Father Geek here once again to post up our site's longest running regular weekly column... Its been 5 years since Elston approached us about doing a report that looked back over the previous week's movie news so those that missed something during their busy work-week would have a single place to catch up on it all with ease. Annnnnnnd that suggestion led directly to his doing...
THE WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Brian White will play a budding baseball star opposite Bernie Mac and Angela Bassett in MR. 3000.
* Javier Bardem will star in Alejandro Amenabar's MAR ADENTRO (OUT TO SEA), based on the real-life story of Spaniard Ramon Sampedro, who fought a 25 year campaign in favor of euthanasia and his own right to die. Shooting begins in September in Galicia, Madrid and Barcelona with Sogecine and Himenoptero producing.
* Robin Williams and Brittany Murphy have joined Elija Wood in lending their vocal talents to Warner Bros./Village Roadshow Pictures' upcoming animated pic HAPPY FEET directed by George Miller and written by Miller, John Collee, Warren Coleman and Judy Morris. It's an Antarctica-set CGI-animated comedy with musical and dance elements about a young penguin with an unusual gift who finds the heart to pursue his dream. Murphy will also star in MAJOR MOVIE STAR for producers Billy Gerber and Denise Di Novi. April Blair wrote that script about a pop singer who desperately wants to star in a studio's feature film that is set in the military. In an attempt to prove she can play the part, the singer enlists in the Army.
* Tyrese will star in the drama EXTORTION for Universal and producer Neal Moritz. John Jarrell (ROMEO MUST DIE) wrote the script about a street-tough detective who risks blowing his cover when he investigates his foster brother's murder. In order to get close enough to solve the crime, he has to infiltrate a gang and become close to the crime lord.
* Stephen Chow (SHAOLIN SOCCER) will star in the action comedy adventure KUNG FU HUSTLE for Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia. It's about a wannabe gangster who is desperate to join the Axe Gang mob in 1940s Guangzhou.
* Cate Blanchett, John C. Reilly, Kate Beckinsale, Gwen Stefani, Adam Scott and Kelli Garner are near deals to join Leonardo DiCaprio in the Howard Hughes biopic THE AVIATOR for director Martin Scorsese. Production begins in July. Blanchett would play Katharine Hepburn, Beckinsale would appear as Ava Gardner and Stefani is set to play Jean Harlow. Reilly is in talks to appear as Noah Dietrich, Hughes' righthand man, while Scott will play Hughes' press agent and Garner will portray Faith Domergue, a young actress who was discovered by Hughes.
* Johnny Knoxville will join the Rock in MGM'S WALKING TALL remake for director Kevin Bray.
* Jack Black is attached to produce and possibly star as the world's greatest video game player in New Line's RAD BRAD, MODERN WARRIOR written by Philip Stark (DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?). It's about the world's most accomplished and beloved video game player, who gets recruited to save the world from a rogue military faction that has developed a robot with superhuman destructive powers.
* Frances Fisher and Nora Dunn have joined the cast of THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION, starring Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore, for New Line Cinema/Intermedia Films and director Peter Howitt.
* Ioan Gruffudd will play Lancelot in KING ARTHUR alongside Clive Owen, who plays King Arthur, and Keira Knightley, who plays Guinevere. Stephan Dillane also stars. Antoine Fuqua is directing and Jerry Bruckheimer is producing from a script by David Franzoni and John Lee Hancock.
* Scarlett Johansson will star with John Travolta in A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG for Screen Gems, El Camino Pictures and writer/director Shainee Gabel. It's a drama about a headstrong young woman who returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Joe Nussbaum will direct the MGM comedy SLEEPOVER about a group of young girls the summer before they enter high school. As one girl prepares to move out of town, her best friend throws a slumber party for her and all their friends the same night as the "popular girls" have their own overnight soiree. A competitive scavenger hunt ensues between the two parties, with a special prize for the winners: dibs on the best table in the high school lunchroom. Elisa Bell wrote the script to be produced by Bob Cooper and Chuck Weinstock.
* New Line purchased the romantic comedy spec IT'S NOT UNUSUAL from Jeff Franklin. It's set in 1969 and centers on a high school boy who falls madly in love with his beautiful housekeeper.
* Brian Levant will direct Ice Cube in Revolution Studios' ARE WE THERE YET? for CubeVision. It's about Nick, a playboy bachelor and sports memorabilia collector who is dating Suzanne, a divorced mother of two kids, ages 8 and 11, who never like the men their mom dates. When Suzanne is stuck in New York for work on New Year's Eve, Nick offers to get her kids from Washington to New York on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Along the way, the kids do everything in their power to ruin the trip and Nick's relationship with their mom.
* Fox Searchlight picked up the script BUZZ KILL from Tom Astle and Matt Ember for Frontier Pictures to produce. The project is a comedy described as being in the same vein as BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE.
* Matt and Billy Eddy sold their musical comedy script A CAPELLA to Disney for Chris and Paul Weitz's Depth of Field to produce. The story centers on a group of eclectic misfits who re-form their disbanded a cappella singing group.
* Gary Ross will direct Paramount's BENJAMIN BUTTON, based on a fabled short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, about an old man who physically ages backward. At age 50, he falls in love with a 30-year-old woman and then must come to terms with the relationship as they literally grow in opposite directions.
* Michael Ferris and John Brancato (T3) will write the remake WESTWORLD for star Arnold Schwarzenegger, Warner Bros. and Jerry Weintraub Prods. Schwarzenegger will play one of the vacation guests. The original film was based on Michael Crichton's novel.
* Michael Mann will direct the DreamWorks drama COLLATERAL, in which Tom Cruise and Adam Sandler are in talks to star. Stuart Beattie wrote the script, with a rewrite by Frank Darabont, about a cabbie who his taken hostage after he picks up a contract killer. They travel around Los Angeles to conduct his business.
* David Goyer will write/direct BLADE III for New Line Cinema. Production is expected to begin in Vancouver this summer. This time around, Blade must reverse an apocalyptic event that threatens to bring Earth under the vampires' control.
* Petter Naess (ELLING) will direct EARTHBOUND for 20th Century Fox and Davis Entertainment. Gren Wells wrote the script about a doomed but often amusing and poignant relationship between a beautiful 30-year-old cancer patient and the attending oncologist, with whom she falls in love.
* Focus Features, Liaisons Films and Why Not Prods. are developing an updated version of John Carpenter's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. James DeMonaco (THE NEGOTIATOR) will write the script.
* New Line grabbed the pitch THE MICHAEL PELLEGRINO STORY, based on the life of a failed crook from Chicago who fooled top Hollywood book agents and publisher Simon & Schuster into believing that he was the illegitimate grandson of Carlo Gambino. James Manos ("The Sopranos") is scripting.
* David Berenbaum (upcoming ELF) will write the family adventure ARTHUR SPIDERWICK'S GUIDE TO THE FANTASTIC WORLD AROUND YOU for Paramount/Nickelodeon, which optioned the six-book mystery series by Holly Black. The stories center on boy twins and their older teenaged sister who find an alternate world of fairies and goblins in their great-uncle's rundown house.
* Elizabeth Allen will direct DRIVING WHILE INFATUATED, written by Allen and Kyle Long, for Fox Searchlight about two teen girls, a mad crush and the vehicle neither of them has permission to drive.
* Barry Sonnenfeld will direct Jim Carrey in Columbia/Brian Grazer's remake of the 1977 comedy FUN WITH DICK AND JANE about an upper middle-class couple who turn to pulling heists to pay the bills. The original pic was adapted from a novel by Gerald Gaiser. Peter Tolan is writing the update.
* Lee Tamahori will develop and direct RISK ADDICTION for MGM about a female photographer and how she manipulates a male psychologist/psychiatrist who has been assigned to her case.
* Caleb Wilson and Matt Allen's family comedy spec script FOUR CHRISTMAS was snapped up by Spyglass Entertainment about a young married couple from two divorced families; on Christmas Day, they must hit all four holiday celebrations.
* Columbia Pictures picked up the rights to Marvel's comic book property LUKE CAGE for Original Films to produce and Ben Ramsey (THE BIG HIT) to adapt. The story is about a former gang member who is framed for a crime. In prison, he volunteers for a medical experiment that goes awry, giving him superstrength and bulletproof skin. He escapes and becomes a hero for hire.
* Wes Anderson will direct THE LIFE AQUATIC for Touchstone Pictures about an oceanographer, his crew and their adventures out to sea. Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Stormare and Bud Cort will star with Wally Wolodarsky tentatively attached to join the cast. Anderson wrote the script with Noah Baumbach.
* Stephan Elliott will direct the comedy VENETIAN WEDDING WT2, the low-budget division of Working Title. It's based on the true events of Australia's fairy tale royal wedding between a Byzantine prince and a Sydney socialite.
* MGM has picked up the pitch FLASH from Cedric the Entertainer about a coach who leads a group of athletes both on and off the playing field. He forms a tight bond with one of the kids and tries to teach him a lesson, only to wind up learning one himself.
* Wayne Kramer (THE COOLER) is in talks to direct the psychological thriller New Line's WESTWARD about a woman whose husband has been murdered. As she travels across the country to reunite with her stepson, she encounters a series of characters who may have been involved in the killing.
* Killer Films and John Wells Prods. are teaming with writer/producer Nick Davis and screenwriter J.J. Simone to develop a family action comedy about Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty transplanted by a fairy godmother from Happily Ever After Land to modern-day New York in order to grow up. While coming to grips with city life, they find their inner action-heroines and set about saving the universe from evil.
* George Hickenlooper will rewrite and direct the romantic drama THE HANDYMAN for Warner Bros. and producer Andrew Lazar. Originally adapted by Harold Gould from the novel by Carolyn See, the project is the story of a Hollywood repairman who proves to be a dreadful jack-of-all-trades but is brilliant when it comes to helping his clients resolve the larger issues troubling their personal lives.
* Nigel Cole (SAVING GRACE) will direct LOVER'S LEAP, a comedy being rewritten by Ron Bass at Fox-based New Regency. It's about a butler with an enigmatic past who makes contact with a young woman to give her the "once-over" for his wealthy employer, to whom he is more like an adviser than a servant. The butler develops a friendship with the woman and begins to fall in love with her.
* Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert are writing the feature comedy STRANGERS WITH CANDY, based on their Comedy Central series, for Silverstar Prods. A fall star is being eyed. It's a dark satire of moralistic after-school specials centering on a frumpy and unattractive outcast who returned to high school after 30 years of hard living on the streets and in prison.
* Rick Schroder will direct country music star Tim McGraw in the indie pic BLACK CLOUD for High Maintenance Films and Old Post Films. It's an inspirational story about a Native American boxer facing personal challenges as he comes to terms with his heritage while fighting for a spot on the U.S. Olympic boxing team.
* Splendid Pictures purchased Neil Elman's urban action script SILVERFISH to produce with Newman/Tooley Films. It's about a high-tech, high-stakes gambling ring that arranges early prison releases for the fiercest of convicts. The ex-cons are then trained in martial arts weapons combat, transformed into neo-gladiators and pitted against one another in arenas that turn the island of Manhattan into a modern-day Roman coliseum.
* Sylvester Stallone is writing and will direct and star in the tentatively titled RAMPART SCANDAL for Franchise Pictures about corruption in the LAPD and the murders of rap stars Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. Production is expected to begin Sept. 1. Stallone will play a real-life LAPD detective, Russell Poole, who investigated the murders of Shakur and Smalls. It will be told from different perspectives not unlike RASHOMON. Stallone is talking with record mogul Suge Knight about playing himself in the pic.
* Dylan Kidd (ROGER DODGER) will rewrite and direct ONE WILD NIGHT for Universal. Jon Bon Jovi will star in the story based on his own pitch about four wealthy couples who indulge in a night of spouse-swapping and afterwards see their lives and marriages shaken. Dario Scardapane was commissioned to pen a script, but Kidd will rewrite that draft and Bon Jovi will share writing credit.
* Steve Oedekerk will rewrite the comedy THE GREAT DIVIDE for Tom Shadyac to direct for Universal. The project centers on a full grown family which tries to heal wounds from past disastrous vacations by taking one final trip. Oedekerk is also developing TED OF THE BACKROOM for Universal and the CGI pic THE BARNYARD for Paramount/Nickelodeon.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Universal is developing the musicalized THE PRODUCERS as a feature with Mel Brooks, his co-writer Thomas Meehan and director Susan Stroman returning as well as co-stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
* Gaga Communications has optioned the rights to Capcom's video game DEVIL MAY CRY to develop into a feature.
* Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger has created film division THEntertainment to produce PROUD, the true story of WWII warship USS Mason manned by African-American sailors. Mary Pat Kelly wrote/directed the project which stars Ossie Davis, Stephen Rea, Darnell Williams, Denise Nicholas and Vernel Bagneris.
* Claymation king Will Vinton will develop and direct a range of animated feature and other projects with the Creative Artists Agency.
* MGM has suddenly dropped out of the hip-hop musical romance project COLORS STRAIGHT UP for reasons that remain unclear. Producers are shopping the project elsewhere. It's based on an Oscar-nominated docu about two guys who set up an antigang program in a high school in South L.A. Morgan Freeman was attached to star and co-produce.
* Universal has optioned Ann Auerbach's book WILD RIDE about the death of Alydar, a prolific racing and stud horse which was the pride of Calumet Farms until it had to be destroyed because of a badly broken leg. There were suspicions the horse was killed for insurance money. Paul Berenbaum (upcoming TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY) is set to adapt.
* National Lampoon has signed a deal with Silver Nitrate, Street Alien Pictures and producer Angad Paul to develop and produce four low-budget original comedy features, starting this summer with NATIONAL LAMPOON'S BOUNCERS. That project will be co-produced by Full Force (HOUSE PARTY) and examine club life in New York. B-Fine will direct.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Pirromount Pictures (NUDIST COLONY OF THE DEAD) announces completion of principal photography on its upcoming 2003 Christmas release, RECTUMA. For more info, visit http://www.pirromount.com.
* Several sites have reprted that a movie based on the song "Travelin' Soldier" by the Dixie Chicks is being produced for Paramount to produce. Based on a script by Mike Adamick (CHASE PATRICK), the film follows "a young man, two days past 18, who leaves home -- and the love of his life -- to fight in Vietnam. Though they meet on the same day he ships off to boot camp, Caleb Hunter and Katherine Ethan forge a bond that can only be found in young love. He'll fight like hell to return to her. The question is: Will she wait for him?"
