Here's the latest weekly update on the film industry from Elston Gunn out in Hollywoodland. Yeah, ol' Fathergeek here in Austin, Texas reporting in with the newest edition of our regular weekly column for those of you who may have missed out on some of the past work week's tasty Tinseltown tidbits. Sooo here you go, another batch of confirmed thumbnail news bits, and...

THE WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Shia LaBeouf is in talks to star in THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED for Disney and director Bill Paxton. Mark Frost adapted from his book about the true story of the legendary 1913 U.S. Open, in which Frances Ouimet, a 20-year-old golf amateur from Massachusetts, shocked the genteel golf world by defeating British champion Harry Vardon, the most famous pro golfer of his time and the inventor of what today is still considered the modern grip and swing. LaBeouf would play Ouimet. Shooting begins this summer.

* Julie Ann Emery ("Taken"), Amber Valletta (DUPLEX), Robinne Lee (DELIVER US FROM EVA) and Jeffrey Donovan ("Touching Evil") have joined the cast of LAST FIRST KISS, starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes, for director Andy Tennant.

* Paul Walker is in negotiations to star in RUNNING SCARED for writer/director Wayne Kramer (THE COOLER), Media 8 and True Grit Prods. The story revolves around a criminal with a secret identity who is desperately trying to get back his gun, which was used in a shooting spree.

* Hannah Spearritt (AGENT CODY BANKS 2) has been added to the cast of SEED OF CHUCKY for Focus Features and writer/director Don Mancini.

* Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine are in talks to play the mother and father of Nicold Kidman's Samantha in BEWITCHED, based on the 1960s TV show, at Columbia Pictures. Will Ferrell also stars. Red Wagon will produce from a script by Nora and Delia Ephron.

* Jay Mohr and Kellita Smith are set to star opposite Anthony Anderson in KING'S RANSOM for New Line and director Jeff Byrd.

* Ed Harris, Billy Crudup and Woody Harrelson are set to star in the firefighting ensemble movie 3000 DEGREES for director Danny Boyle, Imagine and Warner Bros. The drama is an adaptation of Sean Flynn's book that details a tragic fire that turned a century-old storage building in Worcester, Mass., into a cinderbox that claimed the lives of six firefighters in December 1999. Scott Silver wrote the screenplay. Shooting begins in May.

* Rachael Harris and Laura Kightlinger will play lesbian soccer moms opposite Will Ferrell and Robert Duvall in Universal's KICKING & SCREAMING.

* Bradley Cooper and Keir O'Donnell join Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson and Christopher Walken in New Line's WEDDING CRASHERS for director David Dobkin.

* Isaach De Bankole will star opposite Bryce Dallas Howard in Lars von Trier's second installment of his DOGVILLE trilogy, MANDERLAY.

* Glynn Turman will star in SAHARA for director Breck Eisner and Paramount Pictures. Turman will play one of the head doctors for the World Health Organization and a mentor to the heroine who is trying to control a deadly plague.

* Scarlett Johansson, Alec Baldwin and Jeffrey Tambor will lend their voices to THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE for Nickelodeon Movies/Paramount. Creator Stephen Hillenburg is directing the project. The story centers on the irrepressible SpongeBob's efforts to retrieve King Neptune's stolen crown.

* Joy Bryant (ANTWONE FISHER) joins Kate Hudson and Peter Sarsgaard in SKELETON KEY for Universal Pictures. Shooting is scheduled to start next month with Iain Softley at the helm. Written 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.

* Claire Forlani, Marc Warren, Leo Gregory and Terence Jay have signed to join Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam in Odd Lot Entertainment's HOOLIGANS for director Lexi Alexander. The film centers on a Harvard undergraduate who moves to London after he is wrongfully expelled from the Ivy League school. Once there, he meets up with a young man who introduces him to the violent underworld of soccer hooliganism.

* Jeff Bridges will star in the indie feature THE MOGULS for writer/director Michael Traeger, Qwerty Films and Raygun Prods. The comedy revolves around a small town that bands together to make a porno film. Bridges plays a guy dealing with a midlife crisis who hatches the porno scheme.

* Mena Suvari is joining the cast of MGM's BARBERSHOP spinoff BEAUTY SHOP alongside Djimon Hounsou, Alicia Silverstone and Queen Latifah. Bille Woodruff (HONEY) directs.

* Rutger Hauer and Tom Wilkinson have taken supporting roles in BATMAN BEGINS. Hauer's character is a friend of Batman's father who turns on him and attempts to take over Wayne Industries. Wilkinson will play the mob boss of Gotham City.

* Will Ferrell is in negotiations to play Franz Liebkind in the film of the musical THE PRODUCERS for director Susan Stroman. Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Roger Bart, Gary Beach and Nicole Kidman.

* Johnny Knoxville, America Ferrera (REAL WOMEN HAVE CURES), Pablo Schreiber ("The Wire") and Elden Henson have joined the cast of LORDS OF DOGTOWN. Heath Ledger, Victor Rasuk, Emile Hirsch, John Robinson, Michael Angarano and Nikki Reed also star for director Catherine Hardwicke.

* Oliver Platt joins John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton and Connie Nielsen in THE ICE HARVEST for Focus Features and director Harold Ramis.

* Luke Goss has been cast as the villain opposite Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy in THE MAN for New Line Cinema and director Les Mayfield. The comedy sees bumbling salesman Levy stumble into an ATF sting. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent realizes he needs to take on the mild-mannered milquetoast as his ersatz partner in order to bring down the drug lord.

* Kyla Pratt has been cast as the female lead, opposite Kenan Thompson, in FAT ALBERT for director Joel Zwick.

* David Beckham is in talks to join the cast of MGM's THE PINK PANTHER in a cameo role.

* Holly Hunter, James Woods, Giovanni Ribisi, Alison Lohman and Tim Blake Nelson have joined Robin Williams in the dark comedy THE BIG WHITE for director Mark Mylod (ALI G INDAHOUSE) and Ascendant Pictures. It's about an Alaskan travel agent who finds a frozen body in a dumpster and tries to pass it off as his long-lost brother for a life insurance claim, in the hope of using the money to treat his wife's Tourette's Syndrome. Collin Friesen scripted.

* South Korea's Jang Dong-gun (TAEGUKGI) is starring in Chinese director Chen Kaige's epic THE PROMISE. Hiroyuki Sanada (LAST SAMURAI) and Cecilia Cheung also star. The action fantasy is set in the past and explores a love triangle between a general, a princess and a slave. Shooting began March 15 in Beijing and will continue through September in China.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Twentieth Century Fox picked up the script JOHN TUCKER by Jeff Lowell for Landscape Entertainment to produce. It's described as a high school take on THE FIRST WIVES CLUB, centering on a group of girls who band together to seek revenge on the school's resident stud, who has broken their hearts.

* Gurinder Chadha will direct SASSY GIRL for DreamWorks and Maverick Films. The remake of the Korean romantic comedy is based on a real-life anonymous diary that follows the lives of two college students brought together by fate. A naive boy becomes involved with a beautiful, sassy girl who manages to wrap him around her finger as he helps her through hard times.

* Jeff Renfroe and Marteinn Thorsson (ONE POINT O) will direct a feature adaptation of Bill Sienkiewicz's graphic novel STRAY TOASTERS, which special effects/production company the Orphanage is set to produce. Penned by Sienkiewicz, Renfroe and Thorsson, story is a futuristic noir thriller about a mentally unstable detective who is investigating a series of bizarre murders of housewives and their young children. His quest takes him deep into the decaying metropolis where he begins to suspect that the killer might not be human.

* Mark Rydell is set to helm JUMPSHOT, written by Robert Tannen, for Stratus Film Co. It's about the effects of sports betting and gambling on several characters' lives.

* Norwegian director Petter Naess (upcoming MOZART AND THE WHALE) will direct the last pic in the ELLING trilogy for Maipo Film & TV Produksjon. Per Christian Ellefsen will reprise his role as the mentally challenged Elling in LOVE ME TOMORROW. Ase Vikene's script comes from Ingvar Ambjornsen's novel, which follows Elling after he moves into sheltered housing.

* David Cronenberg is attached to direct LONDON FIELDS, based on the 1991 Martin Amis novel of the same name. Robert Hanley wrote the adapation which follows a promiscuous psychic troubled by disturbing premonitions that are all the more unnerving for never being wrong. The story is set in and around a seedy London pub, where the psychic has come to meet the end her dreams have foretold: to be murdered by one of two men she meets there.

* Walt Becker (VAN WILDER) will direct CRASH AND BURN for Fox Searchlight Pictures. Comedy concerns an interstate road race in which college students drive old-school muscle cars.

* Crossroads Films has optioned the dark comedy script ACTS OF CHARITY, penned by Chips Hardy, with Alex Winter attached to direct. The project follows the trials and tribulations of a young corporate executive sent on a humanitarian mission in the African jungle. Alan Rickman is attached to play the role of a British ex-pat journalist.

* Revolution Studios bought the script WILL from writer Josh A. Cagan for Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas to produce. The story concerns an outcast and how he finds his way among a high school's cliques and bullies.

* Harry Basil will direct Burt Reynolds in CLOUD NINE for producer Al Ruddy about a has-been coach who launches a women's volleyball team with a difference: It's for strippers.

* Roman Polanski will direct OLIVER TWIST, based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, from a screenplay by Ronald Harwood (THE PIANIST). Shooting is scheduled to begin in the Czech Republic by midyear.

* Maverick Films picked up two scripts by Will Aldis, KEEP COMING BACK and THE TINY PROBLEMS OF WHITE PEOPLE. The first is about a clean-cut Southerner who joins Alcoholics Anonymous to woo a woman. The second is a comedy about a grieving former sportswriter haunted by the ghost of a man who claims to have written the works of Shakespeare.

* Michael Winterbottom will direct Diego Luna and Stellan Skarsgard in GOAL!, the first film in a trilogy about the rise of a Latino soccer star. Principal photography will start in April.

* Producers Mike Macari and Neal Edelstein have optioned Andrew Klavan's (DON'T SAY A WORD, TRUE CRIME) new, untitled horror script which revolves around a widow and her daughter, who is haunted by her dead father.

* Frank Darabont will write MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3 for Cruise/Wagner Prods. and Paramount Pictures, replacing Robert Towne who is focusing on his project ASK THE DUST.

* MGM grabbed the drama script UNLEASHING THE MULES, written by Christopher Parker, based on blind grappler Deke Edwards, who became a two-time state wrestling champ in Missouri despite his disability.

* Tony Goldwyn will direct an untitled thriller for Paramount Pictures and his brother, producer John Goldwyn, from a script by Ilene Chaiken ("The L Word"). The film will center around two men from opposite ends of the economic strata who find themselves fighting side by side during the invasion of Iraq. When the rich one dies, the poor one assumes his identity.

* Gregg Chabot and Kevin Peterka (REIGN OF FIRE) will adapt THE MARK for Nickelodeon Movies and Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. Smith will star as an everyman who discovers a strange mark has transferred to his body from the corpse of a Confederate soldier. Although the mark grants him special powers, he also struggles with the impulse to use it for evil purposes.

* Todd Field will direct an adaptation of Tom Perrotta's (ELECTION) new book LITTLE CHILDREN for producer Scott Rudin and Bona Fide Prods. It's about a suburban town full of perfect parents who are fully devoted to rearing their children for Harvard futures and keeping them safe from predators. The adults escape the excruciating bore-fests their lives have become via Internet porn and extramarital affairs. The tale concentrates on the affair between one stay-at-home mom with an ex-jock stay-at-home dad who rebels against his wife's wishes that he become a big-bucks lawyer.

* Oren Moverman (JESUS' SON) has written an adaptation of Donald Goines' (NEVER DIE ALONE) novel DADDY COOL for ContentFilm to finance and produce. It follows a hit man whose family life is torn apart after his teenage daughter runs away. When the assassin tries to rescue her, a tragic series of circumstances unfolds. Ernest Dickerson (NEVER DIE ALONE) is said to be circling the project with DMX considering a supporting role.

* Rod Hardy will direct DECEMBER BOYS, based on the novel by Michael Noonan, about about four young orphans in the 1960s who long for a home and a family. Richard Becker will produce.

* Playtone Prods. has optioned spec script MAYNARD DILS...LAST MAN ON EARTH from writer Mark Blutman ("Boy Meets World"). It follows a nerdy guy who receives the blessing and curse of suddenly being irresistible to every woman on the planet.

* Sylvain Chomet (THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE) will direct his next animated feature for Dimension Films. The project is one of two being produced through the filmmaker's Studio Django. The untitled project will be directed, written and produced by Chomet. Apart from the Dimension pic, Chomet also is preparing BARBACOA, a feature set during the 1871 Paris Commune, which tells the story of a Parisian vet struggling to protect a monkey from starving children gone feral after the siege of the city by Prussian troops.

* Phil Joanou is near a deal with DreamWorks to direct HAMMER DOWN, which begins production this summer. It's about a disgraced NASCAR driver who becomes a wheel man in a heist in the belief that it will get him back on the track.

* Writer/director Richard Kelly (DONNIE DARKO) has scripted and will helm the comedy-musical thriller SOUTHLAND TALES "Southland Tales" for Cherry Road Films and Darko Entertainment. The project takes place in 2008 during a three-day Los Angeles heat wave leading up to a massive July 4 holiday celebration. Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Lee, Janeane Garofalo, Tim Blake Nelson, Amy Poehler, Kevin Smith and Ali Larter are in talks to take roles in the film, set to begin shooting in July. The filmmakers are in discussions with Moby to contribute new music to the pic.

* Producer Tucker Tooley has picked up Sheldon Turner's police drama BY VIRTUE FALL, which the writer will direct. Benderspink will co-produce. The script centers on two ATF agents. When one is framed for the corrupt acts of the other, he ends up in prison and becomes a decidedly different man. Upon release from prison, he seeks revenge on those who have wronged him.

* Peter Tolan and Mike Martineau are set to script a new screen version of the musical DAMN YANKEES for Miramax and producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. The musical was about a Washington Senators fan who sold his soul to the devil to become a star player and help his team beat the Yankees to win the pennant.

* Dave Callaham has been set to write an untitled thriller revolving around the international space station for Adam Herz's Terra Firma Films.

* Emmett/Furla Films and Valhalla Motion Pictures have acquired feature rights to Rachel Cohn's novel POP PRINCESS. It's the story of a small-town teen who gets a chance to pursue her dream of becoming a pop star.

* Twenty or more directors including Sergio Cabrera, Jaime Chavarri, Gonzalo Tapia, Daniel Quinones, Vicente Mora, Jorge Iglesias, and Manuel Martin Cuenca will contribute to the documentary project MADRID 11-M: TODOS IBAMOS EN ESE TREN, responding to the weeks-old tragedy of the Madrid commuter train bombings which left 202 people dead.

* Dave Kajganich has been hired to write the remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS for Warner Bros. and Vertigo Entertainment. Kajganich is also penning an update of the 1979 ghost tale THE CHANGELING for Focus Features and Kustom Entertainment.

* P.J. Hogan (PETER PAN) will direct LET'S MAKE FRIENDS for Paramount about a man in his 30s whose life is perfect, except for lacking a best friend. His quest leads him to a water deliveryman, who promptly turns the lead character's life upside down and imperils his relationship with his wife. Steven Wayne Koren (BRUCE ALMIGHTY) is writing the script.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Producers of 20th Century Fox's WALK THE LINE, an upcoming movie on the life of Johnny Cash, say production may begin in June. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon star.

* Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz's Bedford Falls shingle has inked a two-year first-look production deal with Warner Bros. The company is developing the psychological thriller PREMONITION, written by Jon Glascoe, and a biopic based on the life of Chicago artist Henry Darger.

* Producer David Permut is developing THE LOVE BOAT, based on the hit TV series, for Paramount. Creator Aaron Spelling will executive produce.

* Focus Features and producers David Heyman, Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh are working on a screen adaptation of author Carolyn Parkhurst's novel THE DOGS OF BABEL. The book centers on a linguistics professor whose wife dies after falling from a tree. The man becomes obsessed with teaching their dog to speak in order to learn whether the death was an accident or suicide.

* Twentieth Century Fox and Regency Enterprises have acquired Pete and Paul Williams' pitch WULF for John Davis to produce.

* Alfonso and Carlos Cuaron (Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN) are getting together a slate of projects under the Anhelo banner that Alfonso Cuaron founded with producer Jorge Vergara. His next project, MEXICO '68, will take on the bloody student revolt of 1968 in Mexico. Vicente Lenero (THE CRIME OF THE FATHER) is penning the script. Carlos Cuaron is writing his directorial debut, the soccer drama TOTO, as well as JUEGO DE AJEDREZ. Sabrina Berman is working on LAS MUJERES DE JUAREZ, based on the unsolved killings of women in the border town of Juarez. Other Anhelo projects in development include TOKYO BOOGIE and Salma Hayek's THE MAN ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET.

* Focus Features has created Rogue Pictures, a label devoted to upscale action, thriller and urban fare with franchise potential. The company's slate includes SEED OF CHUCKY, an untitled Jet Li vehicle produced by Luc Besson, Jean-Francois Richet's remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, murder mystery THE HORSEMEN, a remake of THE CHANGELING and thriller REVOLVER.

* Sony will release SPIDER-MAN 2 on June 30, two days earlier than originally planned, in a move aiming to maximize box office bang over the Independence Day holiday.

GUNN SHOTS

(NOT from the trades)

* After sold-out screenings at the Slamdance, Florida and SXSW Film Festivals, the Austin-made feature film Dear Pillow will screen at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles on April 15th and at the Gen Art Film Festival in New York City on April 18th. Visit http://www.dearpillow.com for more info.

* The 2004 Central Jersey Student Film Festival is accepting entries. Go to http://www.centraljerseyfilmfestival.com for application and information.

* Chance Shirley and Crewless Productions have a trailer up for their latest film shooting in Alabama. See it at http://www.crewless.com/hideandcreep/trailer.php

* Women's Image Network is announcing their WinFemme film festival dates this year. Go to Go to http://www.winfemme.com for more.

* Central Park Media and Sputnik7 combine efforts to bring director Ryosuke Takahashi's ARMORED TROOPER VOTOMS to the internet. Fans can log on to http://www.sputnik7.com on Wednesday, April 7 to watch the first episode of the series.

* CORRECTION FROM AN EARLIER RECAP: Filming for THE PACIFIER and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 are taking place in Toronto, not Vancouver as mentioned before.

Until next week... Have a safe April Fool's Day.

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com