Mark Wahlberg: ‘Fifty Shades’ Cost Too Much

Mark Wahlberg was ''blown out'' of getting the Fifty Shades of Grey movie rights because it was too expensive.

The Ted actor was in talks to acquire E.L. James' best-selling trilogy for his production company, but a "bidding war" meant he lost out to Universal Pictures and Focus Features. "We had the early beat on it [the book] and we were close to getting it but it didn't happen. We were in contact through our agency with the writer. Then she got another agent and they realized what a valuable property it was, created a bidding war and it just blew us out of it," he explained on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night.

Though he is disappointed to have lost out on the series, Mark, 42, is "really excited" about another project he has in the pipeline - a movie version of Entourage, the comedy-drama series which starred Adrian Grenier and ran for eight seasons until 2011: "I'd been clawing and scratching and trying to convince everyone to do it and we finally agreed that it is the best thing. I'm really excited that the guys are coming back, I know fans have really missed the show, so to get those guys back, doing what they do, will be great for the fans."

Joe Wright Set to Direct Adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Next Book

Anna Karenenina director Joe Wright has found his next project: the film adaptation of cult fantasy author Neil Gaiman's latest novel.

Focus Features and Tom Hanks's Playtone have picked up the rights to turn the text - titled The Ocean at the End of the Lane and hits bookstores this June - into film form. The snyopsis is as follows:

"It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed — within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang."

The subject matter seems like a far departure from Wright, who is known for his period dramas like Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. There is no word yet in regards to casting.

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