Father Geek here with all the news worth a hoot from last week out in ol' tinseltown, yep Elston's back again with his regular weekly report on all the confirmed scoops from Hollywoodland, and Father Geek's posting it up for you right here, just like every week, soooo grab a mug of steam'n joe and dig in to...
Elston Gunn's WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Justin Timberlake will star opposite Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and LL Cool J in EDISON for Millennium Films, Emmett/Furla and writer/director David Burke ("Law & Order: SVU"). Timberlake will play a young journo who uncovers an elite unit of corrupt cops. Realizing he's over his head, he makes an uneasy alliance with a burned-out reporter and the D.A.'s ace investigator. Production begins March 8 in Vancouver.
* Jude Law is set to star in Paramount's DEXTERITY, an adaptation of the Douglas Bauer novel which tells the story of a young couple set against the fortunes of a factory town in upstate New York after the husband is laid off. Karen Croner is writing the screenplay.
* Donald Faison and Loretta Devine have been cast opposite Anthony Anderson in KING'S RANSOM for New Line Cinema. The comedy is being directed by Jeff Byrd from a Wayne Conley script and is being produced by Alter Ego Pictures. It's about a rich, cocky and despised businessman who realizes that he might lose half his wealth to the obnoxious wife he's trying to divorce. He decides to arrange his own kidnapping in order to wipe himself out and claim poverty, but he discovers that several other parties have plans to kidnap and ransom him as well.
* Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne will star in the remake of the 1975 John Carpenter film ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 for Focus Features and French filmmaker Jean-Francois Richet. The new version was written by James DeMonaco
* Woody Harrelson is set to star in JACK TUCKER, TRUCKER, a screwball comedy written and to be directed by BAD SANTA scribes John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. GreeneStreet is producing.
* Catherine Zeta-Jones is joining the OCEAN'S TWELVE ensemble for director Steven Soderbergh, Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures. George Nolfi wrote the project that reunites the original cast of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle in another crime caper, this time with an international flavor. Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Vincent Cassel, Elliott Gould, Eddie Jemison and Carl Reiner also return for a story set in Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Monte Carlo, Italy's Lake Como, Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Zeta-Jones will play a Europol agent and potential love interest to Pitt's character.
* Selma Blair, Clark Gregg, Philip Baker Hall and David Paymer have signed on to appear in the Weitz brothers' SYNERGY with Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid and Scarlett Johansson for Universal Pictures.
* Dominique Swain has joined Thora Birch, Jena Malone, Marla Sokoloff and Anna Faris in Richard Zelniker's indie rock 'n' roll drama VINYL. It's about a group of women behind a male rock 'n' roll band that is on the verge of breakout success.
* Frances O'Connor and David Wenham will star in THREE DOLLARS for director Robert Connolly (THE BANK) based on the novel by Elliot Perlman. She will play the wife of a 38-year-old man who finds himself with just $3 to his name and a family to support. Sarah Wynter also is cast.
* Richard Roxburgh (MOULIN ROUGE) has joined the cast of the Sony feature STEALTH, starring Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx, with Rob Cohen directing.
* Radha Mitchell will star alongside Josh Hartnett in MOZART AND THE WHALE, a Ron Bass-scripted love story directed by Petter Naess (ELLING). Millennium Films will finance the film independently. It's based on the story of a young couple who have Asperger's syndrome, a kind of autism.
* Connie Britton ("Spin City") will join Billy Bob Thornton, Tim McGraw, Derek Luke and Lucas Black in the high school football pic FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, based on the H.G. Bissinger book, for director Peter Berg, Imagine Entertainment/Universal.
* Kat Dennings ("Raising Dad") is set to join Hilary Duff in New Line's HEART OF SUMMER.
* Liam Neeson is in final talks to star opposite Christian Bale in Warner Bros. Pictures' upcoming Batman movie being directed by Christopher Nolan and produced by Emma Thomas. Michael Caine, Katie Holmes and Cillian Murphy also star.
* Queen Latifah will star in and produce TRUCK TURNER for MGM, which Chris Frisina will script. The original 1974 film, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, found Isaac Hayes in the title role starring as a bounty hunter hired to kill a man named Gator. Once the job is done, Gator's girlfriend puts a hit out on Truck, who is then forced to elude the hit and escape the nasty gang.
* Pierce Brosnan and his Irish DreamTime production shingle have reupped with MGM. Upcoming projects as part of the deal include the actioner MEXICALI and THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR 2. Brosnan is also expected to return for a fifth outing as James Bond in the 21st pic in MGM's franchise.
* Nicolas Cage and Monica Bellucci are set to team with writer/-director Andrew Niccol (GATTACA, SIMONE) in LORD OF WAR, a drama about a ruthless global arms dealer who is trying to stay a step ahead of a relentless Interpol agent.
* Dan Aykroyd has joined the cast of Revolution Studios' comedy SKIPPING CHRISTMAS, based on the John Grisham bestseller adapted by Chris Columbus, which Joe Roth (AMERCIA'S SWEETHEARTS) will direct. Tim Allen plays Luther Krank, who decides to skip Christmas and its trappings and go on a vacation with his wife instead. When his daughter decides at the last minute to come home for the holiday, Krank is forced to put Christmas back together. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the wife. Aykroyd will play Vic Frohmeyer, the Kranks' busybody neighbor who organizes the street's holiday decorations every year and is outraged when he learns of Luther's plan to skip Christmas. Production on the pic starts in April.
* Rachel Weisz will star opposite Ralph Fiennes in THE CONSTANT GARDENER, an adaptation of the John le Carre novel for Focus Features. Fernando Meirelles (CITY OF GOD) directs, with shooting to begin in May. Weisz will play the feisty wife to Fiennes' complacent British diplomat. While he seems most interested in tending his garden in Nairobi, she uses her law degree to expose a scandal in which a drug company is testing a dangerous tuberculosis remedy on a group of poor Africans. When her battered body is discovered in the jungle, her husband is driven to discover her killer and uncover possible collusion between politicians and a pharmaceutical giant.
* Heath Ledger, Emile Hirsch, John Robinson and Victor Rasuk are heading up the cast of THE LORDS OF DOGTOWN, the Columbia skateboard pic to be directed by Catherine Hardwicke (THIRTEEN). John Linson is producing. David Fincher, Art Linson and Joe Drake are exec producing. Production begins in April. The project is a fictionalized version of the documentary DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS, directed by Stacy Peralta. Peralta wrote with revisions by Hardwicke.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Gary Ross has made a deal at Universal to write, direct and produce an untitled drama about the public and private worlds of a high school boy. Ross, who'll also produce through his Larger Than Life banner, expects to be shooting by fall.
* Peter Hewitt (GARFIELD) will direct THE GREAT HARTFORD ELEMENTARY HEIST for Universal Pictures and Playtone Prods. The project is a family caper pic about a group of 11-year-olds who band together to retrieve possessions wrongfully confiscated by their evil school principal.
* Kevin and Dan Hagerman (upcoming CHARLIE DILLS) will write the new version of the Dutch family pic SCIENCE FICTION for Columbia Pictures and producer Lauren Shuler Donner. The original 2002 movie is the story of a boy who arrives in a new neighborhood and makes friends with the local kids by convincing them that his odd parents are actually aliens.
* Brian Dannelly and Michael Urban (upcoming SAVED!) are re-teaming with Michael Stipe and Sandy Stern's Single Cell Pictures for RUNNER-UP, a comedy about a beauty pageant contestant who serves community service by organizing a beauty pageant at a woman's prison. Dannelly and Urban wrote the script; Dannelly will direct. Production is set to begin in the spring.
* Warner Bros. has set scribes Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty (X-MEN 2) will adapt the Orson Scott Card books ENDER'S GAME and ENDER'S SHADOW into a film to be directed by Wolfgang Petersen. The Hugo Award-winning book series begins on Earth after an alien attack. Gifted children are recruited for war, with a prodigy leading the assault against aliens. Petersen, however, has not locked his next movie. He's still interested in BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN or SHUTTER ISLAND, based on the book by Dennis Lehane (MYSTIC RIVER).
* Disney is in final talks to acquire the romantic comedy pitch BRIDEZILLA from writers Chris Pappas and Mike Brunier for Firm Films to produce. The romantic comedy centers on a recently engaged couple that gets consumed by the wedding culture. The pressures of creating the perfect day unexpectedly test their commitment to each other.
* Dutch-based Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad (RANA'S WEDDING) is directing PARADISE NOW, which he co-wrote with Augustus Film's Bero Beyer. It's a drama about two young Palestinian friends who are chosen for suicide bombing missions. Production starts in April in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
* Buena Vista Intl. will co-produce and distribute Daniel Filho's A DONA DA HISTORIA (THE STORY OWNER). Pic is based on the play by Joao Falcao, who scripted the film. It is the story of a woman in her 50s who meets a younger version of herself and reshapes her destiny.
* Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio's (MEET THE FOCKERS) script SMOTHERS, a comedy about a mother who leaves her husband after 30 years of marriage and shows up on the doorstep of her newlywed son, will be produced by Jay Roach.
* Nat Mauldin (DR. DOLITTLE) will write TOP DOG, a film about a reluctant member of an elite canine squad that distinguishes itself in a hostile combat situation, for Mission Entertainment and producer Robert Lawrence. The dogs in the film will talk.
* Roland Emmerich has made a deal to make THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR, based on Peter Landesman's Jan. 25 New York Times Magazine cover story about sex slaves, for Centropolis Entertainment and Dresden Drive Prods. Emmerich is working up a story with Landesman and Rosilyn Heller, eyeing a three-character storyline. One will center on a Ukrainian girl promised a better life in America and coerced to become a sex slave. Another will revolve around a young Mexican girl kidnapped and pressed into prostitution. The third concerns her brother, who joins forces with a cop who discovers he is the father of a young daughter who also has been kidnapped and is likely a sex slave. Landesman reported that huge numbers of children and teens from Eastern European and Latin America are being sold into sexual slavery and shipped all over the world, citing one organization's report that there are between 30,000 and 50,000 sex slaves in the U.S.
* David Cronenberg is set to direct A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE at New Line Cinema, the first book in the Paradox Graphic Mystery line of books published by Paradox Press/DC Comics. Plot of the graphic novel follows an ordinary family's life after the father receives unwanted national attention for a seemingly vigilante self-defense killing at his diner and his previously unknown past is dredged up. Novel was penned by John Wagner, script was written by Josh Olson.
* Gurinder Chadha (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM) is in talks to helm I DREAM OF JEANNIE, based on the 1960s NBC show, for Out of the Blue Entertainment. Timing on the film isn't clear because unlike Jeannie, Chadha will be serving two masters. She is also developing "Tucker Ames," a Fox 2000 comedy. Cormac and Marianne Wibberley penned the screenplay.
* Martin Scorsese is in negotiations to make INFERNAL AFFAIRS, based on the trilogy of Chinese-language gangster pics, for Warner Bros. Scorsese will produce with Brad Grey, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt's Plan B shingle. Pitt is reportedly considering a starring role. William Monahan (upcoming KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, TRIPOLI) is writing the script.
* David Dobkin (SHANGHAI KNIGHTS) will direct THE WEDDING CRASHERS at New Line Cinema, starring Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Christopher Walken and Rachel McAdams. Tapestry Films will produce.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Columbia Pictures has purchased the rights to a New York Times piece by Neil Strauss, along with the option to the forthcoming book based on the article about his experience as an A.F.C. (average frustrated chump) under the tutelage of professional P.U.A.s (pickup artists) in the "seduction industry." Lessons learned included how to steal a famous actor's hot, blonde girlfriend and the art of the "neg" -- "neither a compliment nor an insult, a neg holds two purposes: to momentarily lower a woman's self-esteem and to suggest an intriguing disinterest."
* Paramount Pictures has reached a deal with Killer Films and Wells Prods. to produce writer/director Todd Haynes' film about the life of Bob Dylan. Haynes is currently scripting the project, tentatively titled I'M NOT THERE: SUPPOSITIONS ON A FILM CONCERNING DYLAN. Dylan has licensed music rights to the production.
* Producer Lauren Moews (CABIN FEVER) has acquired DEATH ANGEL'S SHADOW, three short fantasy stories by Karl Edward Wagner that feature the immortal antihero Kane. First film to be produced from the collection will be REFLECTIONS FOR THE WINTER OF MY SOUL. Other stories are COLD LIGHT and MIRAGE.
* Matt Groening and James L. Brooks are leading a team of writers in actively developing THE SIMPSONS, an animated bigscreen feature based on the long-running Fox hit. Active work on a concept for the pic began a few months ago, after 20th Century Fox's film division made deals with key writers.
* Crossroads Films is planning to turn Laurie Kahn-Leavitt's documentary TUPPERWARE! into a narrative feature film. The project will follow the rise of reclusive inventor Earl Tupper's plastic bowls to cultural icon status more than 40 years ago, thanks to the marketing skills of a savvy single mother, Brownie Wise. The duo's unlikely partnership not only changed the way Americans stored food, but created the phenomenon of thousands of women making money by selling products from their living rooms.
* Sam Mendes' production company Scamp is developing a slate of projects, four with which DreamWorks is involved. The slate includes Scamp/Wonderful co-prod THE KITE RUNNER, set in Afghanistan, about the bond that develops between a privileged youth and the son of his father's servant, around a unifying love of kite flying. Brit TV scribe Paul Abbott was bought in to work on the script. Other pics in development include John Logan's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage musical SWEENEY TODD; the Tim Firth penned TOM FOOL, a period thriller about the escapades of a 17th-century court jester; and LIFESTORY, a production for BBC Films based on William Nicholson's docudrama about the race to identify the structure of DNA.
* Fox will produce a hybrid live-action/animated feature film based on the line of Bratz fashion dolls
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Free downloadable MP3?s from an upcoming rock n? roll film. A flash animation teaser trailer for an upcoming graphic novel. Beautiful comic book art. Exciting articles and interviews. On February 11, they?re all premiering on the website of red-hot entertainment company DPG Visions (http://www.dpgvisions.com).
* For more info about American Accolades 5th Annual Screenwriting Competition visit http://www.americanaccolades.com/
* Take a writing vacation and concentrate on your publishing dream at the Mountain High Writer's Conference in Denver, Colorado. From May 6- 8, 2004, they will help you sharpen your writing skills and learn about publishing and bookselling from the industry's most successful professionals. Visit http://www.digi-tall-news-media.com for details.
