Harry here to introduce another of Elston Gunn's fantastic assemblies of knowledge. Take a look and let's start discussing....
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Fran Drescher joins PICKING UP THE PIECES with Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and David Schwimmer.
* Burt Reynolds and Richard Dreyfuss will star in THE CREW, a mafia comedy written by Barry Fanaro (KINGPIN). Michael Dinner (HEAVEN HELP US) directs the pic which starts shooting July in Miami. Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Josephson will produce.
* John Turturro will play the lead in TWO THOUSAND AND NONE for director Arto Paragamian (BECAUSE WHY). He'll play a paleontologist who has six weeks to live.
* Christine Baranski, Bill Irwin and Mindy Sterling join HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS for Universal and director Ron Howard.
* Omar Epps (THE MOD SQUAD) is in talks to star in LOVE AND BASKETBALL for New Line and director Gina Prince-Bythewood. Shooting begins in June. The film takes place over the four quarters of a game.
* Adam Goldberg (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) will play poet Allen Ginsburg in BEAT for director Gary Walkow.
* Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr. are in talks to star in Fox 2000's NAVY DIVERS for director George Tillman (SOUL FOOD) based on the true life story of Carl Brashear who made U.S. military history by being the 1st African American deep sea diver for the Navy. He lost his leg in '66 and was also the first amputee to get a Navy diver certification. Scott Smith wrote the script.
* Martin Landau will play Gepetto in PINOCCHIO II for New Line and director Michael Anderson. This time Gepetto is the puppet and Pinocchio, a real boy.
* Danny DeVito and Bette Midler will star in the comic whodunit DROWNING MONA for director Nick Gomez ("The Sopranos," "Oz"). Neve Campbell and Jamie Lee Curtis will also star. DeVito will also direct, produce and star in SUGAR'S SWEET SCIENCE OF BRUISING for New Line where he'll play an older boxing trainer and fight fixer.
* Eric McCormack ("Will & Grace") will star in the indie flick OLD HATS for Mulberry Films. Arnie Olson directs. McCormack will play an administrator of a retirement home who's been blackmailed into providing a road trip to two residents played by Ossie Davis and James Whitmore.
* Melina Kanakaredes ("Providence") will play the female lead opposite Robert De Niro and Ed Burns in New Lines 15 MINUTES directed by John Herzfield.
* Traylor Howard ("Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place") joins ME, MYSELF AND IRENE as Jim Carrey's wife who dumps him for a limo driver.
* Faye Dunaway joins William Sanderson, Marla Gibbs, Gabrielle Anwar, Paul Benjamin and Stephen Tobolowsky in Marc Lazard's STANLEY'S GIG about a white ukelele player who befriends a jazz great at an old-folks home.
* Michael Caine joins Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix and Kate Winslet in QUILLS for Fox Searchlight about the Marquis de Sade.
* Bruce Willis is in final talks to star in ACE IN THE HOLE, a con-vs. con caper flick for Disney, where Willis would play an ex-con helping a Vegas casino evade an FBI investigation.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* New Line picked up the thriller OTHER SIDE OF SIMPLE by Eric Kmetz about two thieves who return to their Midwestern hometown after a long absence.
* Chris Skinner has written GRAVEDANCERS for Artisan Entertainment about three friends who open a door to the "other side" at a friend's funeral. It's described as THE EXORCIST meets THE BIG CHILL.
* Michael Lehmann is attached to direct FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS based on a treatment by Rob Perez about one man's attempt to give up sex for Lent.
* Penny Marshall and Drew Barrymore are in talks to direct and star respectively in the comic drama RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS for Columbia Pictures. The story is based on a booka by Beverly D'Onofrio and follows the relationship between a mother and son she gave birth to at 15 in 1968. She dreamed of being a writer and suffered through a marriage with his drug-addicted father.
* Todd Komarnicki (MY ACHILLES HEART) has written JUDAS about a government agent who kills 11 members of his own team and triggers a huge manhunt. HSI/Tomorrow Films picked it up.
* Fox 2000 bought RETURN OF THE SWEET BIRDS, a pitch by Carolyn McDonald and Sharon Cobb. Edmonds Entertainment and Carrie Prods. will produce the flick which centers on a reunion tour of a fictional 60s female R&B group, the Sweet Birds.
* Courtney Solomon will start shooting DUNGEONS & DRAGONS in Prague on May 28. Douglas Milsome (EYES WIDE SHUT, FULL METAL JACKET) will be the director of photography. George Gibbs (INDIANA JONES trilogy) will handle special effects.
* Jamie Babbit (upcoming BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER) is set to direct New Line's CONJUGATING NIKI for Tribeca Prods. about a girl whose family loses its money and she is forced to baby-sit an 8-year old version of herself. Claire Danes was attached, but no one has been cast yet.
* Francis Ford Coppola is concentrating on finishing the scripts for THE BIG KAHOONA, a musical, and the more serious MAGALOPOLOUS. He wants to have the scripts finished before year's end.
* John Boorman (DELIVERANCE) will direct David Koepp's adaptation of Jack London's THE SEA WOLF for Columbia Pictures.
* Tony Scott will develop and direct a pic on Hell's Angels motorcycle club based on an unpublished autobiography of Ralph "Sonny" Barger, who helped lead the Angels in the 50s and 60s.
* Gary Ross (PLEASANTVILLE) will direct BRUSHBACK starring Will Smith as an arrogant baseball pitcher who is knocked out by a pitch and transported back to the Negro National League circa 1940 where he learns a few of life's lessons.
* Alex Proyas (DARK CITY) will direct an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH about a group of nobles hit by a plague despite their taking refuge in a palace.
HARRY NOTE: Alright! THis Alex Proyas /Edgar Allan Poe news is the coolest thing I've heard all week. I love Poe, and while I have a fond spot in my heart for the original Vincent Price version... It wasn't one of the best Poe adaptations, and I'd love to see Proyas take Poe's vision on. TOO COOL! Any and every shred of info you may have on this project... LET ME KNOW!
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Sean Furst (BLUE RIDGE FALL) will try to put the novel THE HORSE LATITUDES by Robert Ferrigno into production. The story is about an ex-drug dealer whose girlfriend is missing. He becomes the suspect when her boyfriend is found dead.
* Director Oliver Stone is closing his production company Illusion Entertainment to concentrate solely on writing/directing films. Projects ahead that he may direct include VALHALLA about Gen. George Custer at New Line; THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand which Stone adapted; and a biopic on Martin Luther King Jr. at Warner Bros.
* Paramount has picked up TOYS OF DESPERATION a novel by Sean Desmond about a Harvard student haunted by a ghost of a student who was killed 50 years earlier.
* Rehme Prods. has optioned rights to the play FLYIN' WEST by Pearl Cleage about a group of black families at the turn of the century who leave oppressive conditions to establish a town in Kansas.
* Arenafilm will produce THE MONKEY'S MASK based on Dorothy Parker's novel about a lesbian detective. Samantha Lang (THE WELL) will direct.
* Pixar Animation and Disney will next work on MONSTERS, INC., a comedy when a monster accidentally lets a human child enter his strange world. The pic is tentatively scheduled for 2001. Pete Docter (TOY STORY) and David Silverman ("The Simpsons") will direct.
* Michael Mann is off 20th Century Fox's THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX apparently over money/contract issues.
* Phaedra Cinema picked up the indie flick JEROME executive produced by David Spade and starring Wendie Malick and Drew Pillsbury about a welder who wants a better life. Thomas Johnson, David Elton and Eric Tignini wrote, produced and directed.
* Warner Bros., Time Warner and John Wells Prods. have purchased the film rights to Janet Ketch's debut novel WHITE OLEANDER.
* The title for Miramax's KILLING MRS. TINGLE is changing to TEACHING MRS. TINGLE due to the recent Colorado shootings. The movie opens Aug. 20.
HARRY NOTE: Sigh... No Comment...
* Fox 2000 has George Armitage (GROSSE POINT BLANK) and Richard Hatem (UNDER SIEGE 2) developing an adaptation of Laurel Dowd's 1998 book THIS BODY about a dead mother whose spirit enters the body of a heroin addict.
Mid-May is almost upon us and summer flicks are getting closer with work beginning on many films for 2000. What are your 2000 picks? *** Burt Reynolds and Richard Dreyfuss in a mafia comedy? I'd see it. *** HOW THE GRINCH... is rounding out its cast quite quickly. *** Glad to see what Gary Ross is up to. BRUSHBACK should deliver the goods. *** Alex Proyas doing Poe. Tony Scott doing Hell's Angels. Appropriate and welcome to say the least. *** How about the cast to QUILLS? Or the premise to FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS? *** STANLEY'S GIG sounds like my kind of "small" film. I'd love to know more. *** Should be a lot of boxing pics out next year. Danny DeVito has his lined up. *** Oliver Stone and Francis Ford Coppola have decided to concentrate more on writing. FINALLY! That's the best news this week.
If you email me and don't get a response for a little while, Hotmail has been getting my messages out late. Outta my hands...unless I change addresses. Anyway, thanks for the emails nonetheless.
Enjoy your new toys.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
