Bobby Cannavale Joins ‘Annie’

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures and Overbrook Entertainment have set Bobby Cannavale to star in Annie. He joins Quvenzhane Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz and Rose Byrne in the Will Gluck-directed film. Cannavale is coming off Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine and turned in an epic villain performance in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. He’s Emmy nominated for that and a stint in Showtime’s Nurse Jackie. He will play a bulldog political adviser to Foxx’s character as he makes a mayoral run in New York. The film is set for release Christmas Day 2014.

Gluck is producing with James Lassiter, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Will Smith through Overbrook Entertainment, and by Shawn “JAY Z” Carter, Jay Brown, and Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith through Marcy Media. Gluck is currently revising the film’s screenplay, which was written by Emma Thompson and rewritten by Aline Brosh McKenna. It’s based on the comic strip and the musical stage play Annie, with book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse, and lyrics by Martin Charnin. The film is being overseen at the studio by Andrea Giannetti and Devon Franklin.

Cannavale, repped by ICM Partners and Framework Entertainment, next appears in the Jon Favreau-directed Chef opposite Favreau and Scarlett Johansson, and the Dan Fogelman-directed Imagine with Al Pacino, Jennifer Garner and Annette Bening.