Father Geek here bringing you Elston's cool weekend review of all that Hollywood and world film news that you may have missed during the past work week. Soooo refill that cup of jo, grap your favorite pastry, tune-in some pleasent sounds, sit back and relax with this week's...
WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER...
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER...
CASTING
* Heath Ledger and Gregor Jordan are attached to star in and direct, respectively, OUR SUNSHINE, a biopic on Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. The gunslinger shot a policeman who was arresting his brother Dan. The siblings, along with two other men, formed the Kelly gang, and carried out a series of robberies from 1878-80, after which Kelly was arrested and hanged in Melbourne.
* Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman will star in THE HUMAN STAIN, based on the 1998 novel by Philip Roth, for director Robert Benton and Lakeshore Entertainment. It's about an aging professor who is forced to retire when his colleagues unjustly label him a racist, leading to the revealing of years-old secrets about the prof. Nicholas Meyer (SOMMERSBY) is penning the adaptation.
* Val Kilmer is in talks to star in KILLER INSTINCT, written by brothers Toby and Noah Emmerich, for New Line Cinema and director/studio co-chairman Robert Shaye. It's about a brilliant go-getter executive who pulls off what he believes to be the perfect crime, but soon his co-worker/love interest begins to suspect him.
* Jennifer Love Hewitt will star in the indie romantic comedy WHY CAN'T I BE AUDREY HEPBURN for director Ryan Murphy ("Popular") and Myriad Pictures. She'll play a 25-year-old woman who has a fiance and a good job at a local news station. In the course of one week, she is left at the altar and loses her job. While trying to get her life back on track, she turns to her fiance's best man, who shares her love of Audrey Hepburn movies, only to find out that he uses facts about the legendary actress to pick up women.
* Edward Furlong and Scottish rock singer Sharleen Spiteri will star in the psychological thriller 3 BLIND MICE about a man who witnesses the murder of a woman live on the Web and finds himself drawn into an investigation by a female cyber-detective. Mathias Ledoux will direct.
* Julia Roberts will star in MONA LISA SMILE for Revolution Studios about a free-spirited graduate of Berkeley who goes to Wellesley in 1953 to teach. Larry Konner and Mark Rosenthal wrote the script.
* Julianna Margulies will star in Warner Bros.' GHOST SHIP (aka CHIMERA) for producers Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis' Dark Castle Entertainment. Steve Beck will direct the pic about a group of boat salvagers who encounter mysterious happenings when they find a lost 1953 passenger ship floating aimlessly in a remote region of the Bering Sea.
* Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly and Christine Baranski are in talks to join Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere in CHICAGO for director Rob Marshall and Miramax Films. Shooting begins Dec. 10.
* Nicolas Cage will star in CONSTANTINE, Warner Bros.' supernatural thriller based on the DC-Vertigo comic HELLBLAZER, for director Tarsem (THE CELL). Production is expected to begin March 1. The story centers on John Constantine, a man who flirts a bit with the occult and teams with a female cop to fight evil forces.
* Jamie Bell (BILLY ELLIOT) has started shooting an untitled war project for writer/director Michael J. Bassett. It's about a group of young British soldiers in WWI who get cut off in a captured German trench and start falling victim to a mysterious assassin who turns out to be far from human. Andy Serkis, Hugh O'Connor and Matthew Rhys also star.
* Renee Zellweger is in talks to star opposite Russell Crowe in THE CINDERELLA MAN for director Lasse Hallstrom and Universal Pictures/Miramax Films. The project is about real-life heavyweight champion Jim Braddock who made a boxing comeback in the 1930s to save his family during the Depression.
* Kenneth Branagh will play Gilderoy Lockhart in HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, which begins production Nov. 16. The principal leads in SORCERER'S STONE will return for the sequel.
* K.D. Aubert will play the female lead opposite Ice Cube in FRIDAY AFTER NEXT for director Marcus Raboy. Shooting begins this week.
* Katherine Towne (EVOLUTION, WHAT LIES BENEATH) has joined the cast of Touchstone's SWEET HOME ALABAMA, starring Reese Witherspoon. Andy Tennant directs.
* Kate Bosworth (REMEMBER THE TITANS) will star in Universal's romantic comedy SURF GIRLS OF MAUI for director John Stockwell (UNDERCOVER). She'll play a young girl who heads to Hawaii to ride the waves and work as a maid in a resort hotel. There, she falls in love with a football player from the mainland.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Scribe Brad Kaaya is working on three projects for Universal, two of which are with Jersey Films: KEEP IT COOL, an urban children's feature about two kids in Harlem who try to raise money to go to summer camp; the second assignment is a rewrite of an untitled youth golf comedy; and the third project is a rewrite of Overbrook's PREACHING AIN'T EASY, starring Cedric the Entertainer.
* Miramax has optioned TOP BANANA from comedians Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn about three struggling comics who enter a comedy competition in a last-ditch effort for fame. Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld's Red Hour Films will produce.
* Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are ready to work together again on the epic ALEXANDER, a biopic of Alexander the Great written by Peter Buchman (JURASSIC PARK III) and Christopher McQuarrie (THE USUAL SUSPECTS). This project is separate from Ted Tally's adaptation of a trilogy of novels about Alexander that will be produced by Dino De Laurentiis; as well as Alfonso Arau's relatively low-budget Alexander project.
* Revolution Studios has grabbed the script THE OWL, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris (THE GAME), with Dave Meyers attached to direct. The project, based on the novel by Robert Forward, is about a cop who becomes a vigilante after his pregnant wife is murdered. Known as the Owl because he never sleeps, he's hired by a woman to find her sister's killer.
* Ridley Scott is attached to direct 20th Century Fox's SWIFT from a pitch by Stephen Cornwell. The story follows a young who finds himself at the center of an escalating battle between supernatural forces of good and evil while investigating a group of brutal murders.
* Disney has purchased the action comedy pitch GLAM from writer Darin Scott. It focuses on a struggling Brooklyn hairdresser who is recruited by the government and sent to the French Riviera on a secret mission.
* Regency Enterprises has optioned CARMODY BRAQUE, a children's adventure yarn based on Margaret Mahy's award-winning book THE CHANGEOVER: A SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE. Christopher Landon wrote the script.
* Publisher 2000 AD will reinvent the Judge Dredd franchise by producing two movies based on the character with the first pic being JUDGE DREDD: DREDD RECKONING. The second pic, JUDGE DREDD: POSSESSION, will center on the character's moral dilemma of having to kill his partner when she is possessed by Judge Death. The two pics will be shot back-to-back.
* Thaddeus Sullivan (ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINALS) will direct Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia Williams in THE HEART OF ME for Pandora Films. The story centers on sisters in love with the same man, played by Paul Bettany (A KNIGHT'S TALE). One sister marries him, while the other continues to have a passionate affair with him.
* Pandora Films has writer Robert Harling developing Augusta Trobaugh's novel SOPHIE AND THE RISING SUN as a vehicle for Chow Yun-Fat. It's the story of a small-town Georgian who falls for a Japanese-American gardener in 1941.
* Crusader Entertainment has made a deal with director Howard Deutch (THE REPLACEMENTS) to develop a feature based on the Laurence Shames comic novel FLORIDA STRAITS. It's about a young son of a mob boss, who, because he's not pure Italian blood, will never be a made guy. He leaves his family and heads for Key West, where he plans to start his own mob. Unfortunately, the town is run by a Colombian cartel, who wants him rubbed out after he plans a jewel heist.
* Columbia Pictures has tapped Cormac and Marianne Wibberley (THE 6TH DAY) to work on a BAD BOYS sequel script for producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
* Jesse Wigutow is writing the big-screen adaptation of Arthur Miller's play THE RIDE DOWN MOUNT MORGAN, with Michael Douglas attached to star and produce.
* Radar Pictures has picked up an untitled romantic comedy pitch from screenwriter Jodie Burke about an estranged couple forced to pose as brother and sister to keep their finances from collapsing.
* Fox and writer/producer Alan Zweibel ("SNL," "It's Garry Shandling's Show") are working on BARBARIAN'S AT THE PLATE, a comedy pitch about a father who decides to run the local baseball league in an effort to improve get closer to his son.
* Twentieth Century Fox has snapped up the Maurice Chauvet romantic comedy script BRIDE WORE BLACK with Natalie Portman attached to star. It's about a young man attending the wedding of an ex-girlfriend. While staying at a hotel, he discovers that his room is haunted by a beautiful ghost, to be played by Portman, who plans to disrupt the wedding herself, having been left at the altar years before.
* Paramount Pictures and MTV Films have picked up FOREIGN EXCHANGE, a pitch being written by Kurt Voelker and Bill Fritz. The comedy centers on two guys who meet a female foreign exchange student and are so blown away by her looks that they decide they must go to her homeland in search of more like her.
* French director Daniele Thompson is developing an English-language remake of LA FEMME DE L'AMANT (THE LOVER'S WIFE). Rodrigo Garcia (THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER) is writing the adaptation.
* Ingmar Bergman is reteaming with stars Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson for a sequel to his thirty year-old classic, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE. Shooting begins in September from a script written by Bergman.
* Randal Kleiser (GREASE, THE BLUE LAGOON) will direct the romantic comedy THIS MAGIC MOMENT written by Gary Goldstein. It's about a 19-year-old movie buff who loses his virginity to a famous actress when she visits his small town.
* David Hayter (X-MEN) will adapt DC Comics' THE WATCHMEN, with an eye toward directing the pic. The story begins in the 1950s, when a seemingly ordinary guy puts on a mask and superhero costume and begins fighting crimel. He's later joined by others who do the same, until a law is passed that forces them to hang up their capes. The film's storyline begins with the mysterious murder of a couple of the former heroes.
* Michael Oblowitz is in talks to direct Franchise Pictures' FOREIGNER, starring Steven Seagal. It's about a free-lance agent who gets a package in France and takes it to America but soon finds himself the target of several conflicting parties as they all try to steal the package from him.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Rob Reiner and producer Alan Greisman have formed a producing partnership to be based at Reiner's Castle Rock Entertainment. Greisman will produce films directed by Reiner, and the two will co-produce pics, not directed by others. Their first project is a romantic comedy written by Jeremy Leven (THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE), with Reiner attached to direct, about a writer who hires a gorgeous stenographer to transcribe his work. The two fall for each other and he must come to terms with his own life as an artist.
* Roger Corman's New Concorde has picked up Timur Bekmambetov and Gennadiy Kajumov's 1994 action pic PESHAVAR WALTZ and will release the movie in two different versions (one English language and one part-English/part-Russian) with the title ESCAPE FROM AFGHANISTAN. Barry Kushner, Viktor Verzbitsky and Robert Ford star.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* SANTA'S LETTERS will screen at the Burbank Children's Film Festival on Monday, October 29 at 6 p.m. Emmett Loverde's new pic is about a kid who asks Santa not to come to his house. For more info, visit www.burbankfilm.org or www.santas-letters-movie.com.
* Visit www.paynie.com for information on a film about this year's Burning Man Festival.
