Father Geek here with Elston Gunn and this weeks edition of...
The WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Ellen Pompeo and Clifton Collins, Jr. will star opposite Eion Bailey in GLORY DAYS for writer/director Barra Grant and producers Mark Gordon and Brian Reilly. It's the story of an intervention that goes awry when the psychiatrist fails to show up. Kristin Bauer, Pamela Reed, Larry Miller and Rosalind Chao also star.
* Queen Latifah is set to star in a role originated by Alec Guinness in a remake of the 1950 British comedy LAST HOLIDAY for Paramount and Imagemovers. Peter Seaman and Jeffrey Price (WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT) are scripting. The original pic was based on a J.B. Priestley story. The new version will star Latifah as a shy, unassuming sales clerk who heads to a European resort upon learning of her diagnosis. Thinking she has nothing to lose, she becomes increasingly outrageous and irreverent.
* Working Title and Rowan Atkinson will develop sequels to BEAN and JOHNNY ENGLISH. The two sequels will be developed with their original writers -- Robin Driscoll and possibly Richard Curtis for BEAN, and Will Davies for JOHNNY ENGLISH.
* Nia Long will star opposite Ice Cube in Revolution Studios' ARE WE THERE YET? for director Brian Levant. It centers on a playboy bachelor and sports memorabilia collector who is trying to land a date with Suzanne, a divorced mother of 8-year-old Kevin and 11-year-old Lindsey, who never like the men their mom dates. When Suzanne is stuck in Vancouver for work on New Year's Eve, Nick offers to get her kids -- whom he has never met -- from Oregon to Vancouver on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
* Richard Belzer will narrate RUNNING WITH ARNOLD, a feature documentary following Arnold Schwarzenegger's whirlwind transformation from action hero to governor of California. The docu is being written/directed by Dan Cox, who also is producing with Judy Orbach.
* Edward Burns will star in the supernatural murder mystery THE RIVER KING, based on Alice Hoffman's novel, for director Nick Willing (HYPNOTIC) , Myriad Pictures and imX communications. David Kane wrote the screenplay. The project is the story of a small-town cop called in when a student drowns at an elite prep school. Though the school headmaster insists it's suicide, the detective is led to investigate foul play when he finds clues seemingly left by the dead boy's spirit.
* Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek have been offered roles in French producer Luc Besson's Mexico-set comedy Western. They would play feisty bank robbers.
* Samuel L. Jackson will reprise his role in XXX2, joining Ice Cube to star in the Revolution Studios sequel for director Lee Tamahori.
* Timothy Spall has joined Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep and Jude Law on Par/DreamWorks' LEMONY SNICKET: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS.
* Orlando Bloom, Bill Paxton and Gabriel Byrne will star in HAVEN for El Camino Pictures for writer/director Frank E. Flowers. It's about two shady businessmen who flee to the Cayman Islands to avoid federal prosecution. Their escape ignites a chain reaction that leads a British native to commit a crime that changes the country. Victor Rasuk, Joy Bryant and Anthony Mackie also star.
* Brenda Blethyn and Hugh Bonneville are set to join Sam Rockwell, Tom Wilkinson and Amanda Peet in the indie comedy PICCADILLY JIM, based on the P.G. Wodehouse novel and adapted by Julian Fellowes. Set in 1930s England, the film follows the romantic misadventures of dashing American James Crocker, desperate to shed his scandalous reputation to impress the girl of his dreams. John McKay is set to direct.
* Brian Cox will reprise his role in THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, teaming with Matt Damon and Franka Potente in the sequel along with Joan Allen and Karl Urban. Paul Greengrass is directing. At the same time, Cox has inked a deal to join Johnny Knoxville in the Farrelly brothers comedy THE RINGER for Fox Searchlight Pictures. Barry Blaustein is directing from a script by Ricky Blitt. The comedy finds Knoxville's character posing as a mentally disabled man competing in the Special Olympics.
* Tyrese will star in the dramatic thriller DA VERDICT for MGM about a rising star in an urban district attorney's office who is torn between his job and those he must prosecute from his neighborhood.
* Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Kris Kristofferson and Daniel Craig will star opposite Keira Knightley and Adrien Brody in Mandalay Pictures/Section Eight pic THE JACKET for director John Maybury. Marc Rocco and Massy Tadjedin wrote the psychological thriller concerning a Gulf War veteran with amnesia who has returned to his native Vermont. When he is wrongly arrested on a murder charge and lands in an asylum, a well-meaning doctor puts him on a heavy course of experimental drugs, restrains him in a jacket-like device and locks him away in the body drawer of the basement morgue. The process sends him on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and must try to stop it.
* Jean Reno and Olivier Martinez will star in EMPIRE OF THE WOLVES, based on the book by Jean-Christophe Grange, for director Chris Nahon.
* Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil will star in an untitled cop thriller about rival detectives competing both at work and for the affections of the same woman for director Olivier Marchal.
* Thora Birch is teaming with Jena Malone to star in the indie rock 'n' roll pic VINYL for writer/director Richard Zelniker. The pic centers on the women behind a male rock 'n' roll band that is on the verge of breakout success. Birch will play the wife of the lead singer, with Malone taking the character of a naive girl from the good side of the tracks who winds up with a lot of rock 'n' roll spirit in the end.
* Pepe Soriano will star in Argentinean helmer Rodrigo Furth's sophomore project HACER AGUA (TO SPRING A LEAK), a tragicomedy about the misadventures of an old factory owner on a trip to America.
* Jonathan Jackson, David Arquette, Barbara Hershey and Erika Christensen have been set to star in RIDING THE BULLET for writer/director Mick Garris and Brad Krevoy's Motion Picture Corp. of America. Supernatural thriller takes place on Halloween in 1969, following 21-year-old New England college student Alan Parker. Distraught that his girlfriend has broken up with him, he attempts suicide but fails and then learns that his beloved mother has had a stroke. Hitchhiking through rural Maine to visit her bedside, the young man is picked up by a mysterious driver who carries his own haunting secrets.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Anthony C. Ferrante (Cinescape editor-in-chief) will direct BOO! from his own script for Kismet Entertainment Group's new horror division Graveyard Filmworks. It's about a group of college kids who get trapped in a haunted hospital on Halloween night.
* Directors Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker (BROTHER BEAR) will make their next project at Disney. The film, which has yet to be determined, will be produced by Chuck Williams.
* Massy Tadjedin (LEO) will write political ensemble thriller THE CASE STUDY for Warner Bros. and Plan B. It's being developed as a potential starring vehicle for Jennifer Aniston, who'll also produce.
* Broadway director Jack O'Brien ("Hairspray") will helm SLAMMER with Sara Goodman set to write the script for Revolution Studios. The dark comedy centers on an imprisoned female publicist who attempts to spin a positive image of jail by producing an inmate talent show.
* Barry Levinson is set to direct MY ITALIAN STORY, a fact-based WWII tale of a Jewish refugee's quest to find a rabbi to perform his bar mitzvah. Accompanied by his soccer coach, the boy travels covertly through Nazi-occupied Italy in his quest to become a man. Ethan Silverman wrote the script.
* Writer Michael Hirst and director Shekhar Kapur are working on THE GOLDEN AGE, which deals with the 16th century reign of England's Queen Elizabeth I. The original movie, ELIZABETH, which starred Cate Blanchett, covered her rise to the throne.
* Mike Mitchell will direct THE FRAUD PRINCE, written by Adam Schroeder, for Warner Bros. It's a a noirish detective tale set in a fairy tale world. It revolves around a young lady-in-waiting who tries to uncover the truth about a princess' mysterious suitor with the help of the kingdom's first private eye.
* Marcus Nispel (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) will direct Diane Lane in NEED for Escape Artists and Paramount Pictures. It's about a successful New York therapist discovers that one of her patients -- a suicidal woman named Beth -- is having an affair with her husband. Chloe King wrote the script, which is loosely based on David Lawrence's novel of the same name..
* Commercials director Noam Murro will helm THE RING 2 for DreamWorks. The second installment, penned by Ehren Kruger, is being produced by studio co-heads Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Sequel will also bring back Naomi Watts and David Dorfman.
* Wayne and Donna Powers (THE ITALIAN JOB) are in final talks to pen an adaptation of THE RULES OF SILENCE, novelist David Lindsey's thriller about an extortion scheme, for Universal. The story follows Latin American gangsters who threaten to kill the family and friends of a Texas tech mogul unless he pays $64 million. Target of the plot enlists a former government special agent to fight his way out of the trap.
* Anne Meredith (BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA) has been set to script PIECE OF MY HEART, Lakeshore/Paramount's Janis Joplin biopic, in which Renee Zellweger plans to star next year. Zellweger is producing with Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi.
* Trilogy Entertainment Group has acquired rights to Richard Condon's (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, PRIZZI'S HONOR) World War II thriller AN INFINITY OF MIRRORS. Story tells of the romance between a French Jewish woman and a German officer who marry and move to Berlin just as Hitler begins his rise to power. The story is told from the perspectives of both the Jews and the German officers. However, Trilogy partner John Watson, who will pen the adaptation, said the film, like the book, would not delve into the world of concentration camps.
* Dimension Films has optioned Stephen King's short story 1408 with Matt Greenberg attached to pen the feature adaptation, and Lorenzo di Bonaventura set to produce. Story concerns a successful writer, known for haunted house and graveyard tales, who gets a taste of his own fictional medicine during a frightening stay in room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel.
* Hong Kong action helmer Stanley Tong will direct PAST TENSE for Emmett/Furla Films and Newman/Tooley Prods. Written by Paul J. da Silva, pic is the story of a Hong Kong police officer who teams with a San Francisco cop to bring down an international crime ring.
* Jordan Moffet will rewrite SICK DAY (LIKE MIKE) as a Chris Rock vehicle for Imagine Entertainment and Universal Pictures. Pic follows the plans of a guy who plays hooky from work only to have his plans for the day go all wrong.
* Philip Seymour Hoffman has formed Cooper's Town Prods. and has already slotted its first project, ONE SPLIT SECOND, from helmer Katie Fleischer. The psychological thriller concerns a woman who will do anything to keep her dying husband alive, only to find there's a terrible price when he recovers. Jason Dietz, who wrote the story, will produce, with Hoffman as exec producer.
* Craig Mazin (SCARY MOVIE 3) will write SCARY MOVIE 4 as well as OPUS, based on Berkeley Breathed's BLOOM COUNTY, Dimension Films.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Producer/director Lee Rose has optioned film rights to mystery SIMPLE JUSTICE, by John Morgan Wilson, about a disgraced alcoholic ex-journalist grieving over the death of his lover from AIDS. He sets out on a dangerous quest to clear a troubled Latino teenager who has confessed to murder but may be innocent.
* New Line Cinema has picked up Neil Zawacki's book HOW TO BE A VILLAIN for Mandeville Films to produce. The feature adaptation will center on a loser who, in an effort to seek retribution for a life of finishing last, sets his sights on becoming a supervillain.
* Producer Arthur Sarkissian has has lined up a string of projects to produce for MGM: spec script BETWEEN THE COVERS; an English language remake of HI DHARMA about a group of gangsters who take refuge in a Buddhist monastery; and remakes of Stanley Kramer's DEFIANT ONES and the 1961 epic war romancer EL CID, with Martin Campbell attached to direct the latter.
* Producer Aimee Peyronnet has optioned VERNON GOD LITTLE, the idiosyncratic first novel by D.B.C (for Dirty But Clean) Pierre (a pseudonym for Peter Finlay). The book's narrator is a 15-year-old Texan whose best friend has just recreated a Columbine-like massacre at his high school.
* British-based Indian writer/director Ashvin Kumar's romantic thriller short film ROAD TO LADAKH will be developed into a full-length feature for producers Richard Dreyfuss and Judith James. It's about a chance meeting between a dilettante American journalist and a suspicious Indian stranger in the border regions of India and Pakistan.
* Jerry Weintraub Prods. has optioned Atlantic Monthly national correspondent Mark Bowden's (BLACK HAWK DOWN) October cover story "The Dark Art of Interrogation" to develop as a feature film for Warner Bros. Article investigates the Guantanamo Bay interrogation rooms and other locales where American agents and their allies are using questions, coercion and possibly torture to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism. Company plans to develop the story as a psychological and political thriller.
* Cherry Road Films has acquired film rights to novels by Donald Westlake, Arthur Nersesian and Arnon Grunberg. The three book options help round out the development slate. Company last month partnered with Warner Independent Pictures to create a development fund covering up to 10 projects a year. Westlake's novel, MONEY FOR NOTHING, is a spy comedy about a New York office temp who one day discovers he is a secret agent for a foreign country. Nersesian's book, MANHATTAN LOVERBOY, is a surreal comedy about a New York man's battle against a mysterious corporation. Grunberg's SAINT ANTONIO, about two Mexican brothers moving to Gotham with their mom.
* Judge Reinhold and his wife, Amy, have teamed with indie producer Eric Geadelmann to launch TLP Prods. The feature film production company has acquired two projects and started production on a documentary. TLP has acquired the rights to the life story of Ray Wallace, a logger in the Pacific Northwest who is credited with creating the myth of Bigfoot by using a pair of 16-foot carved wooden feet and stomping around on the ground. He kept the legend going for more than 40 years by using photos, footprints and fake sightings before his family admitted the long-running hoax shortly after his death in November 2002.
* Stone Village Prods. have optioned the feature film rights to the supernatural thriller NOBODY TRUE, the latest book by best-selling English author James Herbert. It tells the story of Jimmy True, an adman who has the ability to travel into the astral plane. When True's body is murdered while he's on one of his jaunts, he needs to solve the crime while also dealing with the uncomfortable truths he discovers about almost every one he knows, including his wife, his young daughter and his business partner.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* SomethingJewish (www.somethingjewish.co.uk), the UK's Jewish lifestyle and features led website has an exclusive interview with Lloyd Kaufman, founder of Troma films. The in-depth interview can be found at: http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/575_lloyd_kaufman.htm
* Check out Chris Hunneysett's cartoons and comics at http://www.fatwinstonworld.com
* TUPAC: RESURRECTION - Tupac's Mother Afeni Talks About TUPAC: RESURRECTION (Interview With Gene Geter) at http://new.blackvoices.com/bv-askgene.columnist
