EXCLUSIVE: Adrift helmer Baltasar Kormakur and Hugh Jackman are circling The Good Spy, Kai Bird's biography of CIA operative Robert Ames that Parkes+MacDonald Image Nation set up in 2014. Script is by F. Scott Frazier. Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes are producing along with Evan Hayes. Bird will act as a…

EXCLUSIVE:  F. Gary Gray is the choice to direct the Men In Black film that will relaunch the franchise for Sony and Amblin. Negotiations are underway toward a deal. Gray is enjoying a mid-career trajectory that began with Straight Outta Compton, and then extended most recently to the third highest global grossing…

NBC has put in development Relative Justice, a legal drama from The Boy Next Door scribe Barbara Curry, Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. The studio is Universal TV, where the husband-and-wife producing duo’s Parkes+MacDonald Image Nation banner has a first-look deal. Written by former prosecutor-turned-writer…

EXCLUSIVE: The Men in Black are back. Sony Pictures has fast tracked a spinoff of its billion-dollar alien franchise. The studio today will stake out a May 17, 2019, release date for an untitled film that has a script by Matt Holloway & Art Marcum, the writers of Iron Man and Transformers: The Last Knight. Will Smith…

NBC has given a script commitment plus penalty to The Outsider, a legal drama thriller from The Art of More creator Chuck Rose, husband/wife producing duo Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, and Universal TV. Written/executive produced by Rose, The Outsider is a legal thriller set in the powerful but often secretive…

Amy Schumer is in negotiations to play the title role in Barbie, the live-action Sony Pictures film based on the venerable Mattel toyline. The PG movie will begin production in the spring for a global summer 2018 tentpole bow, after Schumer puts her imprint on the Hilary Winston script, doing a rewrite with her sister…

EXCLUSIVE: Studiocanal and Parkes+MacDonald Productions partners Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald have teamed on four feature films that cover disparate subjects but have one connection: They all are European-set stories that have the potential to play to global audiences. Parkes and MacDonald will produce, and…

NBC has put in development Sneakers, a hacker drama based on the 1992 movie starring Robert Redford, from former The Mentalist executive producer Tom Szentgyorgyi, husband/wife producing duo Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, and Universal TV. Szentgyorgyi, who is under an overall deal at Uni TV, will pen the series…

EXCLUSIVE: Parkes + Macdonald and Image Nation Abu Dhabi have acquired exclusive rights from the Cousteau Foundation to develop a film and/or TV series based on iconic French naval explorer Jacques Cousteau. This is a pretty big deal as the Cousteau Society, which oversees the legendary conservationist’s legacy, has…

EXCLUSIVE: With several upcoming releases on the 2016 calendar, the husband/wife producing duo of Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald have just brought in another project to their production shingle. They just optioned the first novel of Jordan Harper, who is the producer of Gotham and The Mentalist. In a pre-emptive…

Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald have been ramping up their TV operation under new head of television Owen Shiflett, who joined four months ago. The company has sold two drama projects, Smoke Sex Magic to NBC and The Work to Fox. Additionally, Parkes + MacDonald’s martial arts drama Warrior, which went to pilot at…

Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald and Image Nation Abu Dhabi are extending their deal for another five years and have named Evan Hayes as president of production at Parkes/Macdonald. Hayes was formerly the president of production at Story Mining & Supply Co. The extension of their joint venture expands the…