Father Geek here with Elston's Weekly Recap of all the Hollywood news from last week. He's a little late this week, but he's undergoing a serious change of lifestyles, and this "period of adjustment" has been known to interfere with the normal routine of things. Congrats from all of us at Geek Headquarters...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
CASTING
* Catherine Zeta-Jones will star in and produce the Welsh indie comedy COMING OUT with Sara Sugarman writer and directing. The pic revolves around a rugby team that is on its last leg after their coach died. The gay son of said coach is then left to lead the team to victory.
* John Cleese, David Krumholtz, Joshua Leonard (THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), Paulo Costanzo (ROAD TRIP) and Ivan Sergei ("Jack & Jill") join Woody Harrelson, Rachael Leigh Cook and Alicia Silverstone in the comedy SCORCHED for director Gavin Grazer and Neverland Films. It's about three small-town bank employees who separately make plans to rob their bank during the same weekend.
* Vivica A. Fox and former Playboy playmate of the year Victoria Silvstedt join BOAT TRIP, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Horation Sanz, Roger Moore and Rosalyn Sanchez, for co-writer/director Mort Nathan.
* Robert Duvall will star in, direct and produce his script ASSASSINATION TANGO for MGM and executive producer Francis Ford Coppola. It's about a New York hitman who travels to Argentina for his last assignment where he hangs out in the local tango cafes and discovers his hit is more dangerous than he had thought. Reuben Blades, Frank Gio, Kathy Baker and Luciana Pedraza also star.
* Terence Stamp and David Arquette are attached to star in SCREENLAND for director Suri Krishnama from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. It's based on the murder of L.A.'s Silent Movie Theater owner Laurence Austin. Bill Pullman, who is also producing, and Julia Stiles co-star.
* Patricia Clarkson (HIGH ART) joins the cast of WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD, opposite Luis Guzman, currently shooting in Cleveland.
* Rashida Jones ("Boston Public") will star in the romantic film NOW YOU KNOW about a woman who calls off her wedding to her childhood sweetheart for unknown reasons. Jeff Anderson will direct from his own script.
* Will McCormack joins ABANDON for writer/director Stephen Gaghan and Paramount. Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt star in the psychological thriller.
* Christopher Wiehl ("Bull") and Jennifer Gareis (THE 6th DAY) will star in THE GROOMSMEN for director Lawrence Gay.
* F. Murray Abraham and Giancarlo Giannini join Tony Goldwyn in JOSHUA, based on the novel by Joseph F. Girzone, for Crusader Entertainment.
* Rosario Flores, Leonor Watling, Javier Camara and Dario Grandinetti will star in Pedro Almodovar's next pic TALK TO HER, a romantic melodrama about impossible love. Shooting begins June 11 in Paris. Loles Leon, Chus Lampreave, Marisa Paredes, Geraldine Chaplin, Fele Martinez, Paz Vega and Roberto Alvarez also have roles in the pic.
* Seth Green will star in PARTY MONSTER for writers/directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. It's based on the true story of New York club promoter Michel Alig, who was one of the biggest names in the Gotham club scene during the early '90s. When he boasted on television that he had killed his drug dealer, his world hit a downward spiral.
* Gerard Depardieu and Carol Bouquet are in talks to star in KING OF THE STORKS from a script by Ennio De Concini. Riccardo Dalla Chiesa is producing the fable-esque English-language romantic drama.
* Gerard Butler will star in Paramount's TIMELINE, based on the Michae Crichton book, for director Richard Donner. It's a time-travel story about a group of young grad school scientists who head back to the 14th century to rescue their mentor via a time machine.
* Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are attached to star in JERRY for director Gus Van Sant. Plot is being kept a secret.
* Brad Renfro and Clifton Collins Jr. are in talks to join Jena Malone in the indie pic LIFERS for director Jordan Brady and HSI-Tomorrow Films.
* Nick Stahl, January Jones, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Amber Benson are starring in TABOO, currently lensing in Romania, for Max Makowski.
* Javier Bardem will star in director Fernando Leon's pic MONDAYS IN THE SUN about a group of unemployed friends struggling to make ends meet in a northern part of Spain that's suffering economically.
* Jamie Bell (BILLY ELLIOT) will play one of the leads in the British WWII drama WHO GOES THERE? for director Benjamin Ross. It's about a German U-boat crew that takes hostages after mistakenly running aground in Wales.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Writer/director Todd Haynes (SAFE, VELVET GOLDMINE) will direct FAR FROM HEAVEN, starring Julianne Moore, about a 1950s housewife in Connecticut who is facing troubled marriage and racial tensions. Haynes will shoot the pic in Douglas Sirk's style, with rear projection and assembled sets.
* Dan Minahan (SERIES 7) is working on an untitled thriller for USA Films set in L.A. Though the plots is being kept under wraps, it is reported that Minahan is researching how celebrities act around their fans.
* Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst will direct the feature thriller RUNT about a teen who is constantly tormented by a group of bullying jocks. When they kill his dog, he decides to avenge the loss before he realizes he must put an end to the violence and move on. Also on Durst's plate is the pic LIFE WITHOUT JOE about a group of high school football players who end up in a very small town where they fight for their lives as they encounter some odd and terrorfying characters. Brent Friedman wrote the script. Another possible project for Durst is WANNABE (aka HOODFELLAS) by Anthony Zuiker ("CSI") about a young injured man who loses his chance to become a pro baseball player, so he returns to his Yonkers home and gets involved with the Mafia.
* Kenneth Lonergan will write an adaptation of Jack Finney's time-travel novel TIME AND AGAIN for Universal and producer/director Robert Redford. It's about a man who goes back in time to 1882 Gotham as part of a government experiment, but falls in love while he is there.
* Walt Disney Pictures has optioned the out-of-print 1975 novel STONEFLIGHT by Georgess McHargue to develop as an animated pic. The story centers on a lonely girl who escapes her arguing parents by heading to the roof of her home. While there, she teams up with a gargoyle who flies her to Central Park where several gargoyles have taken other lonely kids.
* Propaganda Films grabbed Tom Vaughan's script THE LINE about a Chinese railroad worker who vows revenge after coming to San Francisco only to discover that he and his wife have been sold into slavery. Chow Yun-Fat may star.
* Allen Loeb's script PROTECTION was picked up by Fox's Davis Entertainment and tells the story of a college prof who confronts the Federal Witness Protection Program after his ex-wife and daughter turn up missing.
* Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) is developing BOB MORAN based on the comic strip series by Henri Vernes for StudioCanal. Gans and Stephanie Cabel are writing the script which is being described as THE MUMMY meets INDIANA JONES.
* Graham Ralph is writing/directing the CGI project WATER WARRIORS for The Film Council about alien invaders who end up fighting frogs in a pond for water after underestimating the size of Earth. Patrick Stewart and Stephen Fry are attached to voice parts.
* New Line Cinema has acquired THE WATCH, a supernatural horror pitch by John Claflin and Daniel Zelman about a team of soldiers on a mission to blow up a bridge to help end WWII though they don't realize they're also fighting an evil spirit sent by the Devil, who doesn't want the war to end.
* John Heffernan will adapt Clive Barker's novel DAMNATION GAME for Phoenix Pictures about an incarcerated gambler and master thief who gets out thanks to a wealthy industrialist who wants the con as a bodyguard and security specialist--which proves to be difficult when someone is out to collect his soul.
* John Grisham is in talks to unite with producer Mark Johnson on a project based on his new book A PAINTED HOUSE about a seven-year old boy in 1952 Arkansas whose family's bumper cotton crop is in danger due to the tensions between an Ozark mountain family and a group of Mexicans who have been hired to harvest the cotton. Grisham is also in negotiations to sell the rights to his books THE PARTNER and THE BRETHREN.
* Scott Kalvert (THE BASKETBALL DIARIES) will direct the comedy FILTHY for MGM. It's about a rich slacker who's trying to find himself after he finishes college and is girlfriend leaves him. His successful best pal sends him on a routine that includes exercise and a vow to rid himself of pornography. Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg penned the script.
* Dimension Films picked up the pitch POPPED by Matt Boren and Soleil Moon Frye which will be written by Chris Peterson and Bryan Moore ("That '70s Show"). Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg will produce.
* Lucy Dahl has written the comedy ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE, picked up by Manifest Pictures, about a British woman who heads to the Hamptons in an attempt to shake off her addiction to affairs with married men.
* Writer/director Peter Mullan is working on MAGDALENE which follows four girls in a convent-run institution for fallen women, where they work 12 hours a day in the laundry to wash away their sins.
* Metin Huseyin is developing ANITA & ME adapted by Meera Syal (BHAJI ON THE BEACH) from her own bestselling comic novel about a young girl growing up in the English Midlands during the 1970s.
* Director/cameraman Dan Mintz and producer/writer Jeff Ritchie (COOKERS) are developing AMERICAN CRIME for WMA Independent. It centers on a small-town news crew reporting on a group of deaths and as the investigation progresses the crew become suspects.
* Edward Allen Bernero ("Third Watch" co-creator) will write an untitled buddy cop action-thriller for Mostow/Lieberman.
* Malcolm Lee (UNDERCOVER BROTHER) will write and direct BUCK WILD for Dimension Films. The film is based on an article, "Chaps in the Hood," that appeared in Nerve and portrays the double lives of a group of male strippers who work low-key jobs by day and perform in a Harlem nightclub at night.
* Catherine McCormack will direct CORK, a period romance about an English widow who takes over a cork plantation in Portugal. William Boyd wrote the script based on his own short story. Boyd is also adapting from his own novel THE BLUE AFTERNOON which Nicholas Hytner (THE CRUCIBLE) will direct for Haystack Films. It's a love story is set in the Philippines in 1902 at the end of the Spanish-American War.
* Oliver Stone is writing and is attached to direct SPITE HOUSE for Columbia Pictures based on the non-fiction book by Monika Jensen-Stevenson. It's about Bobby Garwood, who, in 1965 10 days before he was due home, was assigned by a captain to pick up an officer and take him to an airstrip. However, Garwood did not return until 14 years later after being captured by the Viet Cong where he was mistaken for an intelligence officer. The captain who gave the soldier the assignment perjured about the situation and Garwood was reported AWOL. Garwood was court-martialed as a traitor when he returned to the U.S. ikn 1979.
* Lawrence Kasdan will produce and direct THE DREAMCATCHER, based on the novel by Stephen King, from a script by William Goldman. The thriller follows four childhood pals who share a special relationship after having performed a heroic act. Many years later, they must reunite to save Earth from a strange supernatural force.
* Carlo Carlei (FLUKE) will direct the dramatic action pic THE LAST LEGION, for producers Dino and Martha De Laurentiis, from a script he has written with Peter Rader (WATERWORLD) based on a story by Valerio Manfredi and Carlei. It's described as THE WILD BUNCH set in ancient Rome.
* Spike Lee, Jean-Luc Godard, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Bernardo Bertolucci are among 15 directors who will each participate in the Road Movies project TEN MINUTES IN TIME, where they will produce 10-minute films on the passage of time.
* Rosanna Arquette is making her directorial debut on a project about problmes actresses face as they age. Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Meg Ryan, Holly Hunter, Charlotte Rampling, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robin Wright Penn and Debra Winger are all reportedly participating in the pic.
* Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais are in talks to write HOGAN'S HEROES, based on the 1960s sitcom, for Revolution Studios.
* Jane Campion will direct the erotic drama Nicole Kidman in IN THE CUT, based on the novel by Susanna Moore, for French studio Pathe SA. Production may begin this winter. It's about a university professor who gets entangled in an affair with a police detective after a woman is murdered in her neighborhood. Campion is making the film more of a dark romance than gory thriller.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* USA Films is in developing an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS for Mick Jagger and Victoria Pearman's Jagged Films to produce.
* Nicolas Cage's Saturn Films will produce a feature based on Edward Bunker's autobiographical novel DOG EAT DOG. Bunker (ANIMAL FACTORY) and Steve Anderson (SOUTH CENTRAL) wrote the screenplay about three committed criminals who target other crooks.
* Crusader Entertainment has purchased the rights to Clive Cussler's best-selling Dirk Pitt book series. The first novel SAHARA will also be the first project to be developed as a feature. It centers on adventurer/explorer Pitt in the Sahara looking for a toxin that is killing marine life.
* Chris Roberts (WING COMMANDER) has started Point of No Return, a prod. co. that is developing several projects including the action/adventure/romance pic DIE LAUGHING; the thriller EARTHFALL which is set on a Mars colony in 2812; and WICK WAX & FIRE about a young exec who initiates an affair to seek solace but soon finds disaster.
* When Fox gave raises to the voiceover cast of "The Simpsons," they included in the contract options on two features, the first worth $500,000 and the second $1 million.
* Producer Simon Channing-Williams (TOPSY-TURVY) has optioned the new John Le Carre (THE TAILOR OF PANAMA) novel THE SECRET GARDENER about a British diplomat in Nairobi who becomes a spy to investigate the murder of his wife, a fighter against large drug companies using poor Africans as guinea pigs.
* Castle Rock Entertainment has grabbed the rights to PROTECT AND DEFEND, the novel by Richard North Patterson about the presidential politics involving the nomination of the first woman to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, and her involvement in a lawsuit dealing with abortion and parental consent.
* Terrence Malick and Grant Hill are preparing to produce an adaptation of Graham Greene's novel BRIGHTON ROCK. It's about a small-time gang leader in England whose life falls apart after killing a rival. Malick will not direct the project which is tentatively scheduled to begin production summer 2002 in the U.K.
* Miramax Films has sent Paramount $1.5 million for the rights to John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize-winning comic novel A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, though Paramount and producer Scott Rudin isn't ready to sell yet. Steven Soderbergh and Scott Kramer have written a script and Flower Films is ready to co-produce the project. It's about an intellectual named Ignatius J. Reilly who must endure the humility of working bad jobs.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Chris McCarron is currently producing a short film called PRIVATE ART and requires GI reenactors as extras in the film. If you are interested and in Britain (a must), then contact Chris at Berndor@aol..com.
* Check out Daniel Polster's scifi film SAVE. He claims it will "satisfy any Philip K Dick and La Jetee nut." The address is: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/skeletons/film_detail/0,1263,1106129,00.html
* The official site for Heath McKnight's SKYE FALLING is back up. Visit www.skyefalling.com for info on the pic's release.
* There will be a free showing of Jonathon London's pic SPORES: THE MOVIE at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin on May 27th. See it and write in about it.
