Matt Damon reunites with director Steven Soderbergh in the comedic thriller The Informant, opening September 18, 2009. The film also stars Tony Hale, Patton Oswalt, Joel McHale, Scott Adsit, Andrew Daly and Scott Bakula.

Official Synopsis: What was Mark Whitacre thinking? A rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Whitacre suddenly turns whistleblower. Even as he exposes his company’s multi-national price-fixing conspiracy to the FBI, Whitacre envisions himself being hailed as a hero of the common man and handed a promotion. But before all that can happen, the FBI needs evidence, so Whitacre eagerly agrees to wear a wire and carry a hidden tape recorder in his briefcase, imagining himself as a kind of de facto secret agent. Unfortunately for the FBI, their lead witness hasn’t been quite so forthcoming about helping himself to the corporate coffers. Whitacre’s ever-changing account frustrates the agents and threatens the case against ADM as it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is real and what is the product of Whitacre’s rambling imagination. Based on the true story of the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history

Source: The Moving Picture.Net

Not On Our Watch, founded by Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Jerry Weintraub and David Pressman, has awarded the International Rescue Committee $260,000 to support critical health services at seven clinics in North Darfur.

“As the conflict in Darfur continues, victims of violence remain desperately in need of basic support services,” says Matt Damon. “The International Rescue Committee has been a lifeline to the people of Darfur for five years and we are proud to once again support their vital work,” said Not On Our Watch executive director Alex Wagner. Not On Our Watch donated $2.75 million to the International Rescue Committee’s health, water supply and education programs in the Darfur region last year. In 2006, George Clooney visited IRC aid programs in Chad and Sudan, launching a partnership that continues through Not On Our Watch. “We are grateful to Not On Our Watch for putting a spotlight on humanitarian crises and generating significant resources to assist some of the world’s most vulnerable people,” says George Rupp, president of the International Rescue Committee. “This donation will help IRC aid workers in Darfur to expand essential health care programs for some 200,000 people, including sick and malnourished children who too often succumb to preventable and treatable diseases.”

Source: Reuters

Matt Damon held daughter Isabella, 2 ½, close while out for a walk in Miami with wife Luciana. The group visited Genius Jones children’s store and enjoyed the balmy weather.

Matt and Luciana are also parents to daughter Gia Zavala, 4 months, and Alexia, Luciana’s child from a previous relationship. As the only male in the family, Matt, 38, has often joked that he’s outnumbered!

Source: Celebrity-Babies.Com

One of the more promising pairings we’ve heard about in recent months is director David Fincher and Matt Damon The project is an adaptation of Torso, a “true crime graphic novel” released back in 1998. It’s about a string of murders attributed to The Torso Murderer in Cleveland during the 1930s. I don’t think I need to explain the name, do I?

The investigator on the case was Elliot Ness, likely the only FBI agent you can name. And perhaps because it plays better, the name of the movie had been reportedly changed from Torso to Ness. In the film, Ness would be played by Matt Damon, and Casey Affleck had also agreed to come on board, and Rachel McAdams was hovering.

The last time we talked about this movie was in relation to the production moving from Ohio to Michigan because of tax incentives. And now it may not be moving anywhere but off the table. But Paramount, which has worked with David Fincher before and has the director’s Curious Case of Benjamin Button due out this month, has a drop dead date of either this past Friday or next Friday, depending on which source you go to. A movie with that talent on board and the studio hasn’t given it the green light? As the kids say, WTF?

Hollywood Elsewhere hears that Paramount is so high on a proposed comedy about a chef starring Keanu Reeves that the studio wants Fincher to do that next, regardless of what happens to Torso.

So let’s see: Great crime movie with Matt Damon, directed by a guy who will likely get his first Best Director nomination this year and who also has made two of the three best serial killer movies in the past 20 years, and the studio is actually considering relinquishing the rights to it altogether to do a movie about a chef?

Ratatouille envy, perhaps?

In truth, the script about the chef was on Hollywood’s black list of screenplays that everyone loved and had to read but wasn’t yet in the production pipeline. It’s about a great chef (they don’t make movies about mediocre chefs) who has to put his life and kitchen back together after major personal issues.

Yeah. Bowled over by that I am not.

Source: Get the Big Picture