Hey folks, Harry here with the latest Weekly Recap from the astoundingly fantastic... the amazingly consistent... the mightiest of the mighty.... that's right.... ELSTON GUNN!!! So stand back... take a gander and away you gooooooo......
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Tommy Flanagan (BRAVEHEART) will star in STRICTLY SINATRA for writer/director Peter Capaldi about a singer who's in trouble when a gangster's girlfriend falls for him.
* Annabeth Gish will star in MORNING for director Amy Canaan Mann about an urban ad exec who must return to his small town in the south after a childhood friend dies. Keiran Mulroney also stars.
* Jack Nicholson will be directed by Sean Penn in THE PLEDGE, a 1950s-era crime drama based on the novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt.
* Janine Turner and Andy Richter join Robert Altman's DR T AND THE WOMEN.
* Rutger Hauer will star with Pam Grier in SLOW BURN for Rodney Gibbons as well as a sequel to THE HITCHER for director Bob Harmon.
* Thora Birch and Leelee Sobieski are in talks to star in GHOST WORLD for director Terry Zwigoff (CRUMB) based on a comic novella by David Clowes where two high school graduates, an eavesdropper and a scientist who has grown fond of the microbes in his petri dish.
* Sean Patrick Thomas will star in SAVE THE LAST DANCE about an interracial romance between a Midwestern innocent and an inner-city youth with a rough past. Julia Stiles also stars.
* Thomas Sadoski joins LOSER with Jason Biggs, Greg Kinnear and Mena Suvari.
* Jonathan Pryce joins UNCONDITIONAL LOVE as a nightclub singer. Rupert Everett and Kathy Bates also star.
* Salma Hayek will star in TIME CODE 2000 for director Mike Figgis. The film will be shot on digital camera and will use improvisational techniques.
* Patricia Arquette joins three pics: LITTLE NICKY with Adam Sandler; IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM for director Barbara Kopple based on David Rabe's play with Ellen Barkin, Jon Lovitz, James Caan and Tom Waits starring; and HUMAN NATURE for director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH) about a woman with too much body hair who falls in love with the man with the world's smallest penis who is in love with a seemingly perfect French woman. All three have designs on a young man who was raised believing he was an ape.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Jordan Brady will direct the romantic comedy WAKIN' UP IN RENO with Billy Bob Thornton in talks to star. The flick is a road comedy about two white trash couples from Arkansas who take a vacation in Reno, Nevada to see a monster truck show.
* Artisan Entertainment picked up Michael Cordell's spec WHITE WEDDING about a young man who poses as a white supremacist to win over a young woman.
* Interlight Pictures picked up RUBICON by Kevin Elders about a seven-hour nuclear crisis handled by the president of the U.S. and his female secretary of defense.
* Jonathan Demme may direct a remake of CHARADE for Will Smith to star about the search for missing gold.
* Mike Newell (PUSHING TIN) is in talks to helm SHANGHAI about a spy and some romance on the eve of WWII. Hossein Amini (THE WINGS OF THE DOVE) scripted.
* Michael Hoffman will direct LOONEY RADIO about an underachiever who stumbles on an effective form of therapy when he begins a radio program comprising mental patients and it becomes a hit. Todd Graff wrote the script based on a true story.
* Ross LaManna (RUSH HOUR) will write the feature adaptation of HOGAN'S HEROES for Destination Films.
* Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have written LOVE TRUCK for Warner Bros-based Jerry Weintraub Prods. about a young exec who has to find a suitable mate for his boss's daughter (who can't get a date) in order for him to climb up the corporate ladder. The desperate junior exec ends up falling in love with her himself.
* David Chase ("The Sopranos") will write and direct FEMALE SUSPECTS for Columbia Pictures about a female criminal sociologist who becomes involved with a New Jersey family of thieves and petty criminals. She finds herself a reluctant participant into several of their crimes.
* Peter Hyams is in final talks to direct THE CORE for Paramount about a group of "terranauts" hired to fix a potentially planet-crushing flaw in the earth's core, caused by chemical waste.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Sony Pictures bought the pitch EXTINCTION from Laura Harckom and Chris Leone about a computer virus that threatens the survival of intelligent robots. A rebel robot genetically creates a human to help save robot-kind.
* New Line optioned the novel MUCHO MOJO by Joe R. Lansdale about a straight white man and a gay black man who are best friends, but have a way of upsetting the locals in their small town. They discover skeletons in an old house and try to track down why they are there.
* Columbia Pictures bought the screen rights to the Japanese comic book ASTRO BOY for a hopeful summer 2001 flick to be produced by Don Murphy and Jim Henson Pictures. The story is about a robot built by a grieving scientist to replace his deceased son.
* Producer Andy Meyer picked up the rights to the comic mystery novel THE NAKED DETECTIVE about a guy who sets up a phony agency in Key West as a tax dodge. A blonde visits him in the bathtub and he finds himself dragged into a caper involving the island's gambling kingpin.
* Miramax Films optioned the screen rights to Thomas Wheeler's upcoming manuscript THE ARCANUM about a 1920s group of occult investigators comprised of some of the most famous personalities of the time including Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, H.P. Lovecraft and Marie Laveau who battle mysterious evils in New York City, including a serial killer of angels.
* DreamWorks bought the screen rights to the Marc Levy novel IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE with Steven Spielberg producing and possibly directing. Ron Bass will adapt the story which is a romantic tale with supernatural elements. A San Francisco man takes an apartment and finds he has a roommate: the spirit of the previous occupant who is in a coma. When he finds out that she's due to be pulled off life support, he kidnaps the body. She makes a miraculous recovery and awakens, but has no memory of him, so they must begin their relationship anew.
* Jodie Foster's Egg Pictures may acquire the rights to INVESTIGATION based on the 1970 Italian film THE INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION about a powerful police chief who commits murder out of Freudian shortcomings. David Mamet and Paul Schrader are writing separate drafts for Paramount. Jodie Foster may or may not star.
* Steve Chase has dropped out of directing SPECIAL about a guy who pretends to be handicapped in order to win an autographed football for the son of his girlfriend. Luke Wilson is in talks to star.
* 20th Century Fox will remake the film TENDER IS THE NIGHT based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel about the psychological disintegration of a young, wealthy American couple on the French Riviera in '20s.
Patricia Arquette is mighty busy. HUMAN NATURE sounds pretty wild. Lots of options of novels and manuscripts. Which sounds the coolest to you? IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE looks like it might be something big. I'm pretty curious to see WAKIN' UP IN RENO. Anyone read the script? If so, let us know what you think. Have a good weekend.
Happy Halloween...Great Pumpkins and such.
Until next week...
Elston Gunn
