Father Geek here with Elston and this week's look at all the Movie News you may have missed last week, well, never fear we've got it all laid out for you in our regular edition of...
THE WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Robin Williams will star in Artisan Pictures' comedy THE BIG WHITE, scripted by Collin Friesen, for director Mike Mylod (ALI G INDAHOUSE). The story follows a hapless travel agent in Alaska whose wife suffers from psychosomatic Tourette's syndrome. Convinced that a warmer climate might cure her ailment, he hatches a scheme to cash in on a million-dollar life insurance policy by stealing a corpse and pretending that it is his long-missing brother.
* Australian actress Rose Byrne is in talks to star in Wolfgang Petersen's Trojan epic TROY, based on THE ILIAD, for Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures. David Benioff wrote the script to the adventure, which will see Eric Bana star as Hector, the prince of Troy, opposite Brad Pitt's Achilles. Orlando Bloom plays Hector's brother Paris, who steals the beautiful Helen away from her husband, Menelaus, the king of Sparta, and prompts the war between Greece and Troy. Byrne would play Briseis, a Trojan slave girl who is the cousin of Hector and Paris.
* John Travolta will join Joaquin Phoenix in LADDER 49 for Disney and director Jay Russell (MY DOG SKIP). Shooting begins in March. It's about a veteran firefighter who, while trapped in what could be the fire that will kill him, looks back over his professional life, his heroic career and his family life. Lewis Colick (OCTOBER SKY) wrote the script.
* Steve Martin is in talks to star in 20th Century Fox's remake CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, which begins shooting in late March, for director Shawn Levy (JUST MARRIED). The story concerns an efficiency expert father with a dozen rambunctious kids who tries to run his family with the same systems he employs at corporations. His wife, known for being his partner in all things save discipline, both creates problems and solves them.
* John Malkovich will star in ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, based on the graphic novel by Daniel Clowes (GHOST WORLD), for director Terry Zwigoff. The film takes a satirical look at the cult of celebrity in the story of a cop who goes undercover as an art student and gains critical acclaim for his work. He earns further recognition by posing as the felon-at-large and, when he realizes that critical kudos hinge upon him posing as a killer, he considers taking the rap for the crime.
* Jennifer Beals will star in Fox 2000's CATCH THAT GIRL for director Bart Freundlich. Kristen Stewart, Sam Robards, James LeGros, Max Thieriot and Corbin Bleu star. It centers on a 12-year-old girl who robs a bank to help her father pay for a costly operation to fix a spine injury.
* Breckin Meyer will star opposite Eddie Griffin in the actioner BLAST! for director Anthony Hickox. The project is primarily set on an oil rig. Vinnie Jones also stars in the project written by Steven DeSouza.
* Josh Hartnett is attached to star in the action thriller WISH YOU WERE HERE for DreamWorks, about four friends who make an ill-fated attempt to smuggle their college chum's royal fortune out of Morocco after his family is assassinated in a palace coup.
* Kim Basinger is in talks to star opposite Jeff Bridges in Focus Features/Revere Pictures' DOOR IN THE FLOOR for writer/director Tod Williams, based on John Irving's novel A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR. The story centers on Ruth, a writer in her 30s who is searching for romantic happiness despite bearing emotional scars from her childhood.
* Emilio Echevarria (AMORES PERROS), Jordi Molla (BAD BOYS II), Nick Kokich and Matt O'Leary have joined THE ALAMO.
* Val Kilmer and Joe Mantegna join the cast of STATESIDE, a romantic drama about an outlaw rich boy who reluctantly lands in the Marine Corps and falls for a troubled rock star-actress on his way to war. Rachael Leigh Cook, Jonathan Tucker, Agnes Bruckner, Carrie Fisher, Ed Begley Jr. and Diane Venora also star.
* Patricia Clarkson (FAR FROM HEAVEN) will join the cast of MIRACLES for Disney about the unlikely gold medal success of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. Gavin O'Connor directs.
* Samuel L. Jackson will star in COUNTRY OF MY SKULL opposite Juliette Binoche for director John Boorman. It's an account of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated human rights abuses during apartheid.
* Morgan Freeman will star opposite Julianne Moore in Paramount's FREEDOMLAND for director Michael Winterbottom and producer Scott Rudin. Based on Richard Price's 1998 novel of the same name, the project explores urban race relations after a woman attempts to cover up the death of her daughter by claiming the child was abducted by a black man.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Larry Guterman (CATS& DOGS) will direct ARTEMIS FOWL, based on the book by Eoin Colfer, for Miramax and Tribeca Films.
* Joe Carnahan (NARC) will direct and adapt KILLING PABLO from Mark Bowden's novel of the same name for DreamWorks and Paramount. Javier Bardem is attached to take the title role. It's about a high-stakes chase to track down and eliminate the world's seventh-richest man: the ruthless and notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
* Writer/director Gary Hardwick (DELIVER US FROM EVA) will reteam with Focus Features on COLOR OF JUSTICE, which he will adapt from his own novel. It's the story of a cop who becomes a lightning rod in a case where race is a key factor in uncovering the truth.
* Director Steven Soderbergh and actor George Clooney are hoping for a March 2004 start date for OCEAN'S TWELVE, a sequel to their 2001 Las Vegas crime caper. Warner Bros. is looking to sign Brad Pitt, while other members of the original may return along with new additions. A holiday 2004 release date is being eyed. The studio has asked George Nolfi to rewrite his HONOR AMONG THIEVES script with an OCEAN'S ELEVEN bent.
* Director Barry Sonnenfeld has been fired from Paramount's LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS due to budgetary disputes, but Jim Carrey remains attached to star.
* Joel Zwick (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING) will direct the romantic comedy CENTERFOLD for MGM/Mandalay Pictures about a college senior who submits his girlfriend's photo to a calendar contest. The plan goes awry when a national men's magazine gets a hold of the photo and offers the girlfriend a life of wealth and fame as a centerfold pinup, compelling the student to try to crash the mag's mansion estate and stop her. Garrick Dion, Rick Copp and Laurice Elehwany wrote the script.
* Vanity Fair veteran Ned Zeman will write the script of the THE MADMAN OF ALCATRAZ for Warner Bros., based on the true story of the psychiatrist who treated Robert Stroud, Alcatraz's notorious Birdman. The film would examine the relationship between the birdman and his shrink, who spent two years with him on the island, and nearly lost his own sanity in the process.
* Television helmer Allen Coulter ("The Sopranos") will direct the Jersey Films psychological thriller LOST GIRLS about an ambitious New York lawyer who reluctantly travels to a small town to defend a teacher suspected in the disappearance of two teenage girls, only to discover a far more terrifying mystery that threatens to destroy him. It's based on the novel by Andrew Pyper.
* Scott Marshall Smith (MEN OF HONOR) will write the upcoming untitled modern remake of THE SEVEN SAMURAI for Miramax.
* Focus Features grabbed Kriss Turner's romantic comedy spec script 42.4 PERCENT for producer Stephanie Allain and her Homegrown Films. The project is about a professional black woman who surprises herself by falling in love with a sexy, white landscaper.
* Neil Jordan is attached to direct THE RETURN, about the homecoming of Odysseus to his island kingdom of Ithaca after the Trojan War. Jordan will then continue to seek financing for his Renaissance project BORGIA. The original screenplay by English playwright Edward Bond has been substantially rewritten by Jordan.
* Jared Butler and Lars Norberg are writing the script for THE NEXT SOLDIER about a high-tech battle among four young test pilots and a renegade military machine that has run awry and is capable of mass destruction. The pilots are outfitted with robotic exoskeleton suits that enhance their chances against a machine that threatens to destroy the world.
* Alan Cumming will adapt his first novel, TOMMY'S TALE, which tells the story of a hedonistic Londoner rethinking his life as he faces 30.
* Warner Bros. optioned Sheldon Turner's pitch OVERTIME as an Ashton Kutcher vehicle about an aging quarterback who finds himself competing for a starting position against the resentful son he deserted in a long-extinguished romance. While the father tries to get to know his son, the son is intent on exacting revenge on the man whose absence caused him and his mother so much grief.
* Rae Dawn Chong has written CHEECH AND CHONG GET BLUNT in which Tommy Chong
and Cheech Marin would reunite in a new movie franchise. The premise finds
the duo serving community service as anti-drug preachers in a boy's home.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and HBO will make a feature documentary on the cultural impact of the 1972 porn film DEEP THROAT. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (MONICA LEWINSKY IN BLACK AND WHITE, PARTY MONSTER) will direct the project.
* Paramount Pictures is developing PAY THE GIRL, based on former "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss's life story, as a potential vehicle for Nicole Kidman. Fleiss, whose downfall rocked Hollywood and brought a three-year sentence in federal prison for money laundering, tax evasion and attempted pandering. Her burgeoning profile led her to become the focus of a sting operation while her arrest made her a media sensation. Lisa Schrager (ORIGINAL GANGSTA BITCHES) is writing the script.
* Echo Lake Prods. (upcoming LEVITY) is moving toward in-house development with a slate of new film projects including an adaptation of Thomas Gibbons' award-winning play BEE-LUTHER-HATCHEE, with Beeban Kidron attached to direct.
* Dimension Films has optioned the rights to GOODBYE TO ROMANCE, an article by writer David Benioff (25th HOUR) about the trade in Russian mail-order brides.
* John Stockwell (BLUE CRUSH) is in talks to direct MGM's EXTRACTORS for Hyde Park Entertainment. The film's title refers to a crew of ex-cons who break people out of prison for a price. The project centers on a group of extractors who are co-opted into extracting a terrorist from a Siberian prison but end up double-crossed and sent to work for the CIA in order to catch a terrorist in Cuba. James Demonaco and Kevin Fox wrote the original script, and Larry Golin did a rewrite.
* Paramount Pictures purchased the Sophie Kinsella novel CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? and will develop it as a starring vehicle for Kate Hudson. The plot centers on a junior marketing exec makes her first business trip to Glasgow. After the plane hits air turbulence on the way home, she blurts out personal secrets to her handsome seatmate who, she learns later, is the man who runs her company.
* Trigger Street Prods. and Solaris have optioned MEMOIR FROM ANTPROOF CASE, a novel by Mark Helprin. It's about an old American man who painstakingly writes his memoirs in a garden in Brazil, then places its pages in an antique case that insects are unable to infiltrate. He's a WWII hero shot down and imprisoned in Nazi camps who also claims to have been educated in a Swiss mental institution after killing a man on a train.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* For those of you heading up to Park City, DATE OR DISASTER will make its world premiere at the Tromadance film festival on Thursday, January 23rd at 3 PM. This savage short satire of reality dating shows was directed by Danny's bro Richard Elfman (Forbidden Zone) and stars Robert Maschio (Scrubs) as an insidious host who gets taken on a homicidal date from hell. Lloyd Kaufman and Richard Elfman will also be on the follow-up panel MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE with Film Threat's Chris Gore. Check out www.tromadance.com for more information.
* 7M Pictures kicks off the New Year by announcing its first contest, "The 7M Bachelor Freak Out." The ongoing contest started on January 20, 2003 when a short film was released on www.7mpictures.com, which explains the contest details.
* THE TRUTH ABOUT MIRANDA, starring Bill Irwin (THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS) and Caroleen Feeney (MAX) started shooting, Saturday, January 18th helmed by director Mark Malone (DEAD HEAT). Malone and fellow producers Kelsey Howard and Cameron Taylor note this is a significant moment, marking another major step in the merging of film and digital video. This is because in making THE TRUTH ABOUT MIRANDA Malone will be using the ground-breaking P+S Technik Mini 35 Digital adapter kit as a tool to produce the look and feel of 35mm film using a mini digital video camcorder. It's a unique tale in that it is shot by characters in the story itself ala THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.
* Screening of GAMBLING, GODS AND LSD: A JOURNEY takes place in Toronto theatres from February 7-20, 2003. Check out www.gambling-gods-and-lsd.ch for more details.
* Reports in the UK and Canada are mentioning Britney Spears for the role of Lucy McClane in DIE HARD 4t, with a competitive, emotional script penned by the busy brit Ben Trebilcook, who has also written 221bCAUSE for Ms. Spears.
