Well another week has shot by and here's Elston's new WEEKLY RECAP. I don't know but ol' Father Geek here can just never get use to the DISNEY name being tied to projects like BLOODY MARY. I guess I just watched way too many MICKEY MOUSE CLUBS when I was a kid. On another note it looks like everything is set to bring Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" saga to the big screen... good news for fans of the series.
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
CASTING
* Michael Douglas will star in the psychological action thriller DON'T SAY A WORD for director Gary Fleder (KISS THE GIRLS) and New Regency/20th Century Fox. It's based on the Andrew Klavan novel about a psychologist who is trying to free his kidnapped daughter. Shooting is slated to begin in November.
* Wayne Knight ("Seinfeld") joins the ensemble pic RAT RACE for director Jerry Zucker and Paramount. Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Jason Alexander, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart and Seth Green also star. Andy Breckman scripted.
* Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Billy Crystal and Catherine Zeta-Jones are in talks to star in the comedy AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS for Revolution Studios. Studio head Joe Roth may direct. It's about a celebrity couple (Cusack/Zeta Jones) who have to promote their movie even though their marriage is over. Crystal would play the film's publicist while Roberts would take the role of the sister of the female star whom with the male star is in love. Shooting begins in January.
* Sandra Bullock is in talks to star in MURDER BY NUMBERS, written by Tony Gayton (upcoming THE SALTON SEA), with Castle Rock producing. It's about two intelligent high school students who carry out a series of perfect murders, and then partake in a battle of wits with a female rookie FBI profiler.
* Ben Affleck and Jason Lee are in talks to take roles in writer/director Kevin Smith's next comedy, currently referred to as VIEW ASKEW 5, for Dimension Films. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson (CLERKS) are both expected to take roles in the film as well. It is said the film will be the last of the Jersey pics featuring the characters Jay and Silent Bob, played by Jason Mewes and Smith. Shooting begins in January.
* Kevin Costner is in talks to star in DRAGONFLY for director Tom Shadyac and Universal Pictures. The script by Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson, and rewritten by David Seltzer, is about a grieving doctor who has been contacted by the spirit of his ex-wife through his patients.
* Rapper Nelly will star in the urban thriller SNIPES for writer/director Rich Murray who co-wrote the script with Rob Wiser. Nelly will play a hip hop artist who is kidnapped before his album is released. Shooting begins Oct. 2 in Philadelphia. Dean Winters ("Oz"), Mpho Koaho (DOWN IN THE DELTA) and Sam Jones will also star. Fat Joe, Kool Moe Dee and Schooly D will have cameos.
* Don Cheadle is in talks to join SWORDFISH starring John Travolta, Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry. Sam Shepard will have a cameo role in the pic. Dominic Sena will direct the Skip Woods script for Warner Bros.
* Jared Leto joins Nicole Kidman, Forest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakam in THE PANIC ROOM for director David Fincher and Columbia Pictures. David Koepp wrote the thriller about a woman and her daughter fighting for their lives when intruders enter their home.
* Jackie Chan will star in THE HIGHBINDERS, which shoots next September in Australia.
* Huntley Ritter (BRING IT ON) will join Meatloaf, A.J. Buckley and Alexandra Holden in WISHCRAFT.
* Rachel Stirling (STILL CRAZY) will join Mira Sorvino in the romantic comedy THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE, an adaptation of a Pierre Marivaux play about two young women who pose as men.
* Sandrine Bonnaire (EAST-WEST) will star opposite Jacques Dutronc in LA MORT INTIME based on the novel by Marie Hennezel about the relationship between a dying man and a volunteer at a hospice. Shooting begins in October.
* Graham Greene (DANCES WITH WOLVES) and Adam Beach (SMOKE SIGNALS) are in talks to star in SKINS for director Chris Eyre (SMOKE SIGNALS) about two Sioux Indian brothers, one is a tribal cop while the other is dying from cirrhosis of the liver. The pic is based on the Adrian Louis novel.
* Bruce Willis is mulling over several candidates for his next pic including a starring role alongside Edward Norton in HART'S WAR for director Gregory Hoblit (FREQUENCY) for his next pic, taking the lead in UNFAITHFUL for director Adrian Lyne or toplining the Revolution Studios action pic MAN OF WAR.
* Joaquin Phoenix will star in the dark comedy BUFFALO SOLDIERS for FilmFour/Odeon Film and writer/director Gregor Jordan based on the cult novel by Robert O'Connor's. The pic will center on a soldier named Elwood who makes deals and manipulates the system to make life easier for him in the military though Army investigators are on to him.
* Richard Gere will star in MOTHMAN PROPHECIES for Lakeshore Entertainment and director Mark Pellington (ARLINGTON ROAD). It's based on John Keel's account of his investigation of UFO reports during the late 1960s around Point Pleasant, WV. Townspeople claimed to be plagued for weeks by psychic visions and the appearance of unusual winged cratures. Shooting begins in January.
* Seann William Scott will join Julianne Moore and Orlando Jones in the alien sci fi movie EVOLUTION for director Ivan Reitman and DreamWorks. David Duchovny is still in talks to star in the pic.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Tim McCanlies (THE IRON GIANT) will write IRON MAN based on the Marvel Comic for New Line Cinema. Marvel Studio's president Avi Arad will produce with Don Murphy and Angry Films.
* Kurt Voss (WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU) will direct the indie comedy DOWN AND OUT WITH THE DOLLS about a Portland all-girl band called the Paper Dolls. The script is based on a story by Nalini Cheriel. Voss wrote the script. Zoe Poledouris, Kinnie Starr, Nicole Barrett and Melody Moore will star as the all-girl band. Coyote Shivers, Lemmy Kilmister, Sierra Feldner, Brenden O'Hara and Mikael Jehanno will co-star in the pic.
* Industry Entertainment picked up EDGARDO MORTARA by Rob Eshman for director James Gray (LITTLE ODESSA) to develop. It centers on the kidnapping of a 6-year old Jewish boy by the papal police in in Bologna, Italy, in 1858.
* John C. Richards (NURSE BETTY) will write the remake to the 1932 romantic comedy TROUBLE IN PARADISE for Universal Pictures about a con artist love triangle.
* Mark Loughlin and Brad Schlei have written CRASH AND BURN, picked up by Fox Searchlight, about a car race from Florida to California. It's described as a "college-age CANNONBALL RUN."
* Kopelson Ent. bought Mark Allen Smith's (THE WITCHING HOUR) sci fi time travel script BUYING TIME.
* Oliver Stone is in talks to direct AMERICAN CEASAR by William Nicholson (GLADIATOR) for Universal. It's a modern-day Caesar and Brutus story set in Washington where a president is becoming the Ceasar of his time forcing his aide to take action.
* Ricky Blitt will write the buddy comedy PLAIN WHITE RAPPER for Revolution Studios about a black secret service agent and a white rapper.
* United Artists bought the Jill Franklyn (MY FIRST MISTER) comedy spec PINK COMA TOES while attaching Scott Kalvert (THE BASKETBALL DIARIES) as director. Production is planned for early next year on the story of a straitlaced woman who tries to heal her ailing fiance by carrying out his wild fantasies and in doing so, she discovers a new identity within her.
* John Requa and Glenn Ficarra (FIGHTING LIKE CATS AND DOGS) have sold a pitch to the Coen Bros.' KL Line production company about a shopping mall Santa involved in illegal scams.
* Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg will collaborate INTO THE SETTING SUN a project in which the former will direct while the latter produces. DreamWorks and Warner Bros. will co-finance the film which will focus on the creation of the transcontinental railroad. Bill Witliff (LEGENDS OF THE FALL) will write the script.
* Hype Williams (BELLY) is attached to direct a live-action SPEED RACER for Warner Bros. and producer Lauren Shuler-Donner.
* Tommy Lee Wallace (HALLOWEEN 3, THE HOWLING 2, IT) will direct a sequel to JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES entitled JOHN CARPENTER PRESENTS VAMPIRES: LOS MUERTOS from his own script.
* Reginald Hudlin (HOUSE PARTY) will direct the Mandalay Pictures comedy SERVICING SARAH starring Matthew Perry as a process server trying to serve legal papers on a female who becomes a love interest.
* Regis Wargnier (INDOCHINE) will make his English-language feature debut with ST. EX for Interlight. The project is an epic biopic of the French writer/pilot Antoine De Saint-Exupery. Shooting is slated to begin next summer.
* Mandalay Pictures picked up the comedy script KUNG FU THEATER by Tom Jankiewicz (GROSSE POINT BLANK). It's about a comic book artist who his transported into a martial arts flick and embarks on a strange journey. Production begins in February. Paul Jay Shrater co-wrote the story and will exec produce.
* Julie Taymor (TITUS') is in talks to direct the biopic FRIDA KAHLO starring Salma Hayek for Miramax. Antonio Banderas and Ashley Judd will appear in supporting roles.
* Mike Lobell Prods. has optioned HOLLYWOOD & VINE, the romantic comedy spec written by Joshua Ravtech about a movie star who must choose between love and all that Hollywood has to offer.
* Marc Guggenheim ("The Practice" staff writer) has written the romantic comedy screenplay MUSICAL CHAIRS which follows a group of folks who are at a wedding in an exotic resort. The Bubble Factory bought the script.
* Jennifer Heath and Michele J. Wolff have written THE ULTIMATE LOW SELF-ESTEEM MOVIE, which was purchased by Miramax, about a young woman who thinks she has found the perfect guy after being dumped most of her life-though her new man is trying to kill her.
* Disney picked up the pitch BLOODY MARY from Clive Barker and writer Silvio Horta (URBAN LEGEND). It is based on the Miami New Times feature "Myths Over Miami" by Lynda Edwards on folkloric horror stories told in South Florida homeless shelters. Their pitch centers on one myth about a figure called Bloody Mary who lives in the Everglades and steals children during the night. Horta will script.
* Brian De Palma will direct the modern noir thriller FEMME FATALE from his own script about a woman who is trying to straighten out her life, but her past comes back to haunt her.
* Darren Aronofsky (PI, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) will direct the fifth installment of the BATMAN franchise for Warner Bros. He will write and develop the pic with Frank Miller, basing the script on Miller's 1987 graphic novel BATMAN: YEAR ONE.
* Simon Davis Barry will direct STORY OF MY LIFE for Cinetel Films based on the novel by Jay McInerney.
* Director Anand Tucker, writer Frank Cottrell Boyce and producer Andrew Patterson (all worked on HILARY AND JACKIE) are in talks to produce an epic romance based on the life of Cleopatra. The same team is also in talks to develop a remake of the 1966 film GAMBIT.
* Jason Richman has written the action comedy script BLACK SHEEP for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney about an African-American who must fill his late twin's shoes on a CIA assignment which his brother had been working. Jon Turteltaub may direct the pic which is shooting for a February start.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Universal Pictures is in talks to pick up the feature rights to the life story of the late comedian Sam Kinison as well as a biography about Kinison written by his brother Bill and Steve Delson. Tom Shadyac and David Permut will produce the pic.
* Paramount picked up the rights to UP COUNTRY, the novel by Nelson DeMille which is the sequel to THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER. Mace Neufeld to produce with John Travolta in early talks to star.
* Propaganda Films is working on getting the rights to ELECTRIC GOD, the upcoming novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde (PAY IT FORWARD). It's about a troubled man who has to reunite with his estranged wife and his engaged daughter. The story centers on his efforts to rebuild a life with his former family. Hyde's novel WALTER'S PURPLE HEART sold to American World Pictures. That book follows a soldier killed during WWII who comes back in the body of a young slacker, who sets out to find closure with his best friend and his ex-fiancee, who are now set to marry.
* Warner Bros. optioned the film rights to THE BLUE NOWHERE, Jeffery Deaver's upcoming thriller novel for producer Joel Silver. It tells the story of a cop and a computer hacker who join forces to stop a serial killer.
* Catch 23 Entertainment purchased the feature film rights to two stories from THE GIRLS' GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING by Melissa Bank: "The Worst Thing a Suburban Girl Could Imagine" and "My Old Man." It has not yet been decided whether or not the stories will be developed into two separate projects or one.
* Lions Gate Films has picked up all North American distribution rights to Merchant Ivory Prods.' THE GOLDEN BOWL after Miramax decided not to release it once the studio and Merchant Ivory could not agree on proposed changes in the film.
* Metafilmics bought the feature film rights to Richard Bach's 1977 bestseller ILLUSIONS: THE ADVENTURES OF A RELUCTANT MESSIAH. Stephen Simon and Barnet Bain (WHAT DREAMS MAY COME) will produce the story of a modern-day messiah.
* Miramax Films bought the feature film rights to THE BROTHERS BIELSKI, Peter Duffy's book proposal based on an article he had written for the New York Times. It is a true story of three Jewish brothers in Eastern Europe during World War II who take refuge in a vast forest where they protect other Jews and rob gentiles to survive. Approximately 1,200 Jews lived out the war in the brothers' camp hidden from Nazis.
