Father Geek here with Elston's latest column that looks at all of the past week's movie news. We've got it all right here for those of you who were too busy last week to catch it the first time around, orrrrrr maybe you were just toooo lazy to surf all the needed sites each day to find it out as it popped up. At any rate AICN's got it all for you here in one easy to scroll through spot, Elston Gunn's WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Joan Allen and J.K. Simmons will star in Holedigger Films' indie pic OFF THE MAP for actor/director Campbell Scott. Shooting begins August 26 in New Mexico. The film is based on a play by Joan Ackermann, who adapted the material into a screenplay. It's a coming-of-age tale about an 11-year-old girl, who sees her father come down with a crippling depression. She learns answers to several mysteries and comes to terms with love and loss.

* Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney are in final talks to join Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins in Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Prods.' MYSTIC RIVER for director Clint Eastwood.

* Isaiah Washington is in final talks to play the lead villain opposite Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett in Revolution Studios' untitled cop project directed by Ron Shelton. Shooting is set to begin late next month. It's about a young cop and older cop, both of whom moonlight in other jobs who get themselves involved in a crime within the music business.

* Lindsay Lohan will star opposite Annette Bening in the Walt Disney Co. remake of FREAKY FRIDAY. Mark S. Waters directs from a script by Heather Hach.

* Jeremy Sisto, Eliza Dushku, Desmond Harrington and Emmanuelle Chriqui will star in the indie horror-thriller WRONG TURN for director Rob Schmidt, Constantin Film, Summit Entertainment and Stan Winston Prods. Shooting begins Aug. 6. It's about a group of young people stalked by horrific mountain men after a wrong turn leaves them trapped in the middle of a West Virginia wilderness. Alan B. McElroy (SPAWN) wrote the script with revisions by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage.

* Alison Lohman (upcoming WHITE OLEANDER) joins Nicolas Cage in MATCHSTICK MEN for Ridley Scott and Warner Bros. Ted Griffin and his brother Nick adapted the script from an unpublished novel by Eric Garcia.

* Sean Penn will star in THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON for director Niels Mueller, (TADPOLE writer) who wrote the pic with Kevin Kennedy, and Monsoon Entertainment. Production begins in April. It's a fact-based picture about a desperate salesman's attempts to make his mark on history.

* Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson star in IMAGINING ARGENTINA, a romantic thriller set during the Latin American country's "dirty war." It's about an Argentinean theater director whose journalist wife, is kidnapped by the military. He soon begins to experience visions of other people's loved ones who have "disappeared" under the regime. When he decides to use his clairvoyant powers to find his wife, he becomes a target of the authorities. Christopher Hampton (DANGEROUS LIASONS) directs.

* Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Nighy and Keira Knightley join Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson and Martine McCutcheon in LOVE ACTUALLY for writer/director Richard Curtis. It's a romantic comedy comprising 10 separate, though partially interrelated stories.

* Anthony Anderson is set and Ryan O'Neal is in talks to star in Warner Bros. Pictures' MALIBU'S MOST WANTED (aka SUCKAZ), starring Jamie Kennedy and Regina Hall, for director by John Whitesell. Shooting begins early next month. Blair Underwood and Taye Diggs also star.

* Joan Plowright and Jim Caviezel have joined Ben Tibber in the cast of Walden Media and writer/director Paul Feig's I AM DAVID, based on the 1972 novel by Anne Holm. The story center on David, an 11-year-old boy who escapes captivity to journey across post-World War II Europe and discover who he is and where he came from.

* Terrence Howard and Allen Payne have been added to the cast of the urban ensemble indie flick FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN for writer/director Jerry LaMothe. Isaiah Washington, Mos Def, Wood Harris and Monica Calhoun also star. It's about a young man, who narrates the chronicles of his past 20 years growing up with his four best friends in Brooklyn.

* Jack Nicholson is in talks to star in an untitled Sony Pictures comedy about an older man who falls for the mother of his young girlfriend. Nancy Meyers (WHAT WOMEN WANT) has written and will direct the project.

* Kate Hudson and Garry Marshall will star and direct, respectively, RAISING HELEN for Disney and Hyde Park Entertainment. Production begins in February. It's about a young woman who works as an assistant to the head of a modeling agency and is about to be promoted. Her world is turned upside down when her sister and brother-in-law die in a car crash and she must care for their three children, ages 9-15. The script was rewritten by Jack Amile and Michael Begler and polished by Audrey Wells.

* Doris Roberts will play David Spade's mother in DICKIE ROBERTS: FORMER CHILD STAR for director Sam Weisman.

* Will Yun Lee (WITCHBLADE) and Justina Machado ("Six Feet Under") Martin Henderson, Monet Mazur, Adam Scott, Jay Hernandez, Matt Schulze, Jamie Pressly, Fredro Starr, Max Beesley and Nichole Robinson in the motorcycle action pic TORQUE for director Joseph Kahn.

* D.W. Moffett will join Ashley Judd, Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia in Paramount's thriller, BLACKOUT, for director Philip Kaufman.

* Stephanie March ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit") joins Chris Rock, who also writes and directs, in DreamWorks' HEAD OF STATE.

* Jennifer Aniston has come aboard and Morgan Freeman is in final talks to star opposite Jim Carrey in Universal Pictures' spiritual comedy BRUCE ALMIGHTY for director Tom Shadyac. It's about a television reporter who is unhappy with almost everything in life. At the end of the worst day of his life, Bruce angrily ridicules and rages against God, who appears in human form and challenges Bruce to take on the big job to see if he can do it any better.

* Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney will star in Columbia Pictures' adventure BIG FISH for director Tim Burton. Shooting begins in January in Alabama. Based on Daniel Wallace's novel, the project centers on a dying father and his son, who is trying to learn more about his dad by piecing together the stories he has gathered over the years. The son re-creates his father's life in a series of legends and myths inspired by the few facts he knows.

* Gil Junger will direct Intermedia Films/Outlaw Prods.' romantic comedy IF ONLY, with Jennifer Love Hewitt attached to star and produce. It's about a young couple given a second chance to relive and change the events of a day when one of them dies.

* Andrew Adamson (SHREK) will direct THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE for Walden Media.

* Warner Bros. is in talks to purchased the rights to the upcoming Mark Haddon novel THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME with Steve Kloves in negotiations to adapt and direct. It's the story of an autistic 15-year-old's attempt to replicate the methods of his literary idol Sherlock Holmes and discover who killed his neighbor's dog with a garden tool. However, that investigation is just an element of the boy's coming-of-age adventure.

* Jenny Bicks ("Sex and the City," NEVER BEEN KISSED) will write the comedy THE NANNY DIARIES, an adaptation of the book by Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin. It's about a college student who takes a job as a nanny for a five-year-old whose parents are prominent and wealthy. She finds herself in the household from hell, juggling the kid, their marital problems, her classes and a blossoming romance.

* Jon Bokenkamp (upcoming TAKING LIVES) will adapt CHASING THE DIME, the new Michael Connelly (BLOOD WORK) crime novel that was optioned by MGM. It's about a young scientist who begins receiving mysterious phone calls, and suspects the woman who had the number before him has gone missing. The scientist then becomes obsessed with saving a woman he never met.

* Catherine Zeta-Jones will star in Sony's FLINT, based on the bestseller by Paul Eddy. Michael Cooney will adapt the story of a female British intelligence agent who is brutally beaten and disfigured while on assignment to infiltrate a money-laundering operation. Her face is rebuilt and when she heals, looking completely different, she resurfaces as an undercover M15 agent.

* Robert Patrick joins CHARLIE'S ANGELS 2 as an FBI agent/Navy seal who gets involved with the three ladies.

* Kelly Osbourne is in talks to play the musically inclined best friend to the teen heroine in Walt Disney Pictures' remake of FREAKY FRIDAY. Lindsay Lohan and Annette Bening star.

* Joseph Fiennes will join Benjamin Bratt in Miramax's THE GREAT RAID for director John Dahl. It's about how the 6th Ranger Battalion mounted a daring rescue of 500 American prisoners held in the notorious Cabanatuan Japanese POW camp.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Jerry Bruckheimer Films has snapped up an untitled action thriller pitch from Danny Cannon ("CSI"), who will write and direct the material. It is about a man hired to protect a woman, but something goes wrong and the duo find themselves on the run.

* Universal Pictures has picked up the comedy script WORLD'S GREATEST DAD by Lisa Addario and Joseph Syracuse. It's about a widow with three restless sons who is transformed into a dream dad after drinking a magic formula. She retains her looks, but when she begins acting like a man, the boys try to find the antidote that will bring their real mom back.

* MGM has purchased the spec script BLIND SPOT from Evan Katz ("24") with John Woo on board to develop. The thriller, set in Washington, D.C., revolves around a man wrongfully accused of a crime.

* Tina Chism will adapt Universal Pictures' NAPPILY EVER AFTER, a Trisha Thomas novel with Halle Berry attached to star. The project Venus Johnston, who one day on impulse stops fussing with long, processed straight hair, cuts it short and dumps her commitment-phobic boyfriend. Discovering a newfound personal freedom within, she is unprepared for the way friends and co-workers weigh in about her new 'do and is shocked when her former man finds a woman who sports her old hairstyle.

* John Lee Hancock (THE ROOKIE) is near a deal to direct Disney's THE ALAMO from a John Sayles script rewritten by Stephen Gaghan.

* Troy Miller (RUN RONNIE RUN) will direct New Line's DUMB AND DUMBERER, a prequel to the company's 1994 hit comedy. The project will follow Harry and Lloyd during their formative high school years, when the special ed students become determined to crack "the big show," otherwise known as mainstream high school. Robert Brenner wrote the original draft with Brian Hartt penning a polish.

* New Line grabbed the romantic script CHARLIE, penned by Rob Perez, about a mute man who moves to Manhattan to pursue his dreams of being an orchestra conductor. The spec script was written by Rob Perez and will be produced by Michael London.

* Landscape Pictures has picked up the comedy script SUCK from writers Ari Margolis and James Morley. It's about a young vampire in Seattle who must deal with his new affliction while fighting off ghouls, rescuing a damsel in distress and paying the rent.

* Paul Schrader is in talks to direct the untitled prequel to THE EXORCIST for Morgan Creek Prods. He would be taking over the job that the late John Frankenheimer voluntarily stepped down from one month before his death. Production is scheduled to start in November with Gabriel Mann, Liam Neeson and Billy Crawford attached to star.

* Miguel Sapochnik is in talks to direct the New Line Cinema thriller SOLACE, written by Ted Griffin and Sean Bailey, about a psychic hired by the FBI to find a serial killer loose in New York. Additionally, Sapochnik, along with Ivor Powell, have set up the sci-fi pitch HUMAN, based on their short film THE DREAMER at Miramax as well as the thriller pitch WIRED at Working Title.

* Henry Selick is attached to adapt and direct Neil Gaiman's horror-fantasy novel CORALINE for Pandemonium Films. It's the story of a bored young girl who, in the course of exploring her family's new apartment, discovers a door leading to a sinister alternate world.

* Directors Allen and Albert Hughes are working on a secretive new project to star Natalie Portman through their Underworld Entertainment banner as part of an overall deal at 20th Century Fox.

* Mitch Rouse ("Strangers With Candy") and Jay Leggett ("In Living Color") have written the dark comedy EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH to be financed by Lions Gate and directed by Rouse. It's the story of the twisted 36 hours after a guy loses his job.

* Jack Amiel and Michael Begler have sold an untitled pitch to Universal Pictures and the Weitz brothers' Depth of Field. The plot centers on a group of dissatisfied twentysomethings who try to reinvent themselves by participating in a lengthy endurance race over adventurous terrain.

* Director David Anspaugh and writer Angelo Pizzo (both of HOOSIERS and RUDY) are teaming again for the soccer pic THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES for Crusader Entertainment. It's based on the book of the same name by Geoffrey Douglas and tells the true story of the American soccer team that, in a stunning upset, defeated England in the 1950 World Cup. At that time, the United States sent a hastily assembled band of amateur players, composed chiefly of working-class immigrants.

* Miguel Arteta (CHUCK & BUCK, THE GOOD GIRL) is attached to develop and direct COLOMBIAN GOLD for Universal and Mirage Enterprises, inspired by writer Fredric Dannen's nonfiction New Yorker article about a laundering ring that is under investigation by the FBI, centering on a woman who helps out only to get in deeper than she had anticipated.

* Media Ventures Pictures grabbed the script COMA from writer Mike Giardi. It's about a woman who fakes being in a coma to get money from her husband.

* Milos Forman is attached to direct the drama EMBERS, based on a Hungarian novel by Sandor Marai that is considered a forgotten masterpiece in literary circles. It revolves around two old men, once best friends, who meet again after a 41-year break in their relationship. The book explores the themes of jealousy, love, possession and status. Jean-Claude Carriere (VALMONT, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING) will adapt.

* Revelations Entertainment and the Ruddy Morgan Organization will produce MILLION $$$ BABY, a selection from FX Toole's collection of boxing stories, ROPE BURNS: STORIES FROM THE CORNER. Paul Haggis is writing the adaptation. It's about a young woman looking to fight her way out of poverty in the ring and of the veteran trainer who takes her on against his better judgment.

* Sheldon Turner will adapt Alice Blanchard's thriller THE BREATHTAKER for Warner Bros. and John Wells Prods. It's set in present day Oklahoma, where a small town police chief must match wits with a serial murderer who only strikes during a tornado.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* New Line Cinema has launched a division to make films targeted at young audiences with four projects on their slate: First up is SECONDHAND LINES, starring Haley Joel Osment, Michael Caine and Robert Duvall, written and to be directed by Tim McCanlies (THE IRON GIANT). It's about a boy sent to live with his two reluctant and aging uncles, whose fantastic tales of fighting wars and rescuing princesses send the boy to a world of imagination and the uncles see their lives renewed. Then there's MAGGIE, a comedy pitched by Modern Humorist's editors John Aboud and Michael Colton, about a 20-year-old slacker who unknowingly enlists the services of a Mary Poppins-type nanny in her 60s, who turns his troubled life around. Next, Jim Fall (TRICK) is attached to direct the teen music drama HEART OF SUMMER written by Sam Shriver. It's about a small-town teen to Gotham, where she spends the summer attending a music school and learning to believe in her talent and dreams. Finally, Gregg Rosen and Brian Sawyer have written the car-racing comedy DEBUTANTE about a twentysomething who inherits a losing race car team only to become the lead driver and turn the team's fortunes around.

* The character Snake Plissken (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK) is making a comeback via a comic book series and an anime film, the latter which is due in 2004. Kurt Russell will give voice to Snake. John Carpenter, Debra Russell and Debra Hill will executive produce in conjunction with a Japanese anime studio.

* Mindfire Entertainment has optioned the theatrical rights for VAMPIRELLA, based on the Harris Publications character. Production is expected to begin early next year for a Halloween 2003 release.

Until next week.

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com