Father Geek here with another week ending report from our man Elston Gunn. Its a lengthty one this week with lots of interesting tidbits coming out of tinseltown during the past work week that you might have missed. Soooo get comfortable and prepare to scroll through the week that was in...
THE WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Shia LaBeouf joins HOLES, starring Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight, for director Andrew Davis, Walden Media and Phoenix Pictures.
* Vivica A. Fox, Michael Jai White and LaTanya Richardson are in advanced talks to take roles in KILL BILL for writer/director Quentin Tarantino. Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah and Lucy Liu will star.
* Russell Crowe is the leading candidate to star in the historical drama TRIPOLI for director Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox. William Monahan is writing the script about the true story of William Eaton, an American who helped the heir to the throne of Tripoli lead an overthrow of a corrupt ruler in the early 1800s.
* David Duchovny will portray crime novelist James Ellroy (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL) in the upcoming adaptation of Ellroy's memoir MY DARK PLACES, which chronicles the author's quest to resolve the unsolved murder of his mother in 1958. Jan Oxenberg has adapted the book with Robert Greenwald (STEAL THIS MOVIE) set to direct for American Zoetrope and Myriad Pictures. Production begins in June in L.A. Ellroy is interested in Dana Delany to portray his mother.
* Andy Garcia joins Edward Burns, Dustin Hoffman, Morris Chestnut, Rachel Weisz, Paul Giamatti and Brian Van Holt in the drama CONFIDENCE for Lions Gate and director James Foley.
* Kevin Costner will direct, produce and star in OPEN RANGE, a Western feature co-starring Robert Duvall, for Disney. Craig Storper wrote the script about the everyday travails of four men living in the West.
* Sean Penn is attached as star in THE SECRET LIFE OF DALTRY CALHOUN, written by Katrina Holden Bronson, for Catch 23 Entertainment. Bronson will also direct. The story is set in the South and centers on a teenage girl who watches her deliquent father trying desperately to make things right in his life.
* Eddie Murphy will star in DADDY DAY CARE for director Steve Carr, Davis Entertainment and Revolution Studios. Production begins Aug. 1. Geoff Rodkey penned the script about a father who loses his job and, to make ends meet, turns his house into a day care center.
* Ellen Pompeo and Coolio join the cast of DAREDEVIL for Fox/Regency and director Mark Steven Johnson.
* Russell Crowe may reteam with director Ron Howard in a small role in THE ALAMO and possibly in CINDERELLA MAN, the Jim Braddock biopic that Imagine is eyeing.
* Mark Wahlberg will star in a remake of the 1969 movie THE ITALIAN JOB for director F. Gary Gray and Paramount. Production begins Aug. 3. Donna and Wayne Powers wrote the news script about a career thief who heads the crew that masterminds a massive gold bullion take by creating the largest traffic jam in L.A. history.
* Nona Gaye (ALI) joins THE MATRIX: RELOADED and THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS for Warner Bros./Village Roadshow in a role that was supposed to be played by the late Aaliyah. The project is currently filming in Australia.
* Dakota Fanning (I AM SAM) will star opposite Mike Myers in DR. SEUSS' THE CAT IN THE HAT for Universal, DreamWorks and Imagine Entertainment. Shooting begins this fall with Bo Welch directing.
* Juliette Binoche will star in a feature, based on Antjie Krog's book COUNTRY OF MY SKULL for director John Boorman, about the hearings into apartheid-era atrocities by South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Mike Mitchell will direct Ben Affleck in DreamWorks' SURVIVING CHRISTMAS for Tall Trees Prods. Production begins in October on the story of a man who goes back to his childhood home during the holidays and persuades the family that now lives there to take him in by paying them cash to pretend they are his family.
* Mike Figgis is in final talks to direct Disney's thriller COLD CREEK MANOR about an urban couple who move to the country to open a bed-and-breakfast, where they are terrorized by the former owner of the property.
* Radar Pictures has snapped up Graham Joyce's psychological suspense novel THE TOOTH FAIRY and has hired Joyce to adapt the screenplay, which will be titled THE WRAITH. It's about a boy who learns that the tooth fairy is a menacing presence that both torments and seduces him as he battles his way through a supernaturally charged youth.
* Visual effects director-turned-helmer Pitof is in talks to take the reins of Warner Bros.' CATWOMAN for Di Novi Pictures. Ashley Judd is still attached to the project, rewritten by John Rogers, which follows a cat-loving gymnast who runs an animal grooming business. Her alter ego, Catwoman, must battle against the town's evil mayor and his business associate.
* Clare Kilner (JANICE BEARD: 45 WORDS PER MINUTE) will direct Mandy Moore in New Line's teen romance pic HOW TO DEAL. It's about a girl who believes love doesn't exist.
* Will Geiger will adapt the Korean gangster dramedy HI DHARMA for MGM as an English-language feature. It's about a group of five gangsters who hide out in a Buddhist monastery.
* Universal Pictures picked up Robert Franke's (MADE MEN) intergalactic thriller RAZORS for Stephen Sommers and Bob Ducsay to produce. The story is set 600 years in the future and centers on a group of Earth's 12 worst criminals to confront a group of genetically altered, evil superhumans.
* Scott Kosar will pen an untitled supernatural thriller for Laurence Mark Prods. and Columbia Pictures about a doctor and his daughter in a small New England town.
* Disney has committed to develop an untitled sophisticated family comedy pitch by TADPOLE co-writer Heather McGowan with that movie's director Gary Winick attached to helm. Meanwhile, Winick is also looking to set up a project with TADPOLE co-writer Niels Mueller.
* Jason Richman (BAD COMPANY, upcoming BEVERLY HILLS COP IV) will write an untitled babysitter project for the Jacobson Co. and Disney. It's described as a high-concept action comedy about a secret service agent. Richman will also pen another script for producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
* Milos Forman is writing and will direct an adaptation of Donald Westlake's novel BAD NEWS for Regency Enterprises and 20th Century Fox, who are in negotiations to co-finance the feature. Doug Wright (QUILLS) is co-writing the project. It's about a crook who signs on for an underhanded takeover of an Indian casino but discovers he's set himself up to be ripped off.
* John Lee Hancock (THE ROOKIE) will write and direct RADS, based on the Tom Bates book, about Vietnam War-era peace activist turned saboteur Carl Armstrong. The University of Wisconsin student ended up on the FBI Most Wanted List when he and three other students blew up an Army-built campus building, killing a young researcher.
* Writers John Glenn and Travis Wright will update THE WARRIORS for MTV Films and Paramount Pictures. The original film centers on a small group of gang members who are falsely accused of killing a peace-seeking gang leader. They are chased through New York's streets by rival gangs hellbent on revenge. Glenn and Travis have taken guns out of the story and replaced them with an urban hybrid of martial arts and street fighting.
* Joe Dante will direct an untitled Looney Tunes feature for Warner Bros. John Recqua, Glenn Ficarra and Larry Doyle wrote the script which puts the animated characters in a live action world. Shooting begins in July for a Thanksgiving 2003 release.
* Music video director Bille Woodruff will direct the feature HONEY for Universal and Marc Platt Prods. It's about a tough, but sexy inner-city woman who finds success as a video choreographer, a dream that's threatened when her mentor blackballs her for not sleeping with him. The script was originally written by Alonzo Brown and Kim Watson with a rewrite by Kate Lanier (GLITTER).
* David Fickas will write and direct the comedy LOVE ME WEIRD for Matador Pictures and Magic Hour Pictures, based on an original screenplay by Andy Smith. It's about a group of actors who base a bizarre stage show on the real-life exploits of an imprisoned serial killer with disastrous results.
* Intermedia and Outlaw Prods. are developing THE 11th HOUR, a feature film based on the true story of how confessed Russian spy Robert Hanssen's espionage was discovered and exposed. Adam Mazer and Bill Rotko will write the project detailing how Hanssen was caught thanks to the help of a 27-year-old surveillance operative named Eric O'Neill.
* Jim Fall (TRICK) will direct the teen music drama HEART OF SUMMER, written by Sam Shriver, for New Line and ChickFlicks. It's about a small-town girl in New York, where she spends the summer going to a music school and learning to believe in her talent and dreams.
* New Line grabbed Kevin Taft's script ALONE for David S. Goyer's Phantom Four Films about an agoraphobic high school student who finds out her home is haunted and must overcome her fear or die.
* John Davis (JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS) will write and direct the CGI pic ANT BULLY, based on the children's book by John Nickle, for Universal and Playtone. The story centers on a boy who, after destroying an anthill with his water gun, is shrunk to insect size and sentenced to hard labor in the colony. Before returning to his normal size, he learns to appreciate the selfless nature of the ants, and helps them combat wasps.
* Jenny Bicks ("Leap of Faith" creator) will adapt Meg Cabot's (PRINCESS DIARIES) novel ALL AMERICAN GIRL for Disney. It's about a 15-year-old Washington, D.C., teen who unintentionally saves the president's life and tries her best to handle her sudden fame.
* Stephen Norrington (BLADE) will write and direct an adaptation for Warner Bros. of the classic Japanese animated sci-fi adventure AKIRA. Jon Peters will produce. The original was based on a Japanese comic book novel about a group of motorcycle-riding teens who must stop one of their members from wreaking havoc after he acquires telekinetic powers in a government experiment.
* Pandemonium grabbed the romantic comedy pitch AS YOU WISH from writers Robert Kuhn, his wife, Sheila Barnes, and his wife's sister, Mary Ann Barnes. It's about a couple in the middle of a bitter divorce. Through a series of comedic incidents, the two unexpectedly find themselves falling in love again.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Producer Scott Rudin has acquired the rights to Charles Frazier's (COLD MOUNTAIN) next novel, an untitled novel which will fictionalize the life of Will Thomas. Thomas, who spoke only in Cherokee, was discovered in an insane asylum in 1905. He was born in 1805 in North Carolina and, at 13, was sent out West to live with distant cousins and was adopted by a Cherokee chief. Thomas later became a frontier lawyer representing Cherokee interests in Washington, and upon the chief's death, became the only white Cherokee chief; during the Civil War, he led a band of Cherokees fighting on the Confederate side.
* Martin Scorsese and Miramax have agreed that GANGS OF NEW YORK will now open Christmas week.
* Mike Barker's CROMWELL AND FAIRFAX is back on track now that the project is fully refinanced. Dougray Scott, Tim Roth, Rupert Everett and Olivia Williams star.
* Producer Steven Jay Rubin has purchased the rights to Jack Engelhard's (INDECENT PROPOSAL) thriller DEADLY DECEPTION about a sharp dice player who becomes entangled with an treacherous casino pit boss during a weekend in Atlantic City.
* DreamWorks has won an auction for remake rights to BILLY JACK, as a vehicle for Keanu Reeves, who will play the title character. Danny DeVito and Jersey Films will produce.
* The highest-grossing film in Japanese history is headed to the United States as a Walt Disney Co. release. Disney has acquired the domestic theatrical, home entertainment and TV rights to the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, the animated film SPIRITED AWAY from legendary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. The film will be released in the fall after TOY STORY director John Lasseter serves as creative consultant for a newly dubbed version. Lasseter will not make any new cuts, but oversee the translation of the script and the voice casting.
* New Line Cinema and MGM have reached an agreement that allows New Line to use the title AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER for the next installment which will be released July 26.
* Paramount Pictures has purchased the film rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs' sci-fi book series JOHN CARTER OF MARS for Alphaville to produce. It's about a Civil War officer from Virginia who is transported to Mars and finds himself a captive of the savage green men from Thark. Eventually, he rises to become the greatest warrior of all time, marries the beautiful Dejah Thoris, raises a family and heads out on many adventures. The studio is excited about the first three books in the series -- A PRINCESS OF MARS, THE WARLOAD OF MARS and THE GODS OF MARS -- to form a trilogy with hopes to be in production on the first installment next year.
* Scott Steindorff and his Stone Village Prods. have optioned Paul Sussman's
archaeological adventure book THE LOST ARMY OF CAMBYSES for Luis Mandoki to
direct as well as produce with Danny Davids. It's about a series of murders
in Egypt but are somehow linked to the death of an eminent British
archaeologist. An investigator finds himself teamed with the archaeologist's
daughter in a desperate race for survival. Drawn into a web of violence,
intrigue and betrayal, they end up in the heart of the Western desert and an
answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Don't forget to visit TyRuben Ellingson's site at This Spot for cool designs and more.
* Chad Waters's new film WHEN ZOMBIES ATTACK can be see by Just Clicking Here . Think NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD meets "Cops."
* See the trailer for THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS at This Location . An artist slips into madness when he becomes obsessed with a painting based on his horrific visions received from a mysterious old mirror.
* Interested in Star Wars Lego Animations? Go to These Guys for more.
* Info on screenings for Ivan Rogers's film FORGIVE ME FATHER can be found at This Site.
