Father Geek here with this week's edition of The Weekly Recap, our regular weekly column for those of you who may have missed some of last week's movie news during the busy work-week. Well most of the news is occuring up in Toronto right now, but here's the tidbits from the rest of the world all laid out for you in...

THE WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Maria Bello will star opposite Chris Cooper and Daryl Hannah in John Sayles' SILVER CITY. Shooting begins Sept. 23 in Denver. The murder mystery concerns a gubernatorial campaign and disgraced investigative reporter in Colorado. Cheech Marin, Danny Huston and Kris Kristofferson also star.

* Jake Gyllenhaal, Christian Bale, Joshua Jackson, Cillian Murphy, Henry Cavill, Hugh Dancy and Eion Bailey are among several young actors who are expected to test for Warner Bros.' next BATMAN project for director Christopher Nolan. Production is scheduled to begin in February.

* Roselyn Sanchez "Dragnet") joins Marcos Siega's THE UNDERCLASSMAN for Miramax and Tapestry Films. Nick Cannon and Shawn Ashmore also star.

* Cate Blanchett and Willem Dafoe will join Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston and Owen Wilson in THE LIFE AQUATIC for director Wes Anderson and Touchstone Pitcures. The comedy, scripted by Anderson and Noah Baumbach, will also star Jeff Goldblum, Peter Stormare,and Bud Cort. It's about the misadventures of an oceanographer and his crew as they head for the deep seas in search of a mythical shark. The project will shoot in Italy and Rome and will feature stop-motion animation from Henry Selick.

* Agnes Bruckner (BLUE CAR) and Patricia Clarkson are set to star in THE WOODS for United Artists and director Lucky McKee. Shooting is scheduled to start Sept. 15 in Montreal. This project is not to be confused with M. Night Shyamalan's project with the same working title.

* Bruce Willis will star for director Florent Siri in HOSTAGE, based on Robert Crais' novel, for Stratus Film Co., who picked up the project from Revolution Studios. Shooting begins in January with Willis and Arnold Rifkin's Cheyenne Enterprises co-producing. Cheyenne is also developing TRUE BELIEVERS with Mark Wahlberg and Hideo Nakata in talks to star in and direct, respectively.

* Jada Pinkett Smith will play the female lead opposite Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx and Val Kilmer in DreamWorks' and Paramount Pictures' thriller COLLATERAL for Michael Mann. Irma P. Hall has also joined the cast.

* David Kelly (WAKING NED DEVINE), Kerry Armstrong, Jack Thompson and newcomer Alex O'Lachlan will star THE OYSTER FARMER, a contemporary romantic Western about oyster farmers and Vietnam vets for writer/director Anna Reeves.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Nagesh Kukunoor (BOLLYWOOD CALLING) will direct Amitabh Bachchan in TANDOOR, about the chef/owner of a small restaurant in Manhattan.

* Tag Mendillo and Ric Roman Waugh will write THE LAST APOSTLE for Columbia Pictures and producer Mark Gordon as a starring vehicle for Paul Walker. It's a MATRIX/THE CROW-esque project set in a Gothic future world, following an antihero with a dark secret who strives to win an epic struggle of good vs. evil.

* Claudia Lonow will adapt Rachel Greenwald's upcoming book FIND A HUSBAND AFTER 35 USING WHAT I LEARNED AT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL, which will be published Sept. 16 by Ballantine, as a romantic comedy for Paramount and producer Carsey-Werner-Mandabach.

* Luis Mandoki will direct CARDBOARD HOUSES (CASA DE CARTON) a drama based on the true story of a 12-year-old who is about to be forced into military duty during the civil war in 1980s El Salvador. Oscar Torres scripted, based on his own ordeal. Filming begins in Mexico on Oct. 27 for Altavista Films.

* Ron Howard is attached to direct a feature based on the life of reporter and news analyst Eric Sevareid for Revolution Studios and Imagine Entertainment. Stephen Falick and Jeff Howard pitched and will write the pic, which will follow the dramatic and comedic elements of Sevareid's life after he was recruited by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow to cover World War II. The film will concentrate on the events of 1943, when Sevareid was assigned to the Far East and was forced to parachute from a plane in China.

* Vincenzo Natali will direct NECROPOLIS, written by Paul W.S. Anderson (RESIDENT EVIL), for Dimension Films and Impact Pictures.

* Joss Whedon will write/direct FIREFLY, a feature film based on his short-lived Fox TV series for Universal Pictures. Production is expected to begin in first-quarter 2004. The action/adventure series was set 500 years in the future and centered on a crew aboard a spaceship. Whedon hopes to bring back the entire cast with new characters added as well.

* John Polson (SWIMFAN) will direct MOZART MAULERS for GreeneStreet Films and FFC, based on the true story of a Sydney music student who started a rugby football team of musical misfits and took on the greatest club in the country. Shooting starts in January.

* Robert Connolly is set to helm THREE DOLLARS, based on Elliot Perlman's novel about an honest man who finds himself with a wife, a child and three dollars.

* Marc Gracie will direct YOU AND YOUR STUPID MATE, a comedy about two happily unemployed friends who are forced to work for their dole payments.

* Neil Marshall (DOG SOLDIERS) is set to direct the horror pic THE DARK from his own script for Celador Films. It's about an all-female caving expedition that goes horribly wrong. Production begins in the spring. Celador Films (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS) also has optioned two nonfiction books: Anthony Holden's BIG DEAL, about the writer's year as a pro poker player, and Victoria Coren and Charlie Skelton's ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, about two nice middle-class youngsters who set out to make a superior porno movie.

* Indie auteur Wim Wenders will helm an untitled digitally shot feature for InDigEnt. Based on an original story by Wenders and a screenplay co-penned by Wenders and Michael Meredith, the film's plot is being kept under wraps.

* Peter Weir is in negotiations to direct the WWII epic THE WAR MAGICIAN for Paramount and producers Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner. Peter Buchman adapted the David Fisher book about a patriotic British stage magician who volunteered his illusionist abilities to help battle the Nazis. After proving his potential value to skeptical commanders, he and a few cohorts were sent to North Africa where he helped British troops through a campaign of deception.

* Fox Searchlight will remake THE FLY with Todd Lincoln set to write the script and direct.

* Bill Wheeler (THE PRIME GIG) will write an original neo-noir thriller screenplay loosely based on an episode of NPR's "This American Life" entitled "Niagra" for producers Jay Roach and Steven Soderbergh. It's about an ex-con who plays the organ at a quickie wedding church in Niagara. When he learns from a newspaper ad that his estranged son of seven years plans to go down the falls in a barrel as a publicity stunt to get money, he realizes he must stop him. He then decides to rob the local lottery winner to get his son the money. However, the robbery goes awry and the father finds himself pursued by the police as the robbery implicates him indirectly in a murder. Meanwhile, demons of his past haunt him as he is inexorably drawn toward a fate intertwined with the falls. Roah may direct for Warner Bros.

* Brett Leonard is directing the horror feature MAN THING, based on the Marvel comic, for Serenity Cove Studios.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* NBA player Baron Davis's Too Easy Entertainment is optioning the rights to the 1979 film PENITENTIARY for an urban remake.

* Sony/Revolution Studios have new release dates for RADIO, which will now unspool on Oct. 24 and THE MISSING which will open in NY/LA on Nov. 19 and go wide Nov. 26.

* Antidote Films is readying two features: Todd Louiso's (LOVE LIZA) version of MACBETH, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Steven Shainberg's (SECRETARY) adaptation of SARAH, based on JT Leroy's novel about a group of prostitutes and their adventures.

* Metreon-A Sony Entertainment Center presents the 3rd annual Metreon Festival of Anime on Saturday, October 11 from 10am-11pm. Visit http://www.metreon.com/events for more info.

* Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, The American President), lecturer Robert McKee and educator Linda Seger will speak at Screenwriting Expo 2 (Oct. 17-19, 2003). Go to http://www.screenwritingexpo.com for more.

* To enter Key West IndieFest 2004 (April 1 - 4), please go to: http://keywestindiefest.com and click on "Year 2004 Entry Forms."

* Thursday September 11th, 2003 4:00 - 6:30 at The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. Free food and drink, great films and the chance to take off work early to see what Aspyr is up to in DVD Publishing. GROWIN' A BEARD by Mike Woolf, LIVE SHIVA'S DANCE FLOOR by Richard Linklater and THE JOURNEY by Eric Saperston. http://www.aspyr.com