Ol' Father Geek here with a new Weekly Recap from our man in the know Elston Gunn. Soooooooo grab your giant AICN mug, fill it with your fave hot java drink, bite into a nice warm pastry of choice, and sit back and relax with Elston's review of all that movie news you may have missed during the past work week...
Of course the monster news of the week is the almost universal acclaim by fans and critics alike being heaped on Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS first installment, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. You don't have to take Father Geek's word for it, or even this site's. Just check out the figures on our current reader's poll, or IMDB's "Best Movie of All Time" poll, or Rotten Tomatos' collection of reviews; or any other movie site's critics, or newspaper critic, or major magazine critic, or TV critic for that matter.
Father Geek (age 56) has now seen this epic motion picture 3 times with wildly divergent audiences; 1st at a private Distributer's Screening FULL of industry professionals; 2nd at a very restricted Press Screening populated with about 30 different media critics; and 3rd in a packed, soldout, opening day screening full of diehard fans (some dressed as LOTR characters), and including about 30-40 kids under the age of 10. All, I repeat, ALL of these audiences were overwhelmingly supportive of this phantastic work of the cinema art-form. The young kids in that final screening sat there, transfixed, in stunned silence, riveted like their adult counterpoints for 3 hours to the story unfolding on the giant screen before them. Except when the story called for an audience response you could have heard a pin drop. In all my movie-going experience I have never witnessed such a show of awe, of respect from a mixed audience like this one. An absolutely amazing, astounding... astonishing film filled afternoon!
Buuuut enough of Father Geek, have a safe and fun-filled long holiday weekend, here's Elston with...
The WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
Father Geek (age 56) has now seen this epic motion picture 3 times with wildly divergent audiences; 1st at a private Distributer's Screening FULL of industry professionals; 2nd at a very restricted Press Screening populated with about 30 different media critics; and 3rd in a packed, soldout, opening day screening full of diehard fans (some dressed as LOTR characters), and including about 30-40 kids under the age of 10. All, I repeat, ALL of these audiences were overwhelmingly supportive of this phantastic work of the cinema art-form. The young kids in that final screening sat there, transfixed, in stunned silence, riveted like their adult counterpoints for 3 hours to the story unfolding on the giant screen before them. Except when the story called for an audience response you could have heard a pin drop. In all my movie-going experience I have never witnessed such a show of awe, of respect from a mixed audience like this one. An absolutely amazing, astounding... astonishing film filled afternoon!
Buuuut enough of Father Geek, have a safe and fun-filled long holiday weekend, here's Elston with...
The WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
The WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
CASTING
* Mika Boorem (RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS, HEARTS IN ATLANTIS), Faizon Love and Sanoe Lake join Matt Davis, Kate Bosworth and Michelle Rodriguez in Universal's untitled surf girls project for writer/director John Stockwell and Imagine Entertainment. The feature is currently in production in Hawaii. Lizzy Weiss penned the original script about a young surfer and her best friend who struggle with life as they get ready for an enormous surfing competition.
* Steve Martin will star in a feature adaptation of his best-selling novella SHOPGIRL for Lakeshore Entertainment. It's about a shopgirl at Neiman Marcus who feels useless in her job and unfulfilled by her boyfriend. Her life changes when she meets a rich, divorced older man. Martin has written the adapted his own book.
* Rick Yune (THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS) will play the lead villain in MGM's latest James Bond film for director Lee Tamahori. The feature will begin production at the end of next month. John Cleese and Judi Dench will reprise their roles as R and M, respectively. The plot is being kept a secret, but it is known that the story involves a device enabling facial mutation. Yune will play a North Korean general named Zao, who is being tracked by Bond, and at some point will undergo facial transformation. However, the experiment goes awry, leaving him half-changed.
* James King will star opposite Chow Yun-Fat and Seann William Scott in BULLETPROOF MONK for director Paul Hunter and MGM. Cy Voris and Ethan Reiff wrote the script based on the cult comic about a mysterious monk with no name who has traveled the world for 60 years to protect an ancient scroll that holds the key to unlimited power.
* David Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson, Larry Pine and Emily Mortimer are starring in the dark comedy A FOREIGN AFFAIR about two brothers from the Midwest who, after the death of their mother, decide to go to Russia to find and bring home a traditionally minded wife for the younger brother. Helmut Schleppi directs.
* Meg Ryan and Richard Gere are in talks to star in the romantic comedy WEDLOCKED about a couple of divorce lawyers who find their marriage is just about over. Desperate to stay together, they seek help from a therapist, who fingercuffs them together for 48 hours.
* Bill Paxton and Julia Ormond are starring in RESISTANCE, an indie drama about an American pilot downed in Nazi-occupied Belgium. He falls for a married woman who nurses him back to health while her husband is fighting in the resistance. Todd Komarnicki is directing from his own script.
* Harvey Keitel, Joey Lauren Adams and Ed Quinn will star in the thriller BEEPER about a California doctor whose young son is kidnapped during a medical conference in India. The doctor receives a beeper from the kidnappers with instructions that lead him to a drug dealer.
* Don Cheadle, Jena Malone and Michelle Williams have joined Ryan Gosling and Chris Klein in UNITED STATES OF LELAND for Trigger Street Prods. and writer/director Matthew Ryan Hoge. Production begins Jan. 28. It's about a 15-year old who murders an autistic child and claims that he did it out of sadness. He is sent to a juvenile facility, where a teacher must uncover the mystery behind the murder while dealing with how the tragic killing affects the families of both the victim and the perpetrator.
* Timothy Olyphant and Donnie Wahlberg join Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee and Morgan Freeman in Castle Rock's adaptation of Stephen King's novel DREAMCATCHER for director Lawrence Kasdan.
* Sam Elliott and Nick Nolte join the cast of THE HULK for Universal and director Ang Lee. Elliott will play Gen. Ross, a man in charge of the military base where scientific developments occur, while Nolte will play Bruce Banner's father. Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly star.
* Brenda Blethyn and Mena Suvari will star opposite James Franco in PONY RIDE (aka SONNY) for director Nicolas Cage, his Saturn Films and Gold Circle Films. Production starts next month in New Orleans. John Carlen wrote the script about a male hustler who tries to get out of the family business, but his mother keeps pulling him back in.
* Leah Remini and Elisa Cuthbert will join Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell in the comedy OLD SCHOOL for DreamWorks, Montecito Pictures and co-writer/director Todd Phillips. Shooting begins Jan. 7 in Los Angeles on the story of three men who are disenchanted with life and try to recapture their college days.
* Jack Nicholson will star alongside Adam Sandler in the comedy ANGER MANAGEMENT about a timid businessman who is wrongly sentenced to an anger-management program where his life is changed by an aggressive instructor. Production is expected to begin in March as soon as a director is hired.
* Mark Addy will join Heath Ledger and Shannyn Sossamon in Brian Helgeland's in supernatural thriller SIN EATER. It's about a priest and a detective who are trying to solve a case involving a dead body covered with religious symbols.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Steve Norrington (BLADE) is in final negotiations to direct THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTELMEN, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, for Twentieth Century Fox. Production may begin by late March or early April. The story is set in the penultimate year of Queen Victoria's reign, which ended with her death in 1901, and focuses on characters culled from popular British literature. Mina Harker leads Allan Quartermain, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll, Robert Louis Stevenson and Dr. Hawley Griffin as they are called upon by Queen Victoria to help thwart an evil madman hellbent on ruling the world.
* Universal Pictures has grabbed Meghan McCarthy's comedy script THE BACHELORETTE for Neal Moritz's Original Films to produce. It's about the misadventures of a soon-to-be bride who has a tumultuous bachelorette party, causing her to reconsider whether she is fit for married life
* Universal Pictures has reteamed with the film's producer Neal Moritz and director Rob Cohen to develop two unique scripts for a sequel to THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. Gary Scott Thompson is writing one script while Michael Brandt and Derek Haas is working on another.
* Howard A. Rodman (JOE GOULD'S SECRET) will write THE MIGHTY ATOM for Universal Pictures based on the Ed Spielman book THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF JOSEPH L. GREENSTEIN. Greenstein was an asthmatic child in Poland, joined a traveling circus when he was 14, studied wrestling and martial arts, and became the 5-foot-4-inch sideshow star the Mighty Atom. He came to America in 1911 and became a fighter against racism and intolerance, promoting peace through his strongman act and scrapping with the Ku Klux Klan and the German-American Bund.
* GreeneStreet Films has picked up the urban romantic comedy ONE BAD SISTA, written and to be directed by Cheryl Dunye (STRANGER INSIDE), about a young female rapper who disguises herself as a man in order to make it in the rap world.
* Zak Penn (BEHIND ENEMY LINES co-writer) will make his directing debut for New Line on his sci-fi script JOHN DOE. The plot is being kept under wraps, but it is described as a sci-fi thriller with an underlying message and a SIXTH SENSE twist, as well as containing two adversarial roles that could lure big action stars.
* Jeannine Dominy (DANGEROUS BEAUTY) will adapt Ken Follett's latest novel, JACKDAWS, for Universal and Dino De Laurentiis Co. The book is based on a true World War II story of a last-minute Allied effort to assemble an all-female band of British agents, code-named Jackdaws, to infiltrate and destroy a French chateau, where a key telephone exchange connects French phone lines with Germany's. This is a link that would enable the Nazis to hear in advance about the Normandy invasion.
* Shawn Levy will direct Brittany Murphy and Ashton Kutcher in 20th Century Fox's romantic comedy JUST MARRIED for producer Robert Simonds. Shooting begins mid-February. It's about a happy couple who follow their hearts and get married against the wishes of friends and family members who tell them they are too young. After the wedding, they experience the honeymoon from hell.
* Touchstone Pictures bought the WWII drama pitch MANILA BAY from writer Michael Stokes about the true events surrounding a group of U.S. Navy officers forced by the Japanese army to hunt for treasure.
* Bill Wheeler will write a feature script titled THE GARBO DECEPTION for Artisan Pictures based on the life of World War II creative mastermind Juan Pujol. It's based on government documents and other source material that detail the exploits of Pujol, who succeeded in deceiving the Germans about the Allied Forces' activities leading up to D-Day.
* Paramount has nabbed the Matt Brown spec AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON for Kate Hudson to star in and produce with Cosmic Entertainment. The story focuses on a crazy weekend with a gentleman, only to discover he is engaged to someone else.
* MGM has grabbed the romantic comedy script THUMB, written by Tom Ropelewski (THE NEXT BEST THING), about the adventures of a 5-inch-tall man who rises to prominence at a San Francisco architecture firm.
* USA Films has picked up Paul Bernbaum's script TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY about George Reeves, the man who portrayed TV's "Superman." Michael and Mark Polish will direct and produce, respectively. The script details the botched investigation into Reeves' mysterious 1959 death in Hollywood as well as, through flashbacks, the actor's complex relationship with the role that propelled him to stardom.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* RKO Pictures and DreamWorks will develop a remake of the horror flick THE MONKEY'S PAW to be produced by Ted Hartley. The original 1933 centers on a magical monkey's paw, which grants wishes that have unforeseen consequences. The paw falls into the hands of a mother who uses it to resurrect her deceased son.
* DreamWorks will release THE ROAD TO PERDITION, starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law, on July 12. Sam Mendes directed. Disney's REIGN OF FIRE, starring Matthew McConaughey, will open on the same weekend. Meanwhile, Miramax is releasing Martin Scorsese's GANGS OF NEW YORK on the same day.
* Castle Rock Entertainment has won the rights to Richard Hack's book HUGHES: THE PRIVATE DIARIES, LETTERS AND MEMOS which will serve as the basis for Howard Hughes biopic to star Jim Carrey with Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO, upcoming INSOMNIA) directing from his own script.
* Universal Pictures will release THE HULK on June 20, 2003. Ang Lee directs the Marvel comic adaptation.
* Miramax Films is postponing the romantic comedy KATE & LEOPOLD to Christmas Day from Dec. 19 due to the tracking of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING being so strong. The studio also moved the sci-fi feature IMPOSTOR from Christmas to Jan. 4.
* Johnny Knoxville and MTV are developing a feature bsaed on Knoxville's show "Jackass" as part of a multiplatform deal.
* Storyopolis/Dimension are developing and will produce an animated feature based on the "Opus" cartoon, a spinoff of the "Bloom County" comic strip. Creator Berkeley Breathed will write and direct the project.
* Both Will Smith and director Mike Newell have bailed on New Regency's feature adaptation of John Grisham's RUNAWAY JURY. There was no specific reason given for why talks broke off abruptly.
* The estate of Norman Rockwell and producer Gene Kirkwood are forming the Norman Rockwell Picture Co., an entity that will be developed as a brand for films, TV movies and movie theater chains.
* Producer David Heyman has teamed with Fox 2000 to option George Byng's novel MOLLY MOON'S BIG BOOK OF HYPNOTISM. The title character is an orphan who gets hold of a book with instructions on how to magically hypnotize anyone. She uses her newfound skills to get out of the orphanage and goes to New York, where she searches for an orphan pal who was adopted. Meanwhile, her gift makes her a big theater star but begins to deal with exploiting her power for personal gain.
* Working Title Films has optioned the feature rights to BOO HOO: A DOT COM SORY FROM CONCEPT TO CATASTROPHE, written by Boo co-founder Ernst Malmsten, along with Erik Portanger and Charles Drazin. The book is an account of the late-'90s Internet hype. Boo, an English online clothing store, was valued at $390 million before it actually launched. But once the Web site went live, the operation hit a downspiral.
GUNN SHOTS...
Here's some cool related links...
* See award-winning animated shorts "Take My Antlers, Please" and "Rebel Without a Claus" at This Location.
* "King Midas", which recently premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival, is a tale in which a cocaine dealer uses his illegal money to produce hip-hop music. For more info, visit By Clicking Right Here.
* "Rollerghoster", Click to See, the game Udoiana Raunes Click to Play, and "Airport Attack" Click Here Now -- all from www.zwanzgerfilm.com
* There's a petition to lobby for Yuen Biao to play a major role in the upcoming flick SOUL CALIBUR to be directed by Sammo Hung. Just Click Here for more info.
