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Exclusive: Police Academy veteran Steve Guttenberg and Vacation‘s Christie Brinkley have boarded Michael W. Gray’s coming-of-age family comedy American Summer.

Shooting has begun in Northern New Jersey and will extend into mid-October. Gray is directing from a script he wrote with Jennifer B. White.

Pic follows Mikey (Guttenberg), now in his 60s, who vividly journeys back to his childhood during one of the best summers of his life when he met the girl of his dreams, Kelly, scored a spot on the travel

baseball team, worked his first job and began his growth out of boyhood — all in the sudden wake of his dad missing overseas on a military mission.

Logan Gray stars as Young Mikey and Mia Talerico (Disney’s Good Luck Charlie) stars as Young Kelly. Also starring are Dan Lauria, Cullen Moss, Erinn Ruth, Michael Cuomo (Nanny), Ellen Toland (Inside the Rain), Stephen Krahel, former baseball stars Lee Mazzilli and Luis Sojo, plus newcomers Callie Reese (What Breaks the Ice), Cash Chisum, Jaba Keh, Carter J Thomas, Max Malas, Maximus Virgili, Chance Stout, and Noodle (the family puppy who saves the day).

“American Summer is a tale for a multi-generational audience to enjoy together. I look forward to sharing the film with the world as I want to bring people together to laugh and feel in their own way,” said Gray.

“I’m excited to be working on such a feel-good movie,” Guttenberg said. “The story requires the creative team to put together a narrative that is not only universal, but unique in its own style. American Summer has the potential to bring generations together, and that’s what audiences ask for in a great family film.”

Gray (A Birder’s Guide to Everything Jamie Marks Is Dead) and Michael Cuomo are producing. Guttenberg, Brinkley, Brian Dubin and Stephen Krahel are EPs. Josh Folan and Danny Ward are co-producers.

American Summer is a co-production of Relentless Filmz (Gray) and Brooklyn Owl Pictures (Cuomo). Gray is repped by Ramo Law. Guttenberg is repped by Vault Entertainment and CAA. Brinkley is repped by Artist Brand Alliance and Untitled Entertainment.

Erik Jensen, best known for his portrayal of Dr. Steven Edwards on The Walking Dead Season 5, has been diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer.

The actor's family revealed the news in a GoFundMe post.

"After miraculously surviving a brain aneurysm just a year and a half ago, our beloved Erik Jensen was just diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer," the message on the fundraising platform reads.

"The cancer has metastasized to his liver, but Erik is young and strong and his doctors think they have a shot at shrinking the tumors enough to do two very major surgeries and get them all out.

"He can make it through this. But Erik and his family are in for the fight of their lives, and they need your support."

"Stage IV is not a death sentence, and Erik is working incredibly hard to stay positive and fight for the shot that his doctors say he has,...

Exclusive: Film Seekers has acquired international sales rights to dark-comedy-thriller ClearMind about a virtual reality therapy experiment that takes a deadly turn for a Cannes sales launch.

The Northern California-shot drama revolves around old friends whose lakeside getaway is disrupted by the unexpected appearance of a grieving woman that they had dropped from their group.

She attempts to use VR therapy to avenge her sense of rejection and anger against them, but it backfires, and revenge turns from virtual to real.

It is the second feature by Rebecca Eskreis, after the Cinedigm acquisition What Breaks the Ice. Seana Kofoed (30 Miles from Nowhere) wrote the screenplay.

Toks Olagundoye (Frasier), Jenn Lyon (Dead Boy Detectives), Kadeem Hardison (Moonhaven), Rebecca Creskoff (Claws), Rob Benedict (Supernatural), Matt Peters (Orange is the New Black), Kofoed (NCIS: Hawai’i), Jessica Meraz (Drunk History), and Alec Mapa (Ugly Betty) make up the ensemble cast.

“We’re excited...

Exclusive: Filmmaker Walter Hill was honored with a Tribute Ceremony in France on Tuesday evening, which marked the opening night of the International Thriller Film Festival – Reims Polar.

A retrospective of Hill’s films are being shown at the festival, which runs through April 10, including The Warriors, 48 Hrs., starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, Extreme Prejudice, Last Man Standing and Bullet to the Head, starring Sylvester Stallone. The filmmaker attended a screening of his film Southern Comfort in Paris earlier this week, and will be presenting a masterclass moderated by Jean-Francois Rauger, who serves as Head of Programming at La Cinémathèque française.

Hill’s many other credits include the Westerns The Long Riders, Geronimo: An American Legend and Wild Bill. He co-produced Alien and served as producer or exec producer on its three sequels, winning an Emmy and DGA Award in 2005 for the pilot of HBO’s Deadwood. He also directed AMC’s Broken Trail,...

Exclusive: Rebecca Eskreis has signed on to direct ClearMind, a thriller about the dark side of Virtual Reality therapy and the slippery slope of using simulated life to avenge the real.

The film scheduled to enter production in Northern California next spring is the second from Eskreis, whose feature directorial debut, What Breaks the Ice, was recently released in theaters, on demand and on digital platforms via Cinedigm. 30 Miles from Nowhere’s Seana Kofoed penned the screenplay and will produce with River Place Production’s Kristin Tegtmeier Higgins (The Boy’s Gone). Miriam Hoffman is handling casting.

Eskreis is represented by Sara Alexander of Alexander Creatives and Stuart Rosenthal at Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.

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Exclusive: Freestyle Digital Media has acquired North American VOD rights to The Xrossing, an Australian coming-of-age thriller from director Steven J. Mihaljevich. The digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios...

Exclusive: Cinedigm has acquired North American rights to the coming-of-age thriller What Breaks the Ice, with plans to release the film in select theaters, on demand & digital this fall.

The first feature from writer/director Rebecca Eskreis is set during the tumultuous summer of 1998. As the sociopolitical landscape is turned on its head, two girls from different worlds form an unlikely friendship in the sweltering summer heat. Their fun and carefree days quickly turn cold as they find themselves at the center of a murder that rocks a nostalgic East Coast summer getaway.

Madelyn Cline and Sofia Hublitz (Ozark) star, alongside Lukas Gage, Catherine Curtin (Homeland), Aimee Mullins (Stranger Things), Shakira Barrera (Glow) and Joel Allen (The Purge).

Eskreis produced the project with Michael Cuomo, Dustin Duke Dlouhy, Michael W. Gray, Courtney Jones and Katie Leary. She developed it under...

Exclusive: Madelyn Cline, known for her breakout role in the hit Netflix series Outer Banks, has signed with ICM Partners for representation in all areas.

South Carolina-born Cline stars as Sarah Cameron in Outer Banks, which quickly became of the most popular shows on Netflix following its premiere last year, staying on the streamer’s daily Top 10 list for a month and a half following its release. The series follows Cline’s quick witted and warm-hearted character Sarah and a tight-knit group of friends as they are forced to navigate a chain of illicit events that take place during a hurricane worn, life changing summer in the beach destination of the Outer Banks off the coast of North Carolina. She recently finished filming Season 2.

Over the last three years, Cline has appeared in film and TV projects ranging from Focus Features’ Boy Erased to Netflix’s Stranger Things and HBO’s Vice Principals.

Exclusive: Investor and Tony Award-winning producer Kevin J. Kinsella (Jersey Boys) and actress Paten Hughes (Heirloom) have launched film and TV banner Cowboy + Cougar Entertainment.

Kinsella and Hughes will look to write and produce around 4-6 projects per year in the prestige and commercial spaces and will have the capacity to develop, package and finance. Already on the slate are books Confessions Of An Alien Hunter by astronomer Seth Shostak, which Cowboy + Cougar will adapt as a sci-fi TV series called Fermi’s Paradox, and Julia Oliver’s Goodbye To The Buttermilk Sky, which the company will adapt as a feature film.

The latter is a coming-of-age romantic drama in the vein of Bridges Over Madison County about a young woman, Callie, in Depression-era 1938 rural Alabama whose torrid affair with a handsome stranger jostles her life trajectory. Lily Houghton (Day By Day) is writing the adapted feature film script.

Outer Banks is a coming-of-age action mystery, replete with danger, romance, and good old-fashioned whodunit. The 10-episode season, which premiered on Netflix on April 15, features standout performances by a slew of relatively unknown young actors— many of whom, this is their first major role. Read our review here, and find out more about the cast of your new binge obsession below.

Outer Banks Main Cast Chase Stokes as John B.

Chase Stokes stars as John B., the charismatic leader of the Pogue crew. You may have caught the rising star in an episode of Stranger Things, or Daytime Divas, but Outer Banks is Chase Stokes’ breakout role. You’ll see him next playing Martin in Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets, based on the novel of the same name. You can find him being lightly self-deprecating and (and promoting Outer Banks) on Instagram @hichasestokes.

Madelyn Cline as Sarah Cameron

Madelyn...

Derek Luke (13 Reasons Why), Max Martini (Pacific Rim), Paola Nuñez (The Son) and Joel Allen (Never Goin’ Back) are set as series regulars for Season 2 of USA Network series The Purge, from Blumhouse Television and Ucp.

Based on the movie franchise, the series revolves around a 12-hour period when all crime, including murder, is legal. Set in an altered America ruled by a totalitarian political party, Season 1 followed several seemingly unrelated characters living in a small city. As the clock winds down, they are forced to reckon with their past as they discover how far they will go to survive the night.

Luke will play Marcus Moore, an accomplished professional with a loving wife and a beautiful house whose seemingly perfect life is shattered when an assassin breaks into his house on Purge night.

Martini will portray Ryan Grant. Unassuming yet laser-focused, Ryan spends his entire year precisely preparing for...