Alrighty folks, here's the latest rehash of the past week's Hollywood news from Elston Gunn, and once again he's jam packed this Weekly Recap with all the latest news from the trades. Ol'Father Geek here hopes you enjoy the news. And now... heeeeeeeere'sssss Elstoooon, annnnnd....

The Weekly Recap...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Jean Smart and Method Man join Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Ian Holm, and Peter Sarsgaard in Braff's LARGE'S ARK for Camelot Pictures and Jersey Films.

* Naomi Watts will star alongside Sean Penn and Don Cheadle in THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON for director Niels Mueller, who wrote the script with Kevin Kennedy. The project is the story of a salesman in 1974 who, while pursuing the American dream and finding himself at the end of his rope, takes very desperate measures to make his mark.

* Kate Hudson is in final talks to star in the gothic thriller SKELETON KEY for Universal and director Iain Softley. Ehren Kruger wrote the script about an in-home caretaker to an elderly couple in New Orleans when spooky things commence. Production is expected to begin in September.

* Richard Schiff ("The West Wing") and David Krumholtz join the biopic UNCHAIN MY HEART: THE RAY CHARLES STORY for director Taylor Hackford. Jamie Foxx, Regina King and Kerri Washington star.

* Swiss actor Bruno Ganz will play Adolf Hitler in Constantin Film's THE DOWNFALL - HITLER AND THE THIRD REICH for director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Shooting starts this summer in St. Petersburg.

* Madeleine Stowe has co-written, with her husband Brian Benben, the Western script THE UNBOUND CAPTIVES for her to play the female lead. It's about a woman whose husband is killed and her two young children are kidnapped by a Comanche war party in 1859. She is rescued by a mysterious frontiersman named Tom, who tries to track down and free her children.

* Andy Garcia, Frances O'Connor and Angela Bassett will star in THE LAZARUS CHILD, Ron Bass' adaptation of Robert Mawson's 1998 novel, for director Graham Theakston, Eagle Pictures and Morgan Creek. It's a family drama that begins when a girl goes into a coma after being hit by a bus. Her only hope for recovery comes from an eccentric researcher. The girl's 12-year-old brother enlists to be hooked up to travel into his sister's mind, in hopes of bringing them both out alive.

* Luke Mably will star opposite Julia Stiles in THE PRINCE AND THE FRESHMAN for director Martha Coolidge, Sobini Films, Paramount Pictures and Lions Gate Intl. Katherine Fugate wrote the script about a female student at a Midwestern university who has the dubious fortune to fall in love with a European prince spending the semester there incognito.

* Alicia Silverstone will star opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini and Seth Green in Warner Bros.' SCOOBY DOO TOO for director Raja Gosnell.

* Joshua Leonard and Jordan Ladd will star in the horror/thriller MADHOUSE for director William Butler. Shooting starts in mid-May in Romania. It's about a young psychiatric intern who unearths dark secrets about the mental health facility in which he works.

* Marcia Gay Harden joins Gene Hackman, Ray Romano and Maura Tierney in MOOSEPORT, written by Tom Shulman, for director Donald Petrie, 20th Century Fox and Intermedia Film. Production is scheduled to start by month's end..

* James Purefoy will star opposite Reese Witherspoon in VANITY FAIR, based on the William Makepeace Thackeray novel, for Focus Features and director Mira Nair. Shooting starts next month. Julian Fellowes penned the adaptation set in the 1840s about a lower-class girl who defies her poverty-stricken background to climb the London social ladder with her best friend by her side.

* DMX is in talks to star in and produce the action/thriller WEREWOLF for Phoenix Pictures and Italian director Dario Piana. Marshall Todd wrote the script about a mysterious bluesman whose mission is to rid Earth of werewolves, the last of whom live among the rich and drug-addicted in the Hollywood Hills.

* Joan Allen and Kevin Costner are in talks to star in MDP Worldwide's THE UPSIDE OF ANGER for writer/director Mike Binder. It's a family drama about a mother and her four strong-willed daughters who must suddenly deal with life without a husband/father.

* John C. Reilly and Diego Luna (Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN) are in negotiations to star in CRIMINAL (aka NINE QUEENS) for director Gregory Jacobs, Warner Bros. and Section Eight. It's about two men who team on a scam involving a forged set of extremely valuable stamps.

* Katie Holmes will play the title role in thr romantic comedy FIRST DAUGHTER for director Forest Whitaker and Regency Enterprises. It's about the daughter of the U.S. president who goes to college and falls into a fairy tale romance with a dashing graduate student only to find he turns out to have a secret agenda.

* Chi McBride ("Boston Public") joins the cast of I, ROBOT, starring Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan and Alan Tudyk. Alex Proyas directs.

* Anthony LaPaglia, Aaron Stanford and Allison Janney will star for writer/director Josh Sternfeld in the indie pic WINTER SOLSTICE. The story centers on a widower in his mid-40s raising two sons, and the family's attempt to come to grips when the eldest son leaves home. Mark Webber and Ron Livingston also star.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Mike Newell is attached to direct THE CONSTANT GARDENER, based on the novel by John Le Carre about a British diplomat in Kenya investigating the murder of his wife, a human rights campaigner. Jeffrey Caine penned the adaptation.

* Paddy Breathnach will direct the greyhound racing pic MAN ABOUT DOG, scripted by Pearse Elliott. Shooting begins this summer.

* Jane Startz Prods., TurtleBack Prods. and Irish shingle Octagon Films will produce LORD OF THE NUTCRACKER MEN, based on the novel by Iain Lawrence, with David Magee writing the script. It's about a young British boy whose woodcarver father is shipped off to fight in WWI. When his father sends him hand-carved wooden soldiers from the front lines, the boy comes to believe that the games he plays with the soldiers are connected to the real-life casualties on the battlefield.

* Ted P. Lopez will script ME & JULIO for Fox Searchlight about a modern day Cheech & Chong-esque duo who inherit and try to save a failing Mexican restaurant in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

* Brett Ratner will direct THE LAST FULL MEASURE, scripted by Todd Robinson, for New Line about the true story of a Washington insider who risks his future to ensure that a fallen airman receives the Medal of Honor.

* Jim Manos will write for New Line and Mandeville Pictures a feature based on the true story of a Marine colonel who ran a ballet school.

* Regency Enterprises is in talks to pick up feature film rights to the graphic novel HAMMER OF THE GODS with Peter Wortmann and Bob Conte attached to script. Circle of Confusion will produce the project about a 21-year-old man who one day learns that he is fated to save another world -- the Norse world. If he fails, that world will fail, and evil will carry over into the present day.

* Jason Richman sold his Hitchcockian action/thriller pitch to Universal for Lorenzo Di Bonaventura to produce. It tells the story of a former FBI agent who has run away from his past and must now go back and face his demons. In the process, he redeems himself.

* Salty Features will produce the road trip pic BAM BAM AND CELESTE, written by Margaret Cho, about a woman who sets out for New York with her best friend taking on sexism, racism and homophobia along the way.

* Gaylord Films' Casey La Scala (GRIND) will direct, produce and co-write an untitled youth-driven film set in the world of motocross racing to begin production this fall. Todd Samovitz (WONDERLAND) will co-write the script.

* Jeff Byrd will direct KING'S RANSOM, written by Wayne Conley, for New Line and Alter Ego Pictures. It's about a rich, cocky, hated businessman who realizes he may lose half his wealth to the obnoxious wife he's trying to divorce. He plans his own kidnapping in order to wipe himself out and claim poverty, but soon finds out others have plans to kidnap and ransom him as well.

* Kevin Allen (THE BIG TEASE) will direct AGENT CODY BANKS 2, replacing Harald Zwart who dropped out due to budgetary concerns.

* Alexander Witt will direct RESIDENT EVIL 2 from a script by Paul S. Anderson for Screen Gems/Constantin Film. Milla Jovovich returns to star. Shooting will begin in August in Toronto.

* Pascal Laugier is directing SAINT ANGE from his own script for Focus Features about a woman who arrives at a French orphanage in winter 1960 to clean the deserted mansion. She meets up with a teenage girl and begins to hear strange noises and startling visions that lead her to believe they are not alone.

* David Ayer (TRAINING DAY) will write THE WILD BUNCH remake for Warner Bros. Pictures. The new pic will be set in contemporary Mexico and deal with a robbery amid the corruption and payoffs of the drug business.

* James Foley will direct FORTUNE'S FOOLS for Working Title and Universal. It's about five L.A. cops who steal a winning lottery ticket worth $36 million from a drug dealer.

* French director Jose Pinheiro will shoot LE LION, based on the novel by Jospeh Kessel, in July near Johannesburg.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* U.K. producer Celador is in talks to produce a movie regarding the cheating contestant who was on the U.K. version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

* Lakeshore Entertainment has picked up the rights to Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel AMERICAN PASTORAL about Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete and devoted family man who is living the American dream in postwar America. His picture-perfect life unravels when his beloved daughter Merry has become a revolutionary terrorist bent on destroying everything he has valued in the life he has built for his family.

* Screen Gems is in final negotiations to purchase all feature film rights to popular Sony video game THE GETAWAY.

* Paramount Pictures greenlit the backwoods buddy comedy WITHOUT A PADDLE for Donald De Line to produce. It's about three city-dwelling friends who go camping in the country to honor the memory of an adventure-loving friend who died accidentally. When they get lost, their outdoor inexperience creates a series of misadventures with locals, including mistakenly setting fire to a grove of marijuana.

GUNN SHOTS

(NOT from the trades)

* A WEST MEMPHIS THREE film is in development with Curt Johnson (THOTH) producing and finishing up a script. Michael Pitt (HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH) is attached to play Damian Echols. Orlando Bloom and William H. Macy are said to be targeted for roles. Production is expected to begin in the fall in West Memphis. Visit http://www.wm3.org for more news.

Until next week.

Elston Gunn