EXCLUSIVE: Jason Bateman has set a deal with Netflix to direct an untitled action comedy script by Game Night and Accepted screenwriter Mark Perez. Bateman will produce with Michael Costigan through their Aggregate Films banner, teaming with Jeff Kirschenbaum and Joe Roth. Casting is underway but Bateman will not star…

EXCLUSIVE: Already a staple of the Netflix queue with Ozark and Arrested Development, Jason Bateman has deepened his relationship with the global streaming service. He has partnered with seasoned producer and executive Michael Costigan, and they have set Aggregate Films in a first-look, multiyear deal with Netflix to…

Zac Efron will star in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, director Joe Berlinger’s psychological thriller about serial killer Ted Bundy that is set up for Cannes by Voltage Pictures and Michael Costigan's COTA Films. Michael Werwie (Lost Girls, Massive) wrote the script, which got him a Nicholl Fellowship…

EXCLUSIVE: Nicholas Sparks and Theresa Park have acquired Gale Sayers‘ life rights and his memoirs I Am Third and Sayers: My Life And Times and have partnered with Michael Costigan to produce a feature film that focuses primarily on the friendship between the NFL Hall of Famer and teammate Brian Piccolo when both…

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has optioned screen rights to The Rosie Project, the global breakout novel by Australian writer Graeme Simsion. The film will be produced by Sony-based Matt Tolmach and Michael Costigan, both of whom were longtime colleagues as Sony execs and get to work together again for the first time as…

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Entertainment has made a two-year exclusive first-look deal with Michael Costigan and his COTA Films. It brings him back to the lot where he spent nine years as an executive working on such films as Charlie’s Angels, Gattaca, The People Versus Larry Flynt, Girl, Interrupted and Bottle…

UPDATE: Doesn’t look like it will take Ridley and Tony Scott long to name a new president for Scott Free. The name I’m hearing on the short list is Michael Schaefer, the former senior vice president of acquisitions and co-productions at Summit Entertainment who left that company after the consolidation of staff in…

Jacki Weaver, whose murderous matriarch earned her an Oscar nomination for Animal Kingdom, has signed on to star in Stoker, the Fox Searchlight thriller that was written by actor Wentworth Miller under the pseudonym Ted Foulke. Weaver joins Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode in the Chan-wook Park-directed…

EXCLUSIVE: Alice in Wonderland‘s Mia Wasikowska is negotiating to star in Stoker, the Fox Searchlight thriller that will be directed by Oldboy and Thirst director Chan-wook Park. The script was written by Wentworth Miller, the Prison Break star who wrote under the pseudonym Ted Foulke. Ridley and Tony Scott will…