Leto to Make His Feature-Length Scripted Directorial Debut with Paramount Pictures’ “77”

Jared Leto is about to accomplish a new career first…

The 45-year-old part-Spanish American actor/singer is set to direct Wolf Films’ period thriller 77 for Paramount Pictures. The film marks his feature-length scripted directorial debut.

Jared Leto

Set in politically charged 1974 Los Angeles, the story centers on two police officers who team up to recover kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, while simultaneously investigating the brutal murder of a fellow officer. They uncover not only relentless corruption and crime, but a dark and violent conspiracy as well.

David Matthews penned the script from an original screenplay by L.A. Confidential author James Ellroy.

The film will be produced by writer/producer Dick Wolf and Tony Ganz of Wolf Films. Leto also is producing.

Leto’s directing credits include the documentary Artifact, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2012; the documentary short Great Wide Open; and the documentary series Into the Wild and Beyond the Horizon

As an actor, he won a Supporting Oscar for 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club, played the Joker in last year’s Suicide Squad and next appears in Blade Runner 2049.

DaCosta to Star in NBC’s “Chicago Fire” Spinoff “Chicago Med”

Yaya DaCosta is ready to go on call…

The 32-year-old part-Brazilian American actress, who recently portrayed Whitney Houston in the Lifetime biopic about the late singer, is set to star in NBC’s Chicago Med, the proposed ensemble medical drama spinoff from Chicago Fire.

Yaya DaCosta

DaCosta and the other cast members of the potential spinoff will be introduced in Episode 19 of Chicago Fire this season.

DaCosta will play Maggie Seaver (formerly Emily Sexton), an attractive nurse who begins to date Chicago Fire‘s Kelly (Taylor Kinney), with whom she has a history dating back to high school.

Like with Chicago PD, which also started as a planted spinoff from Chicago Fire, the Chicago Med  episode is conceived/written by Chicago Fire creators/executive producers Derek Haas and Michael Brandt, executive producer Matt Olmstead and executive producer Dick Wolf, whose company Wolf Films produces the Chicago Fire/Chicago PD franchise for Universal Television.

“There will be an event that brings Chicago Med within Chicago Fire,” NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt said at TCA last month.

DaCosta, who had been sought for pilots after following her breakout role as Whitney Houston, also appeared in Lee Daniels’ The Butler. She is with Gersh.