The film screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival are still going strong, as are the reports on which movies have found financial backing (you know, so there can continue to be a TIFF). Myriad Pictures recently announced it’s backing Jeepers Creepers 3, possibly in an attempt to revive Justin Long’s career, or establish one in which he solely appears in flashbacks and cornfields. Now Variety reports the entertainment company will also finance The Last Word, a dramedy starring Amanda Seyfried and Shirley MacLaine.
The Last Word will feature MacLaine as a “retired successful businesswoman who wants to control everything around her until the bitter end”. She starts writing her own obituary to make sure her life story is told correctly. We’re guessing her character’s health must be failing if she’s going the death-notices route and not, say, writing a memoir. Seyfried will play a writer who’s assigned by her local paper to also work on an obituary for MacLaine’s character; her research will eventually lead to a “reawakening” of the retiree’s passions.
This tale of dueling obits will be directed by Mark Pellington, who previously helmed I Melt With You and The Mothman Prophecies. The screenplay was written by Stuart Fink, who is either an actor who appeared in one episode of Being Human, or an actor who appeared in a short film called The Rotten Monk. Pellington says the “riotous life-affirming film” will explore the “true source of power for independent women,” which is presumably why the studio hired a male director and screenwriter.