Father Geek here, damn our local server went OFF LINE at 2am Tuesday and didn't come back on till 4pm. Bummer... I use Roadrunner, they're fast, but every few weeks we lose them for half a day, and NEVER when I can afford to. I had something I was going after on Ebay that I wanted bad. It went up at 9:33 am and I couldn't get to it... to raise my bid... aaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggh!!! Well, Elston's back from vacation soooo here's his look at last week out in Hollywoodland...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
CASTING
* Jeff Bridges is in final talks to join Tobey Maguire in Universal's SEABISUIT for writer/director Gary Ross. Shooting begins Oct. 15 in L.A.
* Robert Redford is set and Helen Mirren is in talks to star in Fox Searchlight's THE CLEARING for producer/director Pieter Jan Brugge and Thousand Words. It's about a wealthy executive who is kidnapped by a disgruntled employee and held captive in the forest. His dedicated wife must attempt to deliver a ransom and save her husband.
* Ryan Gosling (THE BELIEVER) is in talks to star in THE NOTEBOOK, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, for New Line and director Nick Cassavetes. It's the story of a young couple told to a woman in a nursing home by an old man who regularly visits to read her the story from a notebook.
* Cole Hauser is in talks to play the lead villain in Universal's THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS 2 for director John Singleton and Original Film. James Remar ("Sex and the City") and Devon Aoki are in final talks to join the cast.
* Diane Keaton is in talks to join Jack Nicholson in Columbia's untitled comedy for writer/director Nancy Meyers (WHAT WOMEN WANT). It's about a successful guy who is dating a woman half his age. When he has a heart attack during a weekend in East Hampton, his girlfriend's mother cares for him while the daughter heads back to Gotham. He then falls for the mother.
* Eriq La Salle rounds out of the cast of BIKER BOYZ, joining Derek Luke, Laurence Fishburne, Orlando Bloom, Lisa Bonet, Djimon Hounsou, Larenz Tate and Terence Howard. Reggie Rock Bythewood directs from his own script.
* Juliette Lewis joins Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone and Stephen Dorff in the thriller THE DEVIL'S THROAT (aka COLD CREEK MANOR) for director Mike Figgis. After a couple relocates their family to a dream home in the country, the experience becomes a nightmare when the previous owner, a recent parolee, wants his home back.
* Lou Diamond Phillips will play an undercover officer who poses as a female hooker in the untitled Harrison Ford/Josh Hartnett cop pic for director Ron Shelton and Revolution Studios.
* Peter Stormare joins Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in BAD BOYS II for director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
* Mekhi Phifer will star opposite Jessica Alba in Universal's HONEY for director Bille Woodruff. Shooting begins Sept. 9.
* Destiny's Child's Kelly Rowland joins the cast of New Line's FREDDY VS. JASON, starring Brad Renfro and Robert Englund. Ronny Yu directs the pic which starts shooting Sept. 9.
* Morgan Freeman will star opposite Owen Wilson in the Warner Bros.' thriller THE BIG BOUNCE, based on Elmore Leonard's novel, for director George Armitage. Production begins Oct. 28.
* Joe Mantegna will play the title character in Giovanni Fago's biopic PONTORMO, set in Renaissance Florence. The pic follows the final months in the life of 16th century painter Jacopo Carrucci, known as Pontormo, and his artist-muse relationship with a young exile rendered mute when her tongue was cut out during the Flemish War. Galatea Ranzi co-stars. Marilisa Calo and Massimo Felisatti wrote the screenplay based on excerpts from the artist's diaries.
* Pro wrestler Bill Goldberg joins Brendan Fraser, Timothy Dalton, Jenna Elfman and Heather Locklear in Warner Bros.' live-action/animated feature LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION. Joe Dante directs.
* John Wood, Claire Bloom and Anton Lesser join Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson in the romantic supernatural thriller IMAGINING ARGENTINA, based on the book by Lawrence Thornton. Christopher Hampton directs from his own adaptation.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Asif Kapadia (THE WARRIOR) will direct Intermedia's BRIGHTON ROCK, based on the novel by Graham Greene, about an English seaside town where a small-time gang leader murders a rival, sending him on a downward spiral of self-destruction. Don MacPherson (POSSESSION) adapted.
* Ember Entertainment has optioned the rights to three new projects written by Michelle Chavoor: RUDY, a WWII thriller based on the true story of a man who escaped Hitler's regime; SNOOZE, a comedy about a young woman who dreams of success in interior design while dealing with the pressures of becoming a mother and maintaining a long-term relationship; NO HASSLE, NO HAGGLE, a comedy about how a son changes his life while coming to terms with the untimely death of his father -- a car dealer who put his kids through Ivy League schools.
* Revolution Studios has picked up the sci-fi pitch POST HUMAN from Scott Swan and Drew McWeeny, who are currently penning the screenplay. It's an ensemble pic set in the real world, centering on real-life military research to create metabolically enhanced soldiers.
* Winchester Films picked up the comedy pitch THE EIGHTH STEP about a former TV star, now a recovering addict, who sets out to make amends to all the people he has wronged, principally his son. Thompson Evans will write the script.
* Janusz Kaminski (LOST SOULS) will direct RKO's Vietnam War drama FIELDS OF FIRE, adapted by former Secretary of the Navy James H. Webb from his own 1978 novel examining extreme combat and its physical and emotional toll on a platoon of Vietnam War heroes.
* Firstsight Films has optioned the film rights to the novel THE PERSIAN BRIDE by James Buchan. It's an epic love story set against the fall of the Shah of Iran during the 1970s. Charles Sturridge (A HANDFUL OF DUST, "Shackleton") will direct.
* DreamWorks has snapped up the comedy pitch GET ME ROMAN FARRADAY from writers Joe Piscatella and Craig Williams to develop as an animated feature. The plot is being kept under wraps.
* Universal/Imagine grabbed the crime thriller script INSIDE MAN, penned by Russell Gewirtz, about a hostage situation at a bank, with a tough cop matching wits with a clever robber.
* Columbia Pictures has purchased W.D. Richter's (NEEDFUL THINGS) script WARRIOR about a high-tech air force fighter drone that malfunctions, wiping out the better part of an manned elite squadron.
* John Moore (BEHIND ENEMY LINES) will direct YEAGER, 20th Century Fox's Gen. Chuck Yeager biopic. The project will follow the pilot's life from his roots in West Virginia through his WWII dogfights to his flight to break the sound barrier. Phoenix Pictures and Zanuck Co. are also producing. Ray Wright has written an adaptation based on the memoir YEAGER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Yeager and Leo Janos.
* Rich Wilkes (xXx) will adapt the popular action game RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN, based on the video game, for Columbia Pictures. The game follows a highly decorated Army Ranger recruited into the Office of Secret Actions where he is given the assignment of escaping and then returning to Castle Wolfenstein -- the stronghold of Gestapo capo Heinrich Himmler. There, occult and genetic experiments are taking place to create an unstoppable Nazi army. Wilkes is also working on a draft for xXx2.
* Tony Bui will write and direct LAZARUS for Warner Bros. about two friends who become mortal enemies due to an ancient Asian curse set in motion after they commit a crime together.
* John Fusco (YOUNG GUNS, upcoming HIDALGO) will write the remake of BILLY JACK for Intermedia Films.
* Tristan Patterson has set up SUPERSTAR 81 at Killer Films and Magnet Entertainment. It's inspired by the Wonderland Murders that porn star John Holmes found himself in the middle of in 1981. Patterson's REGULATORS is being developed by Disney. That project is an action pic combininges the L.A. surfing world and gang culture. Bruckheimer just hired Patterson to rewrite CRUSH, a drama about an elite force focused on solving criminal-on-criminal homicides in San Francisco.
* Mike Van Diem (KARAKTER) is in talks to direct Wesley Snipes in Intermedia's GODFORSAKEN for Mad Chance Prods. Based on Jay Bonansinga's novel, THE KILLER'S GAME, the pic centers on a burned-out assassin who takes a hit out on himself. But after learning he is about to become a father, Snipes must evade an assortment of world-class assassins while on the run across Europe with his girlfriend. Rand Ravich has written the screenplay.
* Shawn Levy is in talks to direct the romantic comedy FEVER PITCH, based on Nick Hornby's book about his obsession with soccer, for Fox 2000. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel adapted and Americanized it, with the project now focused on baseball. The plot follows the relationship between a man obsessed with the Boston Red Sox and the woman caught in the middle.
* Lauren Iungerich and Brad Follmer have sold the pitch SUPERHERO SUMMER CAMP to Warner Bros. Pictures through Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road Pictures. It's about a group of misfit kids who go to summer camp and discover that it's a training ground for superheroes.
* Renny Harlin will direct Crusader Entertainment's LAND OF LEGEND, a 9th century epic tale of a Danish prince who is sold into slavery as a child and returns home 15 years later to take revenge on those who wronged him. Chris Hauty has written a script.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Alcon Entertainment and Rat Entertainment are developing HONG KONG PHOOEY, based on the 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoon, into a live-action/CGI comedy. The project will focus on the origin of the kung fu mutt's supernatural talents and a villain intent on stealing those powers.
* Paramount Pictures purchased the screen rights to the Elmore Leonard novella TENKILLER to develop as a Bruce Willis vehicle. It's about an ex-rodeo star who leaves to become a successful Hollywood stuntman. When he returns home, he finds that unsavories have taken over the family ranch.
* Producer David Permut and Site 85 Prods. have optioned the feature film rights to the novel MONEY TO BURN, written by U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel. It's about a federal judge who masterminds a plot to rob the Chicago Federal Reserve of $100 million.
* Gryphon Films snapped up the rights to the thriller novel THUNDERHEAD by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child about an expedition to a lost "city of gold" in the American Southwest led by a female archaeologist.
* Regency Enterprises has picked up the rights to Doug TenNapel's upcoming graphic novel CREATURE TECH. Set in the rural American heartland, the story focuses on an evil wizard who uses the iconic shroud of Turin to conjure a giant space eel in an attempt to destroy the world. An atheist with an alien strapped to his chest is his only obstacle.
