Whilte it has been reported before, The Hollywood Reporter is again spreading the news that Tommy Lee Jones will be Meryl’s leading man in the upcoming “Great Hope Springs”. Maybe it’s more of a sum up since the film has been picked by Mandate Pictures at the Cannes Film Festival. Here’s the article: Tommy Lee Jones will star alongside Meryl Streep and Steve Carell in Great Hope Springs, the Mandate comedy being directed by David Frankel. The project, written by Vanessa Taylor, centers on a middle-aged couple (Streep and Jones) who after 30 years of marriage attend an intense counseling weekend to examine the marriage and sex issues that are threatening their marriage. Carell plays the famed relationship guru who tries to help the couple out once they arrive in the town of Great Hope Springs. The movie is eying an August start. Sony Pictures will release the movie domestically in fourth quarter 2012. Guymon Casady of Film 360 and Todd Black of Escape Artists are producing. Mandate president Nathan Kahane, Escape Artists’ Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch will executive produce. Mandate’s Lawrence Grey will co-produce. Escape Artists’ Chris Coggins and Lance Johnson will serve as associate producers. The movie was a hot seller in Cannes, with dozens of territories already sown up. Among the sales were Alliance taking the U.K. and Spain, Wild Bunch picking up Germany and Italy, and Metropolitan taking France.

Bad news for everyone who was anticipating Meryl’s stage reading of Alan Alda’s “Marie Curie” play. According to Entertainment Weekly, Maggie Gyllenhaal will play Nobel-winning scientist Marie Curie in a special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, taking over for Meryl Streep, who had to bow out due to a scheduling conflict. Streep’s spokesperson said in a statement that the two-time Oscar winner was “very disappointed to miss this important and inspiring event.” Gyllenhaal joins the all-star cast of Radiance, which also includes Amy Adams, Bill Camp, Allison Janney, David Morse, Liev Schreiber, and Brent Sexton. Written by Alan Alda and directed by Bob Balaban, the reading anchors the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration on June 1 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

According to Variety, Sony is in negotiations to take North American distribution on “Great Hope Springs,” the Meryl Streep domestic drama. Lionsgate Intl. is selling the rights at Cannes. A Sony rep confirmed the negotiations Saturday. “Great Hope Springs,” to be directed by David Frankel, centers on a middle-aged couple who, after 30 years of marriage, attend an intense counseling weekend to examine the intimacy issues threatening their marriage. Steve Carell portrays a therapist. Vanessa Taylor penned the script. While there still hasn’t been an official announcement on Meryl’s involvement, it sounds like a fair deal if they sell the film with her name attached.

The Iron Lady has gotten some weighty support. The Meryl Streep biopic about British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was picked up for distribution in the United States by The Weinstein Co., which has a good track record with British biopics. Last year, Harvey and Bob Weinstein steered The King’s Speech through a contentious award season to an ultimate Best Picture win at the Academy Awards. They are likely to push for a repeat of that recent history with this film, which focuses on the 1982 Falklands War and co-stars fellow Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent as Thatcher’s husband, Denis. Phyllida Lloyd, who worked with Streep on Mamma Mia!, is directing. The pick-up news came out of the Cannes Film Festival today, where footage from the unfinished movie was shown to potential distributors at the world’s biggest film market. “Having worked with both Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent, I know that they are without peer as film actors. Even so, I was absolutely blown away by what I saw of their performances as Margaret and Denis Thatcher. Phyllida is doing an incredible job,” Harvey Weinstein said in a statement. He said The Iron Lady would be released by the end of 2011, naturally — which would qualify it for the next awards race.

Opening night of the World Science Festival in New York is going to feature a more glittering lineup of stars than most Broadway shows. Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Allison Janney, Liev Schreiber, David Morse and Bill Camp are among the actors coming together on June 1 at Alice Tully Hall to participate in a reading of a new play written by Alan Alda about the scientist Marie Curie. Mr. Alda, who has written five screenplays and a carton-full of television scripts, said on Monday that “Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie,” is his first attempt at playwriting. The idea struck him about three years ago when he was planning to organize a reading of excerpts from Curie’s letters for the World Science Festival. “Then I found out her letters were all still radioactive and I switched to Albert Einstein,” said Mr. Alda, who has a passion for science. “But I love Marie Curie and I think her story is so important and dramatic, I wanted to explore it and write a play about it.” The full article can be read at the New York Times.

On April 28, Meryl has attended the MindUp Gala, held by her friend Goldie Hawn’s The Hawn Foundation. Pictures can be found in the image libary. The MindUp program features lessons to improve behavior and learning for children. More information can be found at the foundation’s official website.

The Daily Mail has a very extensive and interesting article on “The Iron Lady”, including some quotes by Meryl’s co-star Richard E. Grant, who will be playing Michael Hesletine in the film. The fulll article can be read here: Meryl Streep, attired with uncanny accuracy as Margaret Thatcher, is shooting a scene from the forthcoming film Iron Lady. Striding down a parliamentary corridor in power suit and pearls, her blonde wig coiffed to replicate the distinctive Prime Ministerial hair-do; her voice crisp with authority, Streep, it seems, has perfectly caught the power and allure of our first female PM. But then the cameras stop rolling and an unexpected transformation takes place. She shrugs off the mask of political gravitas, kicks the air with her court-shoed heels and bursts into a chorus of Abba songs. Richard E. Grant, who plays Mrs Thatcher’s political nemesis Michael Heseltine in the film, watched with amusement and delight as Streep – who won plaudits as Abba-loving Donna in the blockbuster movie Mamma Mia! – performed an impromptu medley of songs from the film.

We were doing a scene in which Mrs Thatcher walks down a corridor with a group of ministers. Between shots, Meryl, still suited and bewigged as Mrs T, sang the Abba hits. It was so incongruous and hilarious and it sums up her humour and sense of mischief. It’s naff to say it, but Meryl makes you feel better about yourself. As an actress, she’s the best of the best. But she’s also unbelievably down-to-earth. She knew everyone on the set by name. She’s appreciative of what other actors do. She has no entourage. It’s like working with a British theatre actress: very unexpected and disarming in someone who has 16 Oscar nominations and two Academy Awards in the bag.

The Daily Mail has published a brand new production still from “The Iron Lady” as well as some more background information on the upcoming release.

Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent show their true – blue – colours as they portray former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her husband Denis. It’s a recreation of the 1980 Conservative Party conference at Brighton, when the Fighting Lady (as Time magazine dubbed her that year) put the country on alert over battles with unions regarding pay and jobs. It was also the time when she made her famous ‘You turn if you want to: the Lady is not for turning!’ speech, although the speech itself is not included in the segment.

Director Lloyd and the picture’s writer Abi Morgan use the conference to demonstrate Mrs Thatcher’s dominance of, and popularity within, her party – as well as her deep unpopularity in the other half of the nation. Outside the Grand Hotel and the all-blue iron curtain of the Tory Party faithful, thousands of protesters had marched on Brighton to express their anger at Mrs Thatcher’s policies, many of which were seen as Draconian. Some within her party were a bit wobbly, too, but Mrs Thatcher would not stand for any dissent. The film shows many high (and low) points of her life and career but overall, it is a portrait of a woman whose steely resolve dominated the British political landscape. “The film covers a big spectrum of her life in order to sum up the kind of person she was, and why she has this iconic status,’ an executive on the picture told me. Alexandra Roach portrays the young Margaret; Harry Lloyd is the young Denis; and Olivia Colman (brilliant in forthcoming film Tyrannosaur) plays Mrs Thatcher’s daughter Carol. As I mentioned before, Meryl buried herself in research on her subject, and was also advised by a line-up of Tory insiders. A friend who visited the set said there was a scary moment when Meryl was spotted with prosthetic make-up as the former PM in later retirement. ‘I thought I was staring at Maggie for real! Meryl’s not impersonating Maggie – she is the very essence of her,’ I was told.

Meryl has been helped in achieving the full Maggie look by hair and make-up expert J. Roy Halland, while Consolata Boyle, who created the clothes for The Queen, has designed costumes for The Iron Lady. She and her team tirelessly researched the six decades of Mrs Thatcher’s political career. For instance, Ms Boyle tracked down the creators of Mrs T’s iconic blue blouse with the pussy-bow collar (the one Meryl is seen wearing in Alex Bailey’s photograph) and recreated it, as she did her blue suit. And Meryl’s dresser Jane Law studied newsreel footage so she could recreate Mrs T’s look to a T. The movie, produced by Damian Jones, Pathe and Film 4, may not be ready for any of the autumn film festivals such as Toronto and Venice – although in order to qualify for the Oscars it will have to open in Los Angeles and New York by the end of December. At the moment, Pathe is provisionally set to release it here in the UK on January 6, 2012.

Between April 18 and April 28 eBay will host charity auctions for Mother’s Day gifts donated by celebrity moms to support women-oriented charities. They will also help Women for Women International raise money for its programs for women survivors of war through several celebrity charity auctions on eBay Giving Works eBay’s charity fundraising program. Women for Women will auction off three unique celebrity experiences: a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet Ashley Judd, a red-carpet experience and meet-and-greet in the U.K. with Meryl Streep during the premiere of her new film, “The Iron Lady,” and a trip to New York to visit with kate spade’s creative director Deborah Lloyd, plus a $1000 kate spade shopping spree.

Here’s another fantastic treasure from the past. In December 1981, Meryl Streep, Donald Sutherland and Richard Chamberlain honored actress Helen Hayes at the Kennedy Center Honors. The appearance can be now watched in the video archive with captures being added to the image libary. Enjoy!