Nina Dobrev At Teen Choice Awards

EXCLUSIVE: Liam Neeson, Salma Hayek, John Krasinski, Frank Langella, Alfred Molina and Quvenzhané Wallis have all joined the voice cast of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, the animated feature film written and directed by Roger Allers, whose animation credits include directing Disney’s The Lion King and Open Season and whose writing and storyboard work encompasses such films as Aladdin, Beauty And The Beast, and The Little Mermaid. The film is being produced by Hayek, Clark Peterson, and Ron Senkowski. Allers’ script was inspired by The Prophet, the iconic book that is one of the biggest sellers in history, north of 100 million copies in over 40 languages since it was first published by Alfred Knopf in 1923. Allers is directing the narrative story, while individual chapters based on Gibran’s poems are being helmed by animation directors from around the world, including Tomm Moore (The Secret Of Kells), Joan Gratz (Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase), Bill Plympton (Guard Dog And Your Face), Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues), Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat), Paul and Gaetan Brizzi (Fantasia 2000), Michal Socha (Chick) and Mohammed Harib (Freej). The Prophet is on track for completion in spring of 2014.

The subject of celebrities crowdsourcing to get their movie projects funded has been debated constantly throughout the year. The “Veronica Mars” movie and Zach Braff’s “Wish I Was Here” both managed to have successful Kickstarter campaigns despite many complaints and negative feedback the projects may have gotten. Now James Franco looks to get in the mix, this time using Indiegogo to crowdsource his project. Franco has become quite prolific, and as he mentions on the Indiegogo page, has directed six films in the last three years. For this particular project, Franco looks to finance three more movies and he’s asking for $500,000 to fund all of them. The films are all based on Franco’s book “Palo Alto,” which is a collection of short stories that were inspired by his high school experiences growing up in Palo Alto, California. He’s enlisting four directors to helm the projects. Nina Ljeti and Vladimir de Fontenay will direct “Memoria,” Bruce Thierry Craig will take on “Killing...