Hey folks, Harry here and once again it's time to gather 'round the ol oak tree and listen to the update from a man with a name made for listening to... ELSTON GUNN! He's gathered up all of the juicy tidbits... Most exciting here for me is the Bruce Greenwood playing the lead in the David Twohy directed Darren Aronofsky co-written film BELOW... Well, without further delay... read on!
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Renee Zellweger is in talks to star opposite Michelle Pfeiffer in WHITE OLEANDER for Warner Bros. and director Peter Kosminsky. It's based on the 1999 novel by Jane Finch, about a woman who is in prison for murder and how her daughter grows up in a series of L.A. foster homes. The daughter is ultimately asked to falsely testify at a trial to free her mom.
* Greg Kinnear joins Mel Gibson in WE SOLDIERS ONCE...AND YOUNG (aka LOST PATROL) for writer/director Randall Wallace. Production begins in March in California and Georgia. Chris Klein, Barry Pepper, Madeleine Stowe, Keri Russell, Ryan Hurst, Doug Hutchinson and Clark Gregg also star.
* Bruce Greenwood will play the lead in the submarine thriller BELOW for director David Twohy, who is directing from a script by Darren Aronofsky and Lucas Sussman. Matt Davis and Olivia Williams also star.
* Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Ellen Burstyn, Ron Eldard and Maggie Smith are in negotiations to star in DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD for Callie Khouri, who will direct from a script by Mark Andrus (AS GOOD AS IT GETS), based on the novel by Rebecca Wells. Warner Bros. and Gaylord Films are co-producing.
* Ali Larter has joined the cast of Dimension's JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK.
* Zooey Deschanel (ALMOST FAMOUS) has been cast in THE GOOD GIRL, opposite Jennifer Aniston, John C. Reilly and Jake Gyllenhaal.
* Chris Elliott joins SCARY MOVIE II for director Keenen Ivory Wayans.
* J.J. Feild has been cast in the Harrison Ford/Liam Neeson starrer K-19 for director Katrhyn Bigelow and LAST ORDERS for Fred Schepisi, opposite Michael Caine, Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins.
* Dan Montgomery ("Wasteland") will star opposite David Krumholtz and Milla Jovovich in the romantic comedy YOU STUPID MAN. Brian Burns directs.
* Victor Varnado (upcoming PLUTO NASH) will star in the mockumentary HACKS for writer/director Glenn Rockowitz. It's a satirical look at the standup comedy circuit.
* Michael J. Fox, Geena Davis, Jonathan Lipnicki and Hugh Laurie are in talks to reprise their roles for Columbia's STUART LITTLE 2. Rob Minkoff will again direct.
* Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Beart, Virginie Ledoyen, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, Danielle Darrieux, Vahina Goicante and Firmine Richard will star in EIGHT WOMEN, the next French Film by director Francois Ozon. The project has been described as a "bitchy whodunit" pic, which features each actress singing a classic French pop song on Christmas Eve. Shooting begins in April.
* Rebecca Romijn-Stamos will play the title role in writer/director Brian De Palma's upcoming film noir pic FEMME FATALE, opposite Antonio Banderas and Jean Reno. The pic is about a woman who tries to let go of her former life as a con woman, but to no avail.
* Ron Eldard, Jeremy Piven, William Fichtner and Orlando Bloom round out the cast of Ridley Scott's BLACK HAWK DOWN for Revolution Studios. It's about a group of U.S. soldiers trying to survive a mission in Somalia. Shooting begins Feb. 23.
* Breckin Meyer is in final talks to play the brother of Meg Ryan's character in the romantic time-travel comedy KATE & LEOPOLD for director James Mangold.
* Tim Allen's Boxing Cat Prods. and Mel Gibson's Icon Entertainment are developing the sci-fi comedy STARCHILD for Paramount Pictures as a possible starring vehicle for Allen. The project, which goofs on the sci-fi genre, about a CIA agent who helps a friendly alien get back home, saving him from the results of an interplanetary war.
* Winona Ryder is in talks to star opposite Adam Sandler in DEEDS for Columbia Pictures/New Line Cinema and director Steven Brill. Tim Herlihy wrote the script, which is an homage to Frank Capra's 1936 comedy MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN. The new version will center on a small-town guy named Deeds who transfers to New York after he inherits a billion-dollar international business from his deceased uncle. His small-town values begin to affect the cynical Big Apple folks.
* Jason Isaccs (THE PATRIOT, SWEET NOVEMBER) join the improv film HOTEL for director Mike Figgis. He'll play an actor who drops out of a film to do a big Hollywood flick. Isaccs also joins BLACK HAWK DOWN.
* Kathleen Robertson will star in Dimension's SCARY MOVIE 2, as well as writer/director Austin Chick's XX/XY opposite Mark Ruffalo, and New Line's SAM I AM, starring Sean Penn.
* Val Kilmer is in talks to star opposite Jim Caviezel in PRINCESS OF PARADISE PARK for Franchise Pictures and writer/director Michael Seitzman. Production begins April 15. It's about two brothers who inherit a broken-down carousel and they believe that if they get it running agani, they may communicate with their sister, who died there years earlier.
* Adam Garcia (COYOTE UGLY) will star in 20th Century Fox's THE FIRST $20 MILLION IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST for director Mick Jackson. It's based on Po Bronson's novel about a group of computer geeks who try to develop the ultimate network computer. Jon Favreau penned the adaptation with a rewrite by Gary Tieche.
* Amanda Detmer (SAVING SILVERMAN) has been cast in Frank Darabont's THE MAJESTIC for Warner Bros./Universal/Castle Rock Entertainment. Shooting begins March 5. Detmer will play Jim Carrey's starlet girlfriend.
* Orlando Jones will star in THE REVERED PIMP DADDY, as a pimp who promises a dying minister that he'll watch over his churchgoers in East Philly. Marcus Raboy directs.
* Debra Messing joins Tea Leoni and Treat Williams in Woody Allen's next comedy. She'll play Allen's girlfriend.
* Jennifer Jason Leigh joins Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Tom Sizemore and Daniel Craig in THE ROAD TO PERDITION for DreamWorks and director Sam Mendes. Leigh will play the wife of Hanks' character.
* Colin Farrell is in final talks to co-star with Tom Cruise in MINORITY REPORT for director Steven Spielberg. Farrell will play a role originally thought to be played by Damon. The Fox-DreamWorks project is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. It's about a futuristic cop who heads a division that catches killers before they commit the crime. He finds himself being pursued by another cop for a murder he hasn't yet committed.
* Michael Rapaport and Deborah Harry are starring in the film noir thriller
A GOOD NIGHT TO DIE for Regent Entertainment and director Craig Singer.
Gary Stretch, James Russo, Frank Whaley, Robin Givens, Seymour Cassel, Ralph
Macchio and Ally Sheedy also star. Robert Dean Klein scripted.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Penelope Spheeris (WAYNE'S WORLD) is in talks to direct the action comedy SPAM ON RYE for Fanchise Pictures. It's about a young guy who steals a car from a gangster to impress his date and finds himself spending a night that yields carjacking, kidnapping, a televised car chase involving a mob boss, crooked cops and a violent movie producer. Shooting is expected to begin in April from a script by Sal Stabile and Andrew Wasser.
* Brian Gibson will develop, and possibly direct, the Fox 2000 comedy BEACHED about the 4-year old kid of two cruise-line entertainers who is goes overboard and is looked after by whales. Years later, the boy is washed up on shore, discovers he's the world's best swimmer and must get re-acquainted land life. Ted Griffin wrote the script which will see a rewrite by Jordan Roberts.
* Joey Travolta and Dale J. Oprandy have a one-year option of the feature film and TV rights to the life story of Sal Mineo, 25 years after the actor's murder. Travolta will direct from a script by Oprandy and co-producers Dan Goldman and Mark Basil.
* Norwegian director is attached to direct a remake of his 1987 action/suspense film PATHFINDER for Phoenix Pictures. This film will be set in a nuclear wasteland, as opposed to 10th-century Lapland, and will follow a young man whose family is murdered by bandits. He is captured after leading an attack against the group and devises a scheme that leads to their destruction.
* Bruce Beresford will direct an untitled Warner Bros. epic love story, based on true events and the story made famous by MARY OF BOTANY BAY, about a man and woman sent from England in the 1700s to the Botany Bay penal colony, and their attempt to escape. Patrick Edgeworth will script. Beresford is also prepping BOSWELL FOR THE DEFENSE, based on the play by Edgeworth, starring Michael Caine. Shooting on that project begins in April. The director is expected to follow BOSWELL with MISS POTTER, a biopic about Beatrix Potter, scripted by Richard Maltby.
For script news, check out my weekly script report at
ScreenwritersUtopia.com
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Universal Pictures has optioned the feature rights to Mike Lupica's latest novel BUMP AND RUN for Shady Acres Prods. to develop as a possible directing vehicle for Tom Shadyac. The book centers on a Vegas casino host who inherits an NFL football team.
* Randall Wallace is creating The Wheelhouse, a production co. with Stephen Zapotoczny and Danielle Lemmon, that will work on developing new writers and will be financed by Wallace's revenue from other projects. The company is currently working on an early Wallace script entitled LOVE AND HONOR, about an 18th century American man who travels to Russia and recruits support for the American Revolution. They are also working on LONG BLACK VEIL, a gothic thriller based on a mountain ghost story.
* Atlantic Steamline has purchased the rights to LEAP INTO DARKNESS, by Leo Bretholz, that will be adapted for the big screen by Michael Olesker, who also helped Bretholz with the book. It's based on the author and centers on a Holocaust survivor who runs from the Nazis for seven years in Europe.
* Revolution Studios has optioned the Industry Standard article "Futuristic Fighting Machines," for a feature to be titled EX-1. The story focuses on a stolen Army prototype exoskeleton.
* Johnny Lew Fratto, son of Iowa mob boss Louis "Cock-Eyed" Fratto (a.k.a. Lew Farrell), is working with Merv Griffin Entertainment on a feature and a television series based on Fratto's family life. Lew Farrell was known as a racket leader, linked by the Senate Rackets Committee to the Capone-Accardo mob in Chicago.
* Intermedia has acquired the U.S. remake rights to ALLES BOB! (EVERYTHING BOB!) for Scott Free Prods. The comedy follows Bob, a philanderer who is about to give up the single life to marry a beautiful and wealthy woman when he unexpectedly falls for an older woman with three children.
* Ho Chi Minh City officials refused permission for the film crew of THE QUIET AMERICAN, starring Brendan Fraser and Michael Caine, to shoot a scene where a car explodes in a plaza in front of the city's Continental Hotel. Phillip Noyce directs. In related news, Miramax Films is in final talks to buy North and South American rights to the project. It's based on the Graham Green novel, which is set in 1952 Vietnam. Rade Serbedzija (SNATCH) also stars.
* Production on Bryan Singer's CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, to star
Johnny Depp and George Clooney, has stalled after Rennaissance Films was
unable to come up with the financing. Artisan Entertainment is in talks to
handle the project's domestic and worldwide rights. Interlight may be
interested as well. Principal photography was expected to begin in five
weeks. Financing for LOVERS, LIARS AND THIEVES, writer/director Jeremy
Leven's pic to star Robin Williams, Antionio Banderas and Renee Zellweger,
has also fallen through. Shooting on that pic scheduled to begin April 16
and preproduction will continue if new financing is secured on Monday.
Harry Note: Ok you rich folks out there wanting to bring art into the world... Pony up the money and get CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND made NOW! The script is fantastic... The pedigree of talent... ROCK SOLID! Make it! NOW!
* Revolution Studios is halting plans to star production on PROJECT 3, the Julia Roberts-Gore Verbisnski thriller written by Joel Wyman, due to the impending strikes. The pic will be the first project Roberts and Verbinski do when the strike is averted or settled.
* Satirical publication The Onion has signed a first-look deal with Miramax. DreamWorks is already developing pics based on Onion Material: CANADIAN GIRLFRIEND, about a guy who may or may not have an imaginary girlfriend; and the animated pic 10th CIRCLE ADDED TO RAPIDLY GROWING HELL.
Sad to hear about CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND and LOVERS, LIARS AND THIEVES -- and PROJECT 3 to a lesser extent (they're just waiting 'til after the strikes on that one). I am glad to hear Bruce Beresford is busy. Kathleen Robertson is very busy as well. Curious to see the Winona Ryder/Adam Sandler team-up -- ditto Val Kilmer and Jim Caviezel. The cast for THE ROAD TO PERDITION is rounding out nicely. (Hoping to read that soon -- the novel, not the script.) And what are your thoughts of the femme fatale casting in FEMME FATALE?
I received an email from a fellow with regards to WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE...AND YOUNG. He claims that the casting is as follows: Mel Gibson as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, USA; Sam Elliott as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumely, USA; Madeline Stowe as Mrs. Julie Moore; Greg Kinnear as Maj. Bruce Crandall, USA (a Chopper pilot); Barry Pepper as Joseph L. Galloway, AP Newsman; Denis Leary as "undisclosed." According to a report at Filmforce, though, Kinnear may have replaced Leary as the chopper pilot (and Doug Hutchinson may have dropped out as well), as opposed to the two having separate roles. Filming begins March 5 in CA and GA. Check out www.lzxray.com for WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE-related info (book, author, events, etc.).
Until next week... Happy President's Day.
