Father Geek on board with another of Elston's looks at the past week out in movieland for those of you who may have been too busy during the work-week to catch all the different stories that popped up. Sooooooo, sit back, relax and scroll through the week that was with AICN's man in the "wood" and...

The WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Jeremy Renner (DAHMER) and Gabrielle Union will star in the indie pic NEO NED for director Van Fischer (BLINK OF AN EYE). Shooting begins at end of the month in Los Angeles. Wentworth Baughn wrote the script about a troubled young man belonging to the Aryan Brotherhood who, while a patient in a psychiatric hospital, falls in love with a fellow patient, a young black mother who thinks she is possessed by the spirit of Adolf Hitler.

* Johnny Knoxville will star in and produce an untitled comedy for Paramount Pictures and MTV Films, based on his idea, about a war that develops between two hot dog vendors in downtown Los Angeles. Jerry Stahl (PERMANENT MIDNIGHT) is in talks to write the screenplay.

* Dondre T. Whitfield joins Bernie Mac and Angela Bassett in MR. 3000 for Disney and director Charles Stone.

* Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick star in MARIE AND BRUCE, an adaptation of Wallace Shawn's play about a marital breakdown, for director Tom Cairns and Holedigger Films. Griffin Dunne, Campbell Scott, Steve Burns and Bob Balaban also star.

* Anthony Hopkins is in talks to star alongside Colin Farrell in Intermedia's ALEXANDER for director Oliver Stone. Hopkins would play the role of Ptolemy, the last surviving general in the army of Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great who went on to become the Pharoah of Egypt. Stone has already done some shooting near the Himalayas, and principal photography is set to begin in July.

* Pierce Brosnan is in final negotiations to star in Stratus Film Co.'s thriller THE MATADOR for writer/director Richard Shepard. Furst Films and Irish Dreamtime are producing. It's about the unusual friendship between a hitman who has a breakdown and an ordinary businessman set against an international backdrop.

* Radha Mitchell joins Denzel Washington, Christopher Walken, Marc Anthony and Dakota Fanning in Tony Scott's MAN ON FIRE for Fox 2000.

* Vince Vaughn will play the villain in Warner Bros. and Dimension Films' STARSKY AND HUTCH opposite Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Juliette Lewis, Chris Penn, Fred Williamson and Amy Smart have also joined the cast.

* Paddy Considine will star in an untitled unconventional superhero comedy for director Shane Meadows and the newly revamped FilmFour. Meadows and Considine co-wrote the script about a social worker who cracks up and adopts the persona of a masked superhero, sorting out by night all the problems he cannot handle by day.

* Marlon Wayans will star opposite Tom Hanks in THE LADYKILLERS, a remake of the Alec Guinness-Peter Sellers comedy, for the Coen brothers and Touchstone Pictures.

* Elizabeth Hurley is in talks to star in Junction Films' THE METHOD for director Duncan Roy. Shooting begins in July in Romania. Katie Fetting wrote the script about a celebrity actress who gets her dream role playing real-life 19th century serial killer Belle Gunness in a feature film and starts to take on the characteristics of the role onscreen and off.

* Anabella Sciorra, Jeremy Piven and Mark Harmon will star opposite Mandy Moore in Alcon Entertainment's untitled project for Warner Bros. Pictures and director Andy Cadiff. The project had been titled FIRST DAUGHTER but Alcon gave it to New Regency who has a first daughter-themed project in preproduction with Katie Holmes starring. The Alcon pic is slated to go into production first.

* Sean Patrick Thomas (SAVE THE LAST DANCE) has been cast as jazz legend Louis Armstrong in the biopic SAINT LOUIS BLUES for Firecracker Films and director Paige Cameron. The medium-budget film will be produced by Firecracker Films. Songwriter/producer David Foster will oversee and produce the film's soundtrack album.

* Alan Cumming is in early talks to take the villainous role opposite Jamie Kennedy in New Line's SON OF THE MASK, the follow-up to 1994's THE MASK. The story follows an aspiring cartoonist who is not ready for fatherhood but finds himself raising a baby endowed with the powers of the mask of Loki.

* William Lee Scott joins Lucas Black in the indie pic BOTTLENECK, based on the Clyde Edgerton book, for writer/director Tricia Brock. Production begins May 19 in Missouri. Scott will play a thief whose blues guitar talents become evident when he plays in the jail's band.

* Queen Latifah is in final talks to star in Miramax's remake of the South Korean action/comedy MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER. Marc Klein penned the adaptation about a female mob boss who gets married to please her dying sister. She chooses a poor, unsuspecting dupe who has no idea what he's getting into in the hopes that he won't ask too many questions. However, he starts to wise up, and she starts to fall in love.

* Austin Nichols joins Universal Pictures' WIMBLEDON, starring Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany, for director Richard Loncraine, Working Title and Dimension Films.

* Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley are in final talks to star in Universal Pictures/Strike Entertainment's reinvention of DAWN OF THE DEAD for director Zack Snyder.

* Kiefer Sutherland will star alongside Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke in TAKING LIVES for director D.J. Caruso, Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures. Production begins later this month in Montreal.

* Nicole Kidman and director Anthony Minghella may reteam on an adaptation of Allison Pearson's comic novel I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT about a woman who struggles to balance motherhood and a career.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Hype Williams (BELLY) is attached to direct the 3D zombie horror pic THRILLA from his own script for Disney and Pariah. The story is set in Jamaica, where a group of young adults unwittingly awaken zombies and must fight for their lives.

* Jason Filardi will write BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE 2 for Mandeville Films.

* Randi Mayem Singer will script Mandeville's remake of TOPPER for director Adam Shankman. Steve Martin will star in the story of a high society duo who get killed in an auto accident, become ghosts and inflict their rebellious spirit on an uptight, stodgy banker.

* David J. Burke has written and will direct EDISON for Emmett/Furla Films about a young reporter who takes down a corrupt group of elite cops with the help of his editor. Randall Emmett and George Furla will produce the pic which begins production in September.

* Andrew Lau and Alan Mak will direct the prequel INFERNAL AFFAIRS 2 and sequel INFERNAL AFFAIRS 3, written by Mak and Felix Chong, for Media Asia. Edison Chen and Shawn Yue will again play the younger versions of the first installment's lead characters, played by Andy Lau and Tony Leung, who are moles in the triad and police force. Carina Lau, teen singer Yu Chiu and Chinese actor Hu Jun will also join the cast. Leung, Lau, and Kelly Chen will be back for the third film.

* Thomas Vinterberg will direct DEAR WENDY for Lucky Punch, producer Sisse Graum Olsen and Danish Film Institute. Vinterberg and Anders Thomas Jensen have rewritten Lars Von Trier's script, set in the Midwest, about an 18-year-old outsider named Dick who lives in a poor mining town. Although he's the founder of a pacifist group named the Dandies -- and obliged not to use weapons -- he becomes fascinated by a .44 Magnum that he names Wendy.

* Romano Shane Prods. picked up the parody script YET ANOTHER SUPERHERO MOVIE by Frank Longo and John Wyn. Tony Romano and Michel Shane will produce with Michael Stiles.

* John Schultz (LIKE MIKE) will direct the Paramount Pictures/Deep River Prods.' THE HONEYMOONERS, based on the classic 1950s CBS television series, starring Cedric the Entertainer and Mike Epps. Danny Jacobson scripted.

* Eric McCormack ("Will & Grace" star) will direct the Disney romantic comedy pic WHAT YOU WISH FOR, which he will also write and star in for producer Hawk Koch. Hawk Koch will produce. The story centers on a married Midwestern couple whose marriage is turned upside down because of a celebrity sex fantasy.

* Albert Hughes (FROM HELL) is in advanced talks to direct the thriller HIDE AND SEEK for Fox 2000. It's about a young girl who loses her mother at an early age. Her father discovers that she's coping with the death of his spouse and her mother in an unusual and ultimately terrifying way. Ari Schlossberg's wrote the script.

* Warner Bros. grabbed the Susan Brightbill-penned screenplay HERGATORY for Mad Chance Prods. to produce. It's a high-concept romantic comedy about a 30-year-old woman who makes a wish to go back and re-date her old boyfriends, and it comes true. The wish becomes a curse, however, when she suddenly finds her exes coming back in to her life one by one, but at they ages they were when she dated them, including an 8-year-old and a 13-year-old who is trying to get to second base.

* John Ridley will direct the thriller LET ME TAKE YOU DOWN from his own script for Lions Gate. The project follows a young "bagger" for the Los Angeles Coroner's Office who finds striking similarities between the murder of a young woman and the notorious 1947 Black Dahlia case that has riveted the public imagination for decades.

* Rob Zombie will write and direct a sequel to his horror pic HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES for Lions Gate. The sequel is set for a fall start with an April 2004 release.

* Andrew Jacobson and Adam Epstein (NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE) have sold their action/comedy script NEWLYWED FEDS to Lions Gate. It's about two FBI agents who, despite hating each other, are forced to pose as newlyweds in order to bring down a crime ring.

* Revolution Studios picked up the Chris Pappas Miker Bernier script MR. ID about a bachelor who meets the woman of his dreams only to see his male libido come to life and fight to keep him single.

* Russell T. Davies ("Queer as Folk") will write a screenplay, based on the events surrounding the recent British "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" fraud case, for Celador Films.

* Neena Beeber (HOW TO DEAL) will write an adaptation of the Sarah Deesen novel THIS LULLABY for Radar Pictures, New Line and Golden Mean Prods. It's about a high school girl who cuts off boyfriends if they get too close, but finds herself challenged by a would-be summer fling.

* Alex Sokoloff and Kimball Greenough are adapting SUPERSTITION from the David Ambrose book for Radar and Platinum Dunes. It's a supernatural thriller about a college psychology experiment gone awry when students' superstitions accidentally create a ghost.

* Robert Gordon (GALAXY QUEST, MEN IN BLACK 2) will rewrite the script for LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS for Paramount and DreamWorks. Jim Carrey is starring in the pic for director Brad Silberling.

* Maverick Films has optioned the romantic comedy script CHASING FATE written by actors-turned-scribes Mark Famiglietti and Lane Garrison. It's about a man plagued by misfortune after he breaks up with a girl and must learn the art of romance to win her back.

* Allen Coulter will direct Focus Features' TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY. Production begins late summer or early fall. Paul Bernbaum wrote the script based around the mysterious 1959 death of television actor George Reeves, better known as the original Superman, and the botched investigation that followed.

* Gurinder Chadha's (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM) will direct an untitled Bollywood musical based on Jane Austen's classic novel PRIDE AND PREJUDICE for Miramax and Pathe. Martin Henderson and Aishwarya Rai will star. Shooting begins in July.

* David Webb Peoples (UNFORGIVEN) is adapting THE LONE RANGER with his wife Janet Peoples (TWELVE MONKEYS) for Columbia Pictures and Red Wagon Entertainment

* Zack Estrin and Chris Levinson will write GET A LIFE for Paramount and Kerner Entertainment about two parents -- who have just dropped their youngest daughter off at college and feel free for the first time in 22 years -- who must deal with their son moving back home following his college graduation.

* Dana Stevens (CITY OF ANGELS) will script the Paramount drama SECRETS OF THE TRADE, based on a treatment by journalist David Ignatius, who just covered the conflict in Iraq for the Washington Post and International Herald Tribune. It's about a female newspaper correspondent covering a potentially volatile conflict abroad.

* Josh Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia (SURVIVING CHRISTMAS) will write the romantic comedy IT'S NOT YOU IT'S ME for Paramount and producer Donald De Line. It's about a woman who readies her ex for the next relationship. Once she transforms him into an ideal catch and sets him up in a relationship, she realizes she should have hung on to him.

* Luke Wilson has written and will co-direct with his brother, Andrew, THE WENDELL BAKER STORY for Franchise Films and producer Mark Johnson. Luke's other brother Owen will co-star with him in the film to be shot this fall in Austin. Eva Mendes is in talks to play his love interest. It's about a good-hearted ex-con schemer who goes straight and gets a job in a retirement hotel. Three elderly residents help him win back his girlfriend as he helps them battle hotel corruption led by the head nurse.

* Director Brett Ratner is reportedly eyeing BE COOL, the MGM/Jersey sequel to GET SHORTY. Peter Steinfeld has written a script.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Paramount Pictures is developing GREASE 3 with Carsey-Werner-Mandabach and Laurence Mark Prods. producing the project. The plan is to set the latest version of the musical in the late-'70s, feature plenty of disco music and center the story on the children of the original characters.

* Universal and producer Marc Platt purchard the rights to Ben Sherwood's upcoming novel THE DEATH AND LIFE OF CHARLIE ST. CLOUD. It's about a cemetary caretaker who has weekly meetings with a younger brother whose accidental death he feels was his fault. Charlie St. Cloud meets a young woman believed to be missing in a sailing accident, and as he begins a romantic relationship with her, he wonders if she is an apparition on the way to the next life.

* Disney is developing JOE 90, a live action feature film based on Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's cult British TV puppet skein about a 9-year old secret agent. Angryfilms and producer Susan Montford will produce.

* Chinese director Chen Kaige and producer Etchie Stroh have created an as-yet-unnamed production company that will produce both Chinese- and English-language features. Their first film, THE PROMISE, written by Chen with Zhang Tan, is set in the past and centers on a love triangle fantasy between a general, a princess and a slave. Chen will direct.

* Warner Bros. picked up the Len Williams' novel JUSTICE DEFERRED for Tobey Maguire to produce through his Maguire Entertainment along with Three Monkeys Entertainment. The story is set in the swamps of southern Alabama and centers on a man who's been wrongly convicted under Alabama's three-strikes law, which gives him no chance at parole. He schools himself on the law and then escapes, changes his name and becomes a lawyer himself, bent on putting away corrupt cops like the ones who framed him.

* Two features about the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic are being readied in China and Hong Kong. Mandarin Films in Hong Kong will star shooting THE CITY OF SARS in two weeks for an end-of-July release. Steve Cheng will direct the film with Dayo Wong and Cheung Tat-ming in talks to star. Meanwhile, Gong Li, Gong Hanling and Zhang Fengyi are in negotiations to star in a Chinese SARS project (tentatively titled IN THE NAME OF NIGHTINGALE) due to start production by May 12 for a July release.

* Warner Bros. has purchased the rights to Adam Pennenberg's upcoming nonfiction book TRAGIC INDIFFERENCE (aka BLOOD HIGHWAYS) to be produced by Michael Douglas' Furthur Films as a starring vehicle for the actor. The book chronicles a lawsuit brought by attorney Tab Turner (to be played by Douglas) against the Ford and Firestone corporations for negligence in connection with SUV rollovers and defective tires. Specifically, the book centers on the case of Donna Bailey, who became a quadriplegic as a result of a near-fatal accident in a Ford SUV and sought only an admission of guilt and apology from the companies.

* The Baz Luhrmann/Dino De Laurentiis Alexander the Great project will not be released until at least late 2005, while Oliver Stone is working on getting his version into theaters for Thanksgiving 2004. Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman will star in the Luhrmann project, which is expected to begin shooting in Morocco in April 2004. Effects unit photography on the Stone project was recently completed in the Himalayas.

* Dimension Films has lined up two projects to be produced by Wes Craven's and Marianne Maddalena's production banner: First is the psychological thriller THE WAITING, penned by Juliet Snowden and Stiles Eliot White, about a mother haunted by her dead child. The other project is THE UNTITLED COP/EXORCIST PROJECT, based on real-life NYPD officer who investigates paranormal cases.

* Playtone's Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman have made a Universal deal to turn the Mary Howitt classic tale "The Spider and the Fly" into a CGI film to be written/directed by Bradley Peyton. The company also is developing THE ANT BULLY at Warner Bros. That project is an adaptation of the John Nickle picture book about a boy who gets shrunk to insect size after hosing down the inhabitants of an anthill with his water gun. He's sentenced to hard labor in the colony. John Davis (JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS) is scripting.

* Producer David Permut has optioned the feature rights to C.D. Payne's novel YOUTH IN REVOLT about a precocious high school student who goes on a quest to lose his virginity.

* Story Island Entertainment, Origin Entertainment and Entertainment Business Group have acquired the feature film and game rights to the David Farland fantasy novel series THE RUNELORDS with Terry Kahn penning the feature adaption.

* Revolution Studios has optioned the JINGLE BELLE graphic novels from writer Paul Dini to develop as a live-action comedy about Santa's precocious daughter, who has had enough of the North Pole, goes off on her own, inadvertently triggering a sequence of events that puts the holiday in jeopardy.

* Mel Gibson's Icon Prods. has abruptly dropped the financing deal for Michael Moore's new documentary FAHRENHEIT 911. Miramax will provide "bridge financing" for the project that traces the historical ties between the Bush and bin Laden families. France-based the Wild Bunch is aboard to sell distribution and allow Miramax a low-risk chance to recoup.

* Mindfire Entertainment is preparing FREE ENTERPRISE II: MY BIG GEEK WEDDING, featuring William Shatner and a group of sci-fi-obsessed, thirtysomething Trekkies.

Until next week.

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com