Well folks, it's Harry here, who just put in a 17 hour day of watching films. Saw 10 documentaries and 3 fiction based features. I'll tell you about that when I have the time, I just got in, and have to be up in 4 hours to start again. Sheesh, what a day. Me and the rest of the crew from the SS Minnow are still afloat though. However, I figured that I would put up a quickie update with a bundle of goodies from the man who never was. So here it is check it out...
1) Have heard from very reliable source that the upcoming Dreamworks project in development that everyone over there has been so hush-hush about will apparently involve the Cuban Missile Crisis, Curtis LeMay and Che Guevera. Hmmm sounds interesting.
2) Tom Cruise who has been hanging out with his bud Paul Newman at the latter's place outside Topeka, KS of late is now looking for another project - this time a Western epic. My source (very reliable) says that he is trying to decide whether to do Mike Blake's "Marching to Valhalla" (with Cruise as Custer) or, "A Road We Do Not Know' (with Cruise as Lieutenant Varnum). Have seen Blake's script...it's okay but reads pretty much like a remake of "They Died With Their Boots On" (same basic plot with a lot of flashbacks to his youth except that he spends time in the sack with a Cheyenne girl named..wait let me check the script...Monasetah....with a lot of voice overs). Well, okay but it'll be hard to beat Errol Flynn.
3). Ang Lee has got just about everything ready to go for his Civil War flick and will start shooting on schedule. His newest additions to the cast include Jeffery Wright (who played title role in "Basquiat") as a former slave who now rides with Quantrill's southern guerillas and John Cavaziel who just finished up "The Thin Red Line" Now for another twist - apparently the cast will be getting their insight into the mind-set of Quantrill's boys from the same guy who wrote "A Road We Do Not Know" (see above) - maybe there is more to all of this than meets the eye.
4). Production Company "44 Blue" has been wooing WEB Griffin (whose latest book "The Invesitgators" is on the NYT Best Seller list) trying to get an agreement to turn a couple of his "Brotherhood of War" books into features. No details on which books they're interested in.
5). Clancy's "Cardinal of the Kremlin" still moving along slowly (very slowly) with yet another re-write (this will make # 3) Clancy is intimately involved with the project this time around having been fairly unhappy with the previous Jack Ryan efforts. The stumbling block on the script appears to be Harrison Ford. Ford and Clancy have never gotten along very well and this has made for some very rough going. Don't expect this one to start anytime soon.
your humble servant,
"The Man Who Never Was" (direct from never-never land)
