be joining the fold.
On a more romantic note, Variety also reports that Josh Duhamel will be joining Katherine Heigl in a new love story, "Life as We Know It," about two unrelated people who are brought together after their best friends are killed in an accident and they are given custody of the couples child. Sounds like a pretty heartbreaking premise, but knowing Katherine's previous film work, its sure to be somewhat light and fluffy. It reminds me of how Jennifer Garner and Kevin Smith managed to turn the horrifying rom-com premise of "Catch and Release" into a somewhat decent and funny film.
The ladies are taking the helm in these two films, with Jennifer producing "Goree Girls" and Katherine exec-producing "Life" with the help of her mother, Nancy. I personally like the idea of Jennifer doing something completely apart from her romantic comedy norm, but lets just hope she's an OK singer. Josh, on the other hand, is just the newest on-screen arm candy for Katherine in her rom-com flicks, following James Marsden, Gerard Butler and the always sexy Seth Rogen. At least he'll have more screen time than he did in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."
What do you think about Jennifer's and Josh's new roles?
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