Screen Talk: On a Silver platter

It is accepted intelligence that the Hollywood studios no longer sign overhead deals with cigar-chomping fat-cat producers for the promise of the next blockbuster. The old days of movie chaps living it large on studio cash are long gone.

But occasionally a producer whom the studios think is the biz comes along and a deal is struck. The latest name is Jeffrey Silver, a line producer whose 30-film resumé includes titles such as 300 and Terminator Salvation. Silver sealed a deal with Walt Disney Pictures with the studio signing him up to produce its "tent pole productions". A self-proclaimed gun for hire, Silver has form with Disney and is wrapping Tron Legacy, Disney's sci-fi tent pole directed by Joseph Kosinski that comes out in December.

Nepotism rules

Money goes to money. With Hollywood scrambling around trying to find funders in a risk adverse world, it pays to know who you know. David Ellison's Skydance Prods corralled a whopping $350m (£227m) in equity and debt funding to support a slate of four-plus movies per year. Ellison's father, Oracle chief Larry Ellison, is among those contributing to the finance package. The production banner's upcoming plans include Mission Impossible IV and True Grit among others. JP Morgan Chase is lead lender on a four-year, $200m revolving credit facility lined up as part of the funding, which follows Skydance's first-look deal with Paramount.

Foxx's next move was a no-brainer

Jamie Foxx (above left) is expanding his creative horizons. He is joining forces with writer-director-producer Deon Taylor to launch a production company dubbed No Brainer Films. Foxx's outfit will focus on developing, financing, writing, directing and producing mainstream films and TV series budgeted at under $10m. The comedian and actor already has Foxx-King Entertainment for big budget ideas which he will continue to run. Foxx has already created TV series Tommy's Little Girl, a mob drama starring Selma Blair, Paul Sorvino, Tony Sirico and James Russo for No Brainer.

Your house, or mine?

Elisabeth Shue (above centre) will star opposite Winter's Bone star Jennifer Lawrence and Max Thieriot in thriller House at the End of the Street. Directed by Mark Tonderai, House details the story of a teen girl (Lawrence) who moves with her mom (Shue) to a new town and learns that their home is across the street from a house where a double murder took place. Things get complicated when the daughter befriends the massacre's sole surviving son (Thieriot). Jonathan Mostow wrote the story on which the script, written by David Loucka, is based.

Getting the Max

It is widely accepted that Elvis Presley did not like being in movies. So insiders are wondering just how the King would have reacted to the news that his granddaughter Riley Keough (above right) is about to star in the latest instalment of the Mad Max franchise. Word has it that writer-director George Miller is talking to Keough about signing up to star in what will be the fourth edition of the successful post-apocalyptic series. While the movie's plot is secret what is known is that the fourth outing takes place a short while after the story detailed in 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It keeps Mad Max relatively young and allows him to be played by Tom Hardy (Inception). Keough will play one of the "Five Wives", a group of women that Hardy must protect from the bad guys. Zoe Kravitz, Teresa Palmer and Adelaide Clemens are three of other wives. Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult round out the cast. The movie is eyeing a start date for early next year. Keough made her film debut in this year's Runaways, the biopic of Seventies' girl rock band.