Father Geek here marking the return of our longest running regular column... yep ol' Elston Gunn is back from his extended vacation, sooooo here's the return of... the son of...
THE WEEKY RECAP...
by Elston Gunn
by Elston Gunn
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back....
Hope all is well. Happy 2004.
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Bill Pullman, Clea DuVall and William Mapother have joined Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr and KaDee Strickland in Takashi Shimizu's THE GRUDGE, the English-language remake of JU-ON produced by Ghost House Pictures for Columbia Pictures. Shooting starts in Tokyo later this month.
* Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and Snoop Dogg will star in an updated remake of the 1974 pic THE LONGEST YARD for Paramount/Sony. Shooting begins in June.
* Tim Roth is set to join Jennifer Connelly, Pete Postlethwaite and John C. Reilly in DARK WATER, the remake of the hit Japanese film being directed by Walter Salles for Pandemonium. It's about a mother and daughter who escape a custody battle by retreating to a run-down apartment building. There, they are haunted by the ghost of a former resident.
* Shirley MacLaine will portray the grandmother of Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette in Curtis Hanson's IN HER SHOES, based on the novel by Jennifer Weiner. Susannah Grant adapted.
* Vivica A. Fox and Bill Bellamy will star in the romantic comedy GETTING PLAYED about three women who make a game of trying to seduce a random male target. David Silberg is producing and will helm the pic from his own screenplay.
* Newcomer Sam Heughan will play the title role in MACEDONIA'S ALEXANDER THE GREAT, producers Ilya Salkind's biopic of ancient Greece's famed conqueror. Canadian director Jalal Merhi is helming the pic. The project, with an original screenplay by Dan Skinner, takes a look at the coming of age of the heroic Alexander from his youth in Greece to the time he is named regent of the land after proving himself worthy of succeeding his demanding father, King Philip of Macedonia. The producers hope to make a trilogy of Alexander's life.
* Peter Sarsgaard is in final talks to star opposite Kate Hudson in THE SKELETON KEY for Universal. Production begins in April. Penned by Ehren Kruger, the New Orleans-set story follows a young woman who begins to experience spooky things in the home of the elderly couple for whom she's caring.
* Amanda Peet and Ashton Kutcher will star in A LOT LIKE LOVE for director Nigel Cole and Beacon Pictures/Disney. Story centers around a guy and a girl who manage to resist their mutual attraction over the years only to see fate throwing them back together.
* Paul Newman will lend his voice to Pixar Animation Studios' CARS, directed by John Lasseter (TOY STORY). Bonnie Hunt, Owen Wilson, Dan Whitney and NASCAR vet Richard Petty will also lend their vocal talents. The project is described as a high-octane adventure comedy that features a wide assortment of autos as characters who get their kicks on Route 66.
* Jessica Simpson is slated to make her feature bow in WALK ON, an ensemble baseball biopic to be directed by Walter Hill (48 HRS). Richard Julian wrote the screenplay based on the true story of the Texas Rangers franchise, which was nearly bankrupt in 1973. Their savior was David Clyde, an 18-year-old high school senior recruited by the Rangers even before he could attend his prom. Clyde's good fortune took a turn for the worse, however, when Billy Martin replaced coach Whitey Herzog. Simpson, a native Texan, will portray Clyde's wife and high school sweetheart. Keith Carradine, Sophie B. Hawkins and Donal Logue are in talks to join the project. Shooting is expected to begin next year in New Mexico and Texas. Curt Johnson (WEST MEMPHIS THREE) and Mike Julian produce.
* Don Cheadle, Nick Nolte and Sophie Okonedo will star in Terry George's political drama HOTEL RWANDA for producer A. Kitman Ho from a script by director George and Keir Pearson. The film chronicles the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a brave hotel manager who risked his life and those of his family to take in more than 1,000 refugees during the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis by Hutu militia.
* Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany and Evan Rachel Wood are in talks to star in AMERICAN PASTORAL for director Phillip Noyce and Lakeshore Entertainment. The project is based on the novel by Phillip Roth. It will find Connelly and Bettany starring as husband and wife in the story of a legendary high school athlete and devoted family man who is living the American dream in postwar America. His picture-perfect life unravels when he and his family must face the reality that their daughter has become a revolutionary terrorist.
* Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel and Martin Freeman will star in the Spyglass Entertainment/Walt Disney Co. adaptation of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY for Hammer & Tongs. Mos Def will play Ford Prefect, an alien disguising himself as an out-of-work actor who sets out on an intergalactic journey with his best friend, mild-mannered earthling Arthur Dent, played by Freeman. The duo hitch a ride through space with the two-headed president of the galaxy, the beautiful and brilliant scientist Trillion (Deschanel) and a depressed robot while on a quest to discover the meaning of life.
* Luke Wilson is set to star in Mike Judge's comedy 3001 for 20th Century Fox, playing a man who goes to sleep only to wake up 1,000 years in the future. Shooting is scheduled to start in mid-April. Penned by Judge and Etan Cohen, the story centers on Joe Bowers, an average American who is selected for a top-secret hibernation program that finds him waking up and living among a society 10 centuries in the future. He finds that civilization is so dumbed-down that he is the most intelligent person alive. Judge is next attached to direct MEAT IN THE FREEZER, also for Fox.
* Scarlett Johansson will star in THE BLACK DAHLIA, opposite Josh Hartnett and Mark Wahlberg for director Brian De Palma. In the fictional account of the notorious 1947 murder, Johansson plays Kay, a doppelganger for the title character, and the object of affection for two police officers investigating the brutal murder of Hollywood starlet Elizabeth Short. Adapted for the screen by Josh Friedman from James Ellroy's bestselling novel, pic will start shooting May 24 in L.A.
* Halle Berry will topline TULIA, portraying a lawyer investigating an infamous Texas drug bust, for Tollin-Robbins Prods. She will portray the key attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in a case involving the 1999 arrests of 10% of the black population of Tulia, Texas. The arrests did not produce drugs or money, causing prosecutors and civil rights groups to denounce the bust as racial profiling. The undercover agent who conducted the bust was indicted for perjury; most of the 46 arrestees were pardoned by Texas Gov. Rick Perry last year.
* Daryl Hannah and Paul Dano are in final talks to star with Gael Garcia Bernal and Sam Shepard in James Marsh's THE KING for ContentFilm. Production is scheduled to start in March in Texas. Marsh helming from a script by Milo Addica (MONSTER'S BALL) and Marsh.
* Henry Simmons will star opposite Ice Cube and Nia Long in Revolution's ARE WE THERE YET? for director Brian Levant.
* Connie Nielsen, Tim Daly, Kelly Preston and Aidan Quinn are set to star in Bille August's indie drama RETURN TO SENDER.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Gene Rhee will direct FORSAKEN SEOUL for Maverick Films and EK Films. It's a contemporary suspense thriller about an orphaned hit man from America in search of his long lost brother. Over time, the contract killer falls in love and gradually begins to discover a secret from his past.
* Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Walt Disney Pictures have optioned the movie rights already to video game creator American McGee's upcoming twisted video game based on THE WIZARD OF OZ. Screenwriters Kevin and Dan Hageman are attached.
* Creative Light Entertainment CEO Scott Zakarin will helm a contemporary feature retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, starring Matt Keeslar, Jonathan Silverman, Siena Goines, Desmond Askew, Abigail Spencer and John Rubenstein.
* Marcus Nispel (TEXAS CHAINSAW remake) will direct the supernatural thriller TURN for Radar Pictures at Paramount. Based on a Japanese film by the same name, it's about a woman who slips into a coma after an accident and finds upon waking that she is in a parallel reality -- a completely empty city, where she is forced to relive the same day over and over again.
* John Whitesell (MALIBU'S MOST WANTED) will direct Ryan Reynolds in the New Line comedy SEX TALK about a sports reporter who gets switched over to become the host of a sex talkshow. He finds sports terminology helpful in describing problems and remedies for sexual dilemmas and takes pleasure in shocking the straitlaced female co-host assigned to him. Eventually, he falls in love with her. Script was penned by Analisa LaBianco and Tempest Farley and rewritten by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel.
* Director Luke Greenfield has launched his new production company with THE UNTITLED DESTINY PROJECT at New Regency. It centers on an anxious young man who faces a near-death experience that gives him the power to see and remember his future. Greenfield will direct and produce.
* Kelly Asbury (SHREK 2) will write/direct IMAGINARY CHILDREN for Southpaw Entertainment. It's a live-action/CGI fantasy adventure about a cartoonist whose creations inhabit his house and cause an estrangement from his son, who can't measure up to them.
* Dream Entertainment has optioned Sam Kashner's Vanity Fair article "A First Class Affair," which detailed the romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during the filming of 1963 MGM pic THE V.I.P.s. Kashner and his wife, Nancy Schoenberger, will write the screenplay.
* Les Armateurs (THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE) is preparing another episode of the surprise French animated hit film KIRIKOU AND THE SORCERESS. The new project, THE CHILD KIRIKOU, was penned by Michel Ocelot, who will co-helm with Benedicte Galup.
* Lucas Sussman will adapt Dan Simmons' novel SONG OF KALI for Darren Aronofsky's Protozoa Pictures. Aronofsky and Eric Watson are set to produce the pic, which follows an American poet who travels with his Indian wife and their baby to Calcutta. He's supposed to be picking up an Indian writer's epic poem cycle about the goddess Kali, an ancient Indian deity of evil whose only clothing is a girdle made of dead men's hands. When he arrives, however, he finds the poet has disappeared under mysterious circumstances involving a cult that worships the goddess.
* Disney has picked up an untitled romantic comedy pitch from French actor/director/producer Alain Chabat. Pic, being penned by Emmy-winning writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger ("King of the Hill"), is the story of a woman who dumps her superhero but commitment-phobic boyfriend in favor of a regular Joe. However, when both men realize she is the girl of their dreams, they become embroiled in a love triangle.
* Argentine director Jose Luis Massa (CHIQUITITAS) is making the animated epic PATORUZITO for Pablo Bossi's Patagonik Film Group. It's based on Axel Nacher's 75-year-old cartoon about a boy and his family in the Patagonian outback.
* Warner Independent Pictures has optioned TRUCE, a pitch for a character-based drama set around WWI's impromptu Christmas truce of 1914. Stuart Beattie will pen the script. Jennifer Klein's Apartment 3B will produce. Drama revolves around a group of British soldiers who come out of their foxholes when troops on both sides set a spontaneous truce in northern France that stops the carnage for the Christmas holiday.
* Donald Petrie (HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS) will direct the romantic comedy LADY LUCK for New Regency and 20th Century Fox, with plans to begin production this spring. It's the story of the luckiest girl in the world who finds her continual good fortune swapped with that of a chronically unlucky man.
* David Reynolds (FINDING NEMO) will adapt the Robert A. Heinlein science fiction classic HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL as a live-action project for Warner Bros. and Heyday. Originally published in 1958, SPACESUIT tells the story of Kip, a high school senior who yearns to go to the moon. He wins a real spacesuit in a contest but is forced to sell it for college tuition. Deciding to take one last walk in the suit in his backyard, he playfully calls out on the radio only to unexpectedly contact a passing spaceship. The adventure that follows finds the very fate of Earth in the his hands.
* Robin Swicord (LITTLE WOMEN) is in talks to pen a new script for MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA for director Rob Marshall and Columbia/DreamWorks.
* Spanish auteur Montxo Armendariz will begin shooting his next feature, OBABA, in September. The rural drama stars Pilar Lopez de Ayala. It's an adaptation of Basque novelist Bernardo Atxaga's OBABAKOAK and will blend a magical-realist style with the director's concern for the relationship between an individual and his social context.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Senator Intl. and China's GDC Prods. is financing French artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud's sci-fi fantasy adventure THRU THE MOEBIUS STRIP, the first 3D CGI animated movie made in China. Set in the distant future, the sci-fi family adventure penned by Jim Cox and Paul Gertz concerns a boy who travels to a magical, alien world of giants to find his long-lost father and realize his own destiny. Actors signed on to voice pic include Mark Hamill, Chris Marguette, Michael Dorn, Kellie Martin, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Jean Simmons.
* Pixar and Disney have parted ways.
* Sydney Pollack has won permission to shoot THE INTERPRETER inside U.N. headquarters on New York's East Side -- the first feature to film there. Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn are attached to star.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Raider Productions is conducting a search throughout the World for clay, classical, computer, and flash animated shorts to create its 90 minute NABIAS / WBIAS 2004 VHS and DVD compilations. For more info, visit http://www.raiderproductions.com or http://www.nabias.com.
* Visit http://www.unionsquarethemovie.com for details about UNION SQUARE, an upcoming documentary about about 7 young herion addicts in Union Sqaure Park in NYC.
* DEADROOM, a collaborative dramatic feature from four Texas filmmakers, begins principal photography on January 10th in Dallas. The film is about a room where one can converse with the dead. The cast includes Grant James, Alana Macias and "Twin Peaks" star Harry Goaz. Visit http://www.deadroommovie.com for more information.
* Check out http://www.eatthemushroom.com for info on an independent Edgar Allan Poe film, including a full trailer, forums, mailing lists and an online store for preorders.
* Mark Hosack's PALE BLUE MOON will be screened Feb. 5 at The Studio Movie Grill in Dallas, TX (http://www.studiomoviegrill.com) as well as The Magnolia Film Festival in Starkville, MS on Feb. 7 (http://www.magfilmfest.com).
* A new wide-screen 8mm film format had its international debut in December. SLEEP ALWAYS, the first feature film shot in the new "super-duper 8", screened in Spain at the Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia and in New York as part of the International Festival of Cinema and Technology. For more information about SLEEP ALWAYS or super-duper 8 visit http://www.friendlyfirefilms.ca
* Robert James Wright's sci fi ELITE WARRIORS has a website up at http://www.elitewarriorssaga.com
* Sylvain White's thriller short QUIET will air this month on Cinemax. Visit http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?ACTION_DETAIL=DETAIL&ID=102572 for air times.
* There's a spoof of THE PASSION entitled THE PASSION OF BILL at http://homepages.nyu.edu/~scs273/01.mov
