Daniel Espinosa, the Chilean-born Sweden-based director who broke in with Easy Money and followed with Safe House, takes his first outer space movie, Life, to SXSW. The thriller, which gets its premiere tomorrow in Austin, is set in a space station filled with scientists assigned to receive soil samples from Mars to…

True Blood alum Stephen Moyer is returning to his native Britain to star in ITV’s four-part drama Safe House. This is the second season for the four-part series that’s produced by Eleventh Hour Films and returns with an all new cast and crime story. The first season starred Christopher Eccleston and aired on ITV in…

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures has closed a deal to turn the David Guggenheim and Nicholas Mennuti novel Weaponized into a feature with Scott Stuber producing through his Bluegrass Films banner. Guggenheim, who wrote Safe House for the studio and Stuber, will adapt the novel he co-authored. Deal was high six-figures…

Universal has hired scribe David Guggenheim to try drafting a sequel to Safe House, the hit drama that Daniel Espinosa directed with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. It’s far from a sure thing, as Washington isn’t really a sequels guy. But the film did well enough where you have to try. Guggenheim scripted the…

EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Reynolds has been set to star in Queen Of The Night, a psychological thriller that Atom Egoyan will direct next February in Ontario. Egoyan wrote the story, and scripted the film with David Fraser. Reynolds plays the father who discovers a series of disturbing clues eight years after his daughter is…

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros is negotiating with Safe House helmer Daniel Espinosa to helm The Outsider, a gritty action film scripted by Andrew Baldwin. The protagonist is a POW in Osaka in WWII who goes to work for the Yakuza. Sons of Anarchy producers Art and John Linson are producing. Espinosa, who helmed Snabba Cash…

EXCLUSIVE: David Guggenheim, who scripted the hit Universal Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds thriller Safe House, has just landed a deal to co-write his first novel. Exile will be published by Little, Brown imprint Mulholland Books in 2013. Guggenheim will collaborate with Nick Mennuti. The writers met while they…

Weekend box office for Universal’s Safe House turned out to be $40.2 million when actual figures came in today. Three-day estimates from Sunday proved a tad conservative at $39.3 million. Along with the $41.2 million actuals Sony reported today for The Vow, that means two movies posted openings higher than $40 million…

SATURDAY PM, 6TH UPDATE: “Looks like that first-ever 4 openings over $20 mil on a non-holiday weekend has happened,” a studio exec emails me tonight. (On the 2008 holiday weekend December 26-28, all four movies opened on Christmas to $20+M openings that three-day weekend: Fox’s Marley And Me $36.4M, Disney’s Bedtime…

Universal has released a trailer for the spy thriller Safe House, which stars Denzel Washington as a rogue CIA agent and Ryan Reynolds as the guy trying to keep him alive. It looks like it could be fun watching Washington play a tough guy with a bit of bad in him — that would be a similar formula to his corrupt L.A…

Universal has locked in release dates for some of its most ambitious films hatched by the team of Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley. Add these to previously set releases that include The Fast and The Furious sequel Fast Five (June 10, 2011), Cowboys and Aliens (July 29, 2011), Tower Heist (November 4, 2011), Battleship…

EXCLUSIVE: Terry George has signed on for rewrite duty on Safe House, the Daniel Espinosa-directed Universal drama that goes into production early next year. Ryan Reynolds plays a young CIA agent who must transport a dangerous criminal — Denzel Washington — to safety after they are attacked at a safe house. David Gugge…