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Samuel L. Jackson has joined the cast of Simon West’s sci-fi thriller The Blob, a remake of the 1958 classic about an alien life form that threatens a small town. The film is set to shoot in the fall. Jackson will play a biochemistry professor attempting to thwart the otherworldly predator in the pic. It is being produced by Richard Saperstein and Brian Witten along with Jack Harris, the producer of the original 1958 film, Judith Parker Harris, and Taewon Chung. Goldcrest Films is repping global sales and distribution after launching the pic at EFM in February. Jackson is repped by ICM Partners and Anonymous Content.

Action star Donnie Yen’s latest movie, the 3D live-action pic Big Rescue, is making its market debut in Cannes where it will be shown to buyers for the first time by sales outfit Arclight Films’ Easternlight Films division. The pic centers on a group of people who embark on fun-filled cross-country road trip only to encounter an evil villain who captures them. Luckily, the adventure takes a positive turn thanks to a team of king-fu fighting dogs who save them in the nick of time. Liang Ting is directing and producing.

Sony Pictures Classics acquired North American rights to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister, which is playing in Competition. It screens today at the fest.

Vince and Victoria Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show is producing the animated Home Field, which DDI is selling domestic and international rights to this week on the Croisette. The plot: Under the stands and under the baseball field, there’s a whole other world, completely unknown to the humans above. This one is set in a venerable old stadium and featured a group of outcast misfits who don’t fit in with their own packs, flocks or colonies, who must fight to save their home with the help of Mac, a fiercely independent golden eagle. Linda and Mike Teverbaugh (The Drew Carey Show) penned the script. No cast or director yet. The Vaughns produce with Wild West’s Peter Billingsley and Dan Krech of Awesometown Entertainment.

Jane Fonda, producer Megan Ellison and Olivia de Havilland (the first female Cannes jury president — in 1965) will be honored during the Woman In Motion program’s inaugural presidential Dinner on Sunday. The program is designed to highlight and celebrate the contribution of women to cinema.

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Pinewood Studios has launched Pinewood Productions Ireland Limited, a production company focusing on physical production administration, tax incentive application and packaging that will service Pinewood’s international clients shooting on location there. It adds to Pinewood studios in Toronto, Atlanta, Malaysia and Wales. Ireland’s tax incentive Section 481 was recently boosted with a program worth up to 32% of eligible Irish expenditure.

Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment has closed a $20 million production facility with First Republic Bank to finance the second season of TNT’s The Librarians, which is slated to begin production in June. The credit for both TV and film production, development and sales boosts Electric’s corporate facility with FRB to $75 million over three years.