Hey folks, Harry here. Seems from this news that Catherine and Michael are doing the ol... Clint and Locke bit... or the Harlin and Davis thing... Sigh... I hope it works out for them better than it has for most. Perhaps something on the scale and quality of the Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh deal... or Lawrence and Vivian... Keep your fingers crossed.... and here is.... The German!
Hi Harry,
We shook hands briefly in Las Vegas on the first day of Showest (Moriarty introduced me as one of the Germans he had met the year prior), but never had any chance to talk. Well, it's the first time I write in to let you know about a scoop, well, more than a scoop, it's actual news.
Oh yeah, while I'm at it. Contrary to what Variety is reporting, it looks like Tom Tykwer's new movie THE WARRIOR AND THE EMPRESS (you covered that in your Euro-AICN-section one or two weeks ago) won't be heading for Cannes. Though you never know with Tom, last I heard is that he wants to take his time with this movie, knowing that he will be under close scrutiny after the success of RUN LOLA RUN. See, Tom didn't really thought of LOLA as a runaway hit when he made it. It was conceived as sort of a quickie, something lively and fast after the torturous shoot of WINTER SLEEPER. He was supposed to do a movie called DER CHEF (a thriller of sorts) after LOLA that was lined up as his big breakthrough. Well, LOLA turned out to be just that movie. So he shelved DER CHEF (though he's rumored to still be working on it under a different title that escapes me right now) and turned his attention to WARRIOR, which apparently is a very sweet lovestory - shot in his hometown Wuppertal and with his girlfriend Franka. You get the picture. There is a lot of pressure, so the movie is scheduled for later this year. It doesn't even appear on the release list of its distributor as of yet. Well, as I said, there's always a chance that Tom might finish it in time for Cannes but don't bet on it. New movies like CRAZY (by Hans Christian Schmid, the director of Franka's first feature AFTER FIVE IN THE JUNGLE and her former boyfriend) or MANILA (by Romuald Karmakar, who did THE DEATH MAKER which won its star Götz George the actors prize in Venice five years ago) stand a better chance to go to Cannes. At least they are finished (both will be released in Germany in June).
Pardon my rambling, here's the actual news I wanted to tell ya. Catherine Zeta-Jones (in behalf of her production company Milkwood Productions) and the German company Splendid (which as of now holds 51 percent of IEG, who are main investors in GANGS OF NEW YORK and TRAFFIC) held a press conference in Frankfurt yesterday, confirming their involvement in TRAFFIC (nothing new here) and officially announcing that SMOKE AND MIRRORS (that fabled adventure story that Frank Marshall was supposed to shoot a bunch of years ago with Sean Connery in the lead, if I remember correctly) will be their next project after TRAFFIC - with Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas in the leads. No information on when or how, but IEG/Splendid will come up with the full budget in exchange for world rights.
Well, hopefully that helps you in any way. And if there's anything else you want/need to know, please get in touch.
Take care,
The German
