Father Geek here with our latest edition of Elston's long running column that takes a peek at all the movie news from the last week, soooo if you missed anything you can catch up with it here at...
Elston Gunn's WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Paddy Considine (IN AMERICA) and Paul Giamatti are in final talks to star opposite Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger and Craig Bierko in Universal Pictures/Miramax Films' CINDERELLA MAN for director Ron Howard, who is also producing along with Brian Grazer and Penny Marshall. The project tells the story of real-life heavyweight boxing champ Jim Braddock. During the 1930s, Braddock was an aging boxer who made a comeback while trying to provide for his family during the Depression.
* Outkast's Andre 3000 and Harvey Keitel will join John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Danny DeVito, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Vince Vaughn, James Gandolfini, Cedric the Entertainer and Christina Milian in MGM's GET SHORTY sequel, BE COOL, based on the novel by Elmore Leonard, for director F. Gary Gray.
* Helen Mirren and Ryan Phillippe will co-star as a mother-stepson gangster team in Lee Daniels' indie pic SHADOWBOXER. Production begins April 1 in Philadelphia. Will Rokos (MONSTER'S BALL) co-wrote the script with Daniels. Wes Bentley is attached to play the lead villain on the hunt for the killer couple.
* Jay Hernandez (TORQUE) joins the cast of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS for Universal/Imagine and director Peter Berg. Lucas Black, Derek Luke, Lee Thompson Young and Billy Bob Thornton star.
* Kip Pardue will be chasing Jordana Brewster in CHASING FATE for director Nigel Dick and Maverick Films. It's about a successful man whose life unravels after he dumps his fiancee. When she finds sudden fame and fortune, he becomes convinced that they were fated to be together and sets out on a journey to win her back.
* Spanish actor Sergi Lopez (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY) will star in LA CANCION DE DOROTEA (DOROTEA'S SONG) for Bausan Films. Directed by actress-helmer Silvia Munt (GALA) the project records a woman's faltering search for passion, set against the passing seasons. Production will begin in September 2005.
* Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy will star in New Line's THE MAN for director Les Mayfield (BLUE STREAK). Penned by Jim Piddick and Margaret Oberman, and rewritten by Steve Carpenter, the story was developed for the last two years as a starring vehicle for Levy, who'll play a bumbling traveling salesman who stumbles into an ATF sting. Jackson will play an ATF agent who is forced to make an ersatz partner of the salesman, lest his undercover operation go awry.
* Michael Caine joins Nicolas Cage and Hope Davis in THE WEATHER MAN for Paramount, Escape Artists and director Gore Verbinski. Shooting begins Feb. 23 in Chicago. Caine will portray a Pultizer Prize-winning author who's the father of Cage's character, a successful TV weathercaster who's about to leave Chicago for Gotham. With his personal life in disarray, the weatherman attempts to reconcile with his estranged spouse, portrayed by Davis.
* Colin Firth is in talks to star opposite Emma Thompson in the family comedy NANNY MCPHEE for director Kirk Jones. Shooting starts in April. Thompson also wrote the screenplay, adapted from the NURSE MATILDA book series by Christianna Brand. The stories follow a magical nanny and the seven worst children in the world.
* Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood will star in the indie pic DOWN IN THE VALLEY for director David Jacobson (DAHMER). Production begins Feb. 29 in Los Angeles. Set in the present-day San Fernando Valley, the project revolves around a delusional man who believes he's a cowboy and the relationship that he starts with a rebellious young woman.
* Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Samantha Morton and Cara Seymour will star in the romantic comedy FARMERS ON E for writer/director Siofra Campbell. The project focuses on a small Irish farming community as residents attempt to manage the responsibilities of family and friendship while they struggle to deal with the impact of progress.
* Tom Hanks is attached to star in and produce THE LADIES' MAN, based on the Elinor Lipman novel, for director Robert Benton who will also adapt. in the title role. It's about Nash Harvey, a serial womanizer and commercial jingle writer who returns to Boston to make amends with a woman he stood up at the altar.
* Sam Rockwell will play Zaphod Beeblebrox in Spyglass Entertainment/Walt Disney Co.'s THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, based on the novel by Douglas Adams. The project begins shooting in April in London with Garth Jennings directing. Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel and Martin Freeman also star.
* Hilary Duff is attached to star in Miramax Films' comedy OUTWARD BLONDE about a materialistic New York girl who gets sent on an Outward Bound program after she fails gym class.
* Norma Aleandro is starring in Jorge Gaggero's debut pic CAMA ADENTRO (BEBA'S LIVE-IN), a drama he penned about a middle-upper class woman in dire money trouble.
* Kate Bosworth joins the cast of Fox Searchlight's drama BEE SEASON for directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel. Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, Laura Cross and Max Minghella also star. It's about a father who escapes the dysfunction of his family by fixating on the spelling bee prowess of his young daughter. He barely notices that his wife has come unhinged or that his teenage son is about to be lured into a cult by his new girlfriend.
* Nicole Kidman has made a pay-or-play deal to star with Will Ferrell in BEWITCHED, based on the TV series, for Columbia Pictures, Red Wagon and writer/director Nora Ephron. Shooting will start this summer.
* Ben Affleck is set to star in an adaptation of Josephine Tey's novel BRAT FARRAR for Universal Pictures and Live Planet. Jim Uhls (FIGHT CLUB) is on board to pen the script. The book was adapted into the 1963 release PARANOIAC about siblings of an old-money family fighting for the inheritance from their recently deceased father. Affleck will play the eldest brother -- thought to have died as a boy years earlier -- who surprises his family when he shows up to collect the fortune. With his position as heir threatened, his younger brother has reasons, which he can't reveal, to doubt the veracity of the claim. The Uhls script will hew closer to the novel than PARANOIAC.
* Jennifer Aniston will star in a Warner Bros. bigscreen comedy for director Ted Giffin (OCEAN'S ELEVEN, MATCHSTICK MEN screenwriter). Production begins in April with Section Eight and Paul Weinstein producing. Aniston will play a young woman who returns home to Pasadena, determined to unravel a family secret before she gets married. She learns THE GRADUATE might have been based on her kin, and that her grandmother was the inspiration for Mrs. Robinson.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* DreamWorks picked up THE ISLAND from writer Caspian Treadwell-Owen with Michael Bay attached to direct. The sci-fi thriller is being described as a cross between THE FUGITIVE and THE MATRIX. Plot details are being kept under wraps.
* Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow (CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN) will write New Line Cinema's adaptation of DC Comics' SHAZAM! It's the story of mild-mannered Billy Batson, a boy who becomes Captain Marvel, the world's mightiest mortal, when he says the magic word "Shazam!" The name is an acronym for six gods and heroes of the ancient world as well as their attributes. William Goldman was previously working on the script.
* New Line Cinema has purchased Scott Sturgeon and Marius Balchunas' romantic comedy script TAMING BEN TAYLOR with Kevin Costner attached to star. It centers on a powerful and beautiful businesswoman who tries to convince a stubborn and difficult man to sell his land to a country club.
* Dimension Films has signed writer Anya Kochoff (MONSTER-IN-LAW) to a two-picture deal. The first of the two comedy pitches is MANHATTAN BABY, about a career-driven single woman who sacrifices everything to become New York's most sought-after director of baby play groups. The second, GIRLS GONE WILD, is about a thirtysomething woman who, after a terrible breakup with her boyfriend, decides to spend her annual vacation with her two best friends somewhere unexpected.
* James Ellroy will write THE MAN WHO KEPT SECRETS, a biopic of Hollywood lawyer Sidney Korshak for producers Robert Evans and Brian Grazer. William Friedkin is on board to direct. Pic is set up at Paramount Pictures. Upon his arrival from Chicago in the 1940s until his death in the 1990s, Korshak was a Hollywood powerbroker. He was a confidant of several studio heads and negotiated corporate mergers, political deals and labor settlements behind the scenes. He was also notorious for his ability to serve as a liaison between corporate titans and underworld chieftains.
* Regency Enterprises picked up COUNTRY GIRL, written by James Raymond, for Wendy Finerman to produce. It's about a pampered teenage country music star who decides to trade in her mansion for a trailer park to get inspiration for an album. The experiment introduces her to the world of teen rivalries, friendship and romance.
* Commercial director Jaume is set to helm Dark Castle Entertainment's HOUSE OF WAX for Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures.
* Producer Clifford Werber grabbed the script SLAMMIN' from writers Aaron Metchik and Joseph Garner for female Brazilian extreme sports inline skater Fabiola da Silva to star. Pic tells the tale of a young Brazilian girl whose struggle to rise within the male-dominated world of competitive skating brings her to Venice, Calif., where she finds both love and professional success.
* John Ridley will write DreamWorks' THE UNPROFESSIONALS, an animated feature centering on three hapless monkeys who are sent out on a quest where they are expected to fail, though they ultimately succeed.
* Odd Lot Entertainment has picked up Irving Belateche's screenplay THE RECKONING to produce and finance, with A Band Apart on board to produce. Set in New Orleans, the script is a supernatural thriller about a woman who suffers visions from her childhood that foretell her daughter's doom.
* Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (AMERICAN SPLENDOR) are in talks to rewrite and direct a remake of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN for Universal Pictures and producer Brian Grazer. Their concept for the project is set in contemporary Gotham, centered on a young woman attending college. After being haunted by someone else's memories, she gradually discovers that she died and was then unnaturally brought back to life.
* Todd Alcott (ANTZ) will adapt THE GIVER, based on the 1977 children's book about an 11-year-old boy whose life is changed forever when he befriends the class outsider, a girl. Together they create the world of Terabithia, an imaginary kingdom filled with giants, trolls and other magical beings. The company has also acquired rights to Katherine Paterson's BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA as well as Australian author Wendy Orr's NIM'S ISLAND.
* Danny Boyle is attached to direct the sci-fi thriller SUNSHINE, written by Alex Garland (28 DAYS LATER), for DNA Films and Fox Searchlight. The project is said to be reminiscent of Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 pic THE WAGES OF FEAR, which followed men hired to transport an urgently needed shipment of high explosives without the equipment that would make it safe to do so.
* Thirty of Spain's best-known directors are teaming to shoot multipart feature HAY MOTIVO (THERE'S GOOD CAUSE) damning everything they dislike about Spain under Jose Maria Aznar's governing Popular Party. Pic will be released in the run-up to the March 14 general elections. Iciar Bollain, Manuel Gutierrez-Aragon, Vicente Aranda, Emilio Martinez-Aragon, Imanol Uribe, Manuel Gomez Pereira, Montxo Armendariz, Gracia Querejeta, Mariano Barroso, Julio Medem, Isabel Coixet and David Trueba are among the names signed up to contribute. Themes tackled in three-minute segs include the bombing of Iraq, the death of journalist Jose Couso under U.S. fire in Baghdad, immigration, the Prestige tanker oil spill disaster and media manipulation.
* J. Mills Goodloe and Sal Paskowitz will write VOLPONI for Disney based on the life story of famed horse trainer P.G. Johnson. Gordon Gray and Mark Ciardi (MIRACLE) will produce through their Mayhem Pictures. The project will follow the Hall of Fame trainer, who overcame obstacles to win the 2002 Breeders Cup.
* Swedish helmer Mikael Hafstrom (EVIL) is set to direct Miramax's thriller DERAILED, which Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing. The story follows a middle-class professional whose life goes incredibly and criminally awry. Stuart Beattie is adapting from the novel by James Siegel.
* Vicente Aranda (MAD LOVE, CARMEN) is directing TIRANTE EL BLANCO, a rip-roaring tale of chivalry, jousting and the Crusades, for Carolina Films. It's based on a 15th-century novel by Valencian Joanot Martorell that tells the tale of the adventures of Tirant lo Blanc, a 13th-century Breton knight who, having jousted to fame, is summoned by the Emperor of Constantinople to save the world -- in this case from Muslim invasion.
* Anthony Minghella has committed to write and direct a feature for Miramax based on British author Liz Jensen's forthcoming novel THE NINTH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX. The novel is a surreal psychological thriller about an accident-prone 9-year-old problem child lying in a deep coma and the doctor who cares for him. Project is being assembled under Miramax's production deal with Minghella and Sydney Pollack's Mirage Enterprises.
* Dimension Films will remake THE HILLS HAVE EYES with Alexandre Aja directing and Wes Craven producing. Aja will co-write the script with Gregory Levasseur. Original film centered on a hapless family that makes a detour to a desolated desert to visit a silver mine they've inherited. There they are preyed upon by a disturbing clan.
* Columbia Pictures picked up John Pogue's script DELILAH for John Baldecchi to produce. The script takes its name from a Class Five hurricane that creates more than the usual mayhem as prisoners riot when they are being ferried to safety. A small-town deputy finds himself confronting the worst in human nature and mother nature by going up against hostage-holding hardened cons.
* Emily Fox will script MGM's DAUGHTER OF THE BRIDE, which Goldie Hawn will topline and produce through her Cosmic Entertainment shingle. The comedy is an adaptation of the Washington Post article "Bride and Joy: Guiding Mom Down the Aisle," written by Francesca Segre.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Production on CINDERELLA MAN has been pushed back one month to an April start after Crowe suffered an injury to his shoulder while training in a boxing ring in Sydney.
* Emmett/Furla Films has acquired Ellen Conford's young adult novel GENIE WITH THE LIGHT BLUE HAIR about a high school freshman who gains access to a magical genie. Any wish can be granted, but she finds herself transformed from the inside out.
* Dale Rosenbloom's Utopia Pictures & Television has acquired six novels, including three by sci-fi author Philip K. Dick. The Dick-authored novels are FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID, VALIS and RADIO FREE ALBEMUTH. Utopia also purchased Irving Wallace's THE SECOND LADY, Paul Fenimore Cooper's children's book, TAL: HIS MARVELOUS ADVENTURES WITH NOOM-ZOR-NOOM and Roderick Townley's THE GREAT GOOD THING.
* Stratus Film Co., Bob Yari Prods. and producer Yasmine Golchan are developing THE PAINTED VEIL with Edward Norton set to star and produce. Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham and adapted by Ron Nyswaner (PHILADELPHIA), the 1920s-set love story concerns a young English couple who marry hastily; move to Hong Kong, where they betray each other easily; and find one unexpected chance at redemption on a journey to China.
* Producer Paul L. Sandberg has optioned Patrick Foss' THE BANG DEVILS about two young Americans -- nightclub bouncer Chris and hostess-turned-call girl Jessica -- living in Japan who find that being "exotic" Westerners gets them everything they desire. The two team up with Jessica's boyfriend to kidnap one of Jessica's clients and hold him for ransom. The plan falls apart when it turns out the client is a high-ranking yakuza whose fellow gangsters aren't in the mood to cooperate.
* The fourth INDIANA JONES movies has been put on hold as a new script draft is commissioned. Frank Darabont had been brought in to script a concept the trio liked, but sources close to the production said Lucas was unhappy with the draft. Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford will now bring aboard another screenwriter to hone Darabont's script.
* Director Gavin O'Connor (MIRACLE) and his producing partner, brother Greg O'Connor, will produce a film based on the memoir I CHOOSE TO STAY: A BLACK TEACHER REFUSES TO DESERT THE INNER CITY for Disney. The book was written by Philadelphia-based educator Salome Thomas-EL. A gifted child raised in the Philadelphia projects, he earned an Ivy League education but returned to the inner city to become an elementary school principal. There, he revived the troubled school's long-dormant chess club and helped the team go all the way to the national championships.
* Corbin Bernsen has set up the family comedy 3 DAY TEST, featuring 13 soap opera stars including his mother, Jeanne Cooper, as the debut feature from his Public Filmworks shingle. Bernsen, who also scripted, has tapped Kin Shriner to star in the movie about an accountant who unravels three days before Christmas and decides to put his family through a survival test.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Police spoof THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA screened at the NuArt in West LA this weekend. It's getting good buzz and made one reviewer say: "These kind of films should never be shown to Americans--because you have killed a multi billion dollar industry with a $60,000 feature." Check out the film's website on Sony's site: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thelostskeletonofcadavra/
* One of the four grand-prize winners from the the 2003 Script P.I.M.P. Screenwriting Competition, SLAMMIN', written by Aaron Metchik and Joseph Garner, was purchased for six figures by Warner Brothers Pictures. Clifford Werber will produce, and Brazilian extreme sport skater Fabiola da Silva will star. SLAMMIN' has been greenlit and production is slated for Summer 2005.
* Word in London is the producers of SEMPER OCCULTUS are in talks to have Jet Li accompany Jason Statham in the project. Statham's real life girlfriend, actress Kelly Brook, may be up for the female lead, though Rachel Weisz, Charlize Theron and Kate Beckinsale are rumored to be listed.
* For more info on Ramzi Abed's BLACK DAHLIA project including cast, crew, composers and more, visit http://www.blackdahliamovie.com
* Lots of activitiy involving the Sonnyboo short films. Find out the details at http://www.sonnyboo.com
* 88mph Studios is publishing GHOSTBUSTERS comic books this year coinciding with the film's 20th anniversary. See the cover art and more at http://www.88mphstudios.com
* Film Threat interviews Mark Hosack (PALE BLUE MOON) at http://www.filmthreat.com/Interviews.asp?Id=772.
