Father Geek here with Elston and his regular report on Hollywood's news for the pass week, just in case you missed out on something important to you during your busy work-week, soooo get relexed and prepare to scan thru our latest edition of...
The Weekly Recap...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Lynn Collins and Zuleikha Robinson will star opposite Al Pacino, Ian McKellan and Joseph Fiennes in Arclight Films' adaptation of William Shakespeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE for writer/director Michael Radford. Shooting begins late fall in Venice, Italy, and Luxembourg.
* Will Ferrell joins Jason Biggs, Radha Mitchell, Chloe Sevigny, Jonny Lee Miller and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Woody Allen's upcoming untitled project for Fox Searchlight Pictures. Production begins in the fall in New York.
* Dougray Scott, Emilia Fox and Shaun Parkes round out the cast of Simon Shore's YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME for Samuelson Prods. about a group of twentysomethings trying to avoid adulthood and responsibility. Patrick Wilde (GET REAL) wrote the script based on the Dutch film ALL STARS.
* Shia LeBeouf, Gavin Rossdale and Djimon Hounsou will join Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz and Tilda Swinton in Warner Bros. Pictures' CONSTANTINE for director Francis Lawrence.
* Brad Pitt is eyeing PEACE LIKE A RIVER as a possible star vehicle. Kathy McWorter has adapted the Leif Enger novel about a single father who takes his children on the road to search for their fugitive brother.
* Jennifer Aniston is in discussions to star in ZORA, the Warner Bros.-based true story of a woman who is considered a superwoman because of her vast personal accomplishments but finds her true strength when faced with personal crisis. Project started as an Ira Glass report on NPR's "This American Life." Aniston is also eyeing KATHARINE FUGATE, a New Line-based tearjerker about a 10-year old boy who tracks down his best friend's birth mother as his pal's dying wish.
* Burt Reynolds will portray a reclusive mountain man in Paramount's buddy comedy WITHOUT A PADDLE in a tribute to his breakout role in DELIVERANCE. Stephen Brill directs the pic, while Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Sheppard star. Bonnie Somerville has also been added to the cast.
* Philip Seymour Hoffman is attached to play Truman Capote in the indie pic CAPOTE for Cyan Pictures about the intense bond Capote formed with drifters Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who murdered a family of four in 1959, while he researched the book IN COLD BLOOD. Bennett Miller will direct from a script by Dan Futterman.
* Dean Cain, Tim Curry, Jennifer Tilly and Jon Lovitz will star in the family comedy BAILEY for director David Devine. Laurie Holden, Kenneth Welsh, Sheila McCarthy and Angela Valee also join the cast. It's the story of a talking dog named Bailey, who can only be heard by his master, a billionaire animal behaviorist. When the master dies, Bailey inherits her fortune much to the incredulity of the surrounding family, who try various schemes to get their paws on it. Mary Walsh and Heather Conkie scripted.
* Justin Bartha and Diane Kruger have been cast opposite Nicolas Cage in the Walt Disney Co.'s NATIONAL TREASURE for director Jon Turteltaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The film is a caper story about a secret code in the Constitution that reveals the whereabouts of a treasure buried during the 1700s.
* Dominic Purcell will play Wesley Snipes' vampire nemesis in New Line's upcoming BLADE: TRINITY for writer/director David Goyer. Purcell is the latest addition to a cast that includes Kris Kristofferson, Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds.
* Val Kilmer will play the Macedonian king Philip in ALEXANDER for director Oliver Stone and Intermedia/Warner Bros.
* John Corbett will star with Kim Basinger in ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING for director Joel Zwick (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING) and Capitol Films.
* Rachel McAdams (THE HOT CHICK) will play opposite Lindsay Lohan in Paramount's upcoming teen comedy MEAN GIRLS, written by Tina Fey, for director Mark S. Waters.
* David Spade will star in an untitled holiday-themed comedy that Columbia Pictures has picked up for studio-based Happy Madison Prods..
* Penelope Cruz is in talks to star opposite Matthew McConaughey in Crusader Entertainment's big-screen adaptation of Clive Cussler's 1992 novel SAHARA for director Breck Eisner. The project will begin production in the fall, with Paramount distributing.
* Eva Mendes, Eddie Griffin, Will Ferrell, Kris Kristofferson, Jacob Vargas, Seymour Cassel and Harry Dean Stanton have joined the cast of Luke Wilson's THE WENDELL BAKER STORY for Franchise Pictures.
* Cheech Marin has come aboard Miramax Films and Tapestry Films' Nick Cannon vehicle THE UNDERCLASSMAN for director Marcos Siega.
* Keira Knightley is in negotiations to star opposite Adrien Brody in Mandalay Pictures/Section Eight's THE JACKET for helmer John Maybury and Warner Independent Pictures. Marc Rocco and Massy Tadjedin wrote the script about a soldier convicted of murder who during his treatment in a psychiatric hospital begins to believe he is traveling through time. Through his time travel, he searches for Knightley, who plays a woman he met as a child and is fated to love. The British actress will don an American accent for the role.
* Tom Cruise will star in THE FEW playing Billy Fiske, the first American pilot killed fighting the Germans in World War II, for Paramount Pictures and director Michael Mann. John Logan (THE LAST SAMURAI) is in talks to write the script, based on a book proposal by Alex Kershaw. Fiske, an Olympic athlete and fighter pilot who was half-American and half-British, led a small group of American pilots who broke U.S. neutrality rules in the early days of WWII to fight with the British against the Nazis.
* Jessica Alba is poised to join Paul Walker in INTO THE BLUE, the MGM/Mandalay Pictures drama that director John Stockwell will shoot in the Cayman Islands and Florida next month. Scripted by Matt Johnson, the pic is about a young treasure-hunting couple who come upon a stash of cocaine that puts them in the path of unsavory salvagers.
* James Van Der Beek is attached to STANDING STILL for Las Vegas-based Insomnia Entertainment. It's a BIG CHILL for the Gen Y set that will star Estella Warren, Amy Adams and Jon Abrahams. Matthew Cole Weiss directs.
* Christian Bale has been cast as Bruce Wayne in Warner Bros. Pictures' upcoming BATMAN movie to be directed by Christopher Nolan and produced by Emma Thomas. The new Batman movie, written by Nolan and David Goyer, follows the early years of Batman, as he is embarking on his crime-fighting career. Principal photography is expected to start in February.
* Jesse Bradford joins Elizabeth Banks, Glenn Close and James Marsden in the indie film HEIGHTS for director Chris Terrio and Merchant Ivory. It's about a photojournalist who is forced to come to terms with a complicated relationship in her life.
* Michelle Rodriguez and Alfred Molina have joined the voice cast of SIAN KA'AN, an animated film project being billed as the first Hispanic-themed and -produced animated movie. The duo joins Placido Domingo and Cheech Marin in the project, which centers on a young girl, Maria, in small-town Mexico who is "awakened" for a special mission -- to rescue her father and save the Golden Snail from extinction.
* Drew Barrymore is in talks to star in DATE SCHOOL for DreamWorks. The movie centers on a woman who is determined to find love but is lousy at dating. She then turns to a dating instructor for help. That part has yet to be cast. Abby Cohn and Mark Silverstein scripted.
* Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel and Amelia Warner will star in WINTER PASSING for Stratus Film Co. Gotham playwright Adam Rapp wrote the script and will direct. Shooting begins late next month in New York. Harris toplines as a reclusive novelist who has an estranged relationship with his daughter. She returns home after a seven-year absence to a house full of strangers that include a wandering loner and one of the writer's former students. The daughter's arrival is the catalyst for change in all of them.
* Gael Garcia Bernal (Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN) is in talks to play the leading role in GOAL!, a planned trilogy of movies about the rise of a Latino soccer star living in Los Angeles.
* Will Ferrell will star with Drew Barrymore, Lily Tomlin, Mos Def and Olympia Dukakis in the Scott Kramer/Steven Soderbergh-scripted A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES for director David Gordon Green. Sharon Stone's interested and Larry David's being courted to join the pic as well. The film is an adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's novel about a bright portly guy who works hilariously bad jobs and lives with a wacky mom in New Orleans' French Quarter.
* Bow Wow is attached to star in MR. PREZ for Columbia Pictures and Overbrook Entertainment, directing duo Fat Cats -- aka Randy Marshall and Eric Williams -- and comedy writing team Claudia Grazioso and Steven Gary Banks. The story centers on a teenager from Philadelphia whose normal life is turned upside down when he becomes president for the day after winning an essay contest.
* Vanessa Ferlito, Paula Garces, Kelli Garner, Monica Keena and Christina Milian will star as a group of cheerleaders opposite Tommy Lee Jones in Revolution Studios' comedy CHEER UP for director Stephen Herek. Shooting begins next month in Austin, Texas, with Shannon Marie Woodward also starring as Jones' daughter. It's about an FBI agent forced to go undercover as an assistant cheerleading coach to protect a group of college cheerleaders after they witness a murder.
* Queen Latifah, Quran Pender, Ja Rule, Eve, Jonathan Silverman, Jenifer Lewis, Meagan Good, Tim Meadows, Farrah Fawcett and Danny Glover have been cast in THE COOKOUT for director Lance Rivera and Lions Gate Films. Queen Latifah co-wrote the pic with her Flavor Unit Films partner Shakim Compere about a basketball star who becomes the No. 1 NBA draft pick. To celebrate, he organizes a "cookout" in his new mansion with his crazy friends and relatives.
* Hilary Duff is attached to star in THE PERFECT MAN for Universal Pictures and Marc Platt Prods. Based on life stories of Heather Robinson and her mother, Janet Robinson, lighthearted comedy concerns a teen and her single mom.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Michael Mann is in talks to direct Brad Pitt in HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS, about the famous feud, for Warner Bros./Plan B with Eric Roth (THE INSIDER) set to script.
* Steve Kloves (HARRY POTTER) has adapted and will direct CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME, Mark Haddon's novel about an autistic 15-year-old who uses the sleuthing methods of his idol, Sherlock Holmes, to uncover the killer of a neighbor's dog.
* Bill Monohan is set to script INFERNAL AFFAIRS, the Warner Bros./Plan B-produced remake of the Andrew Lau-directed Hong Kong action hit. The original, about planted moles on opposite sides of the law, has already become the second-highest-grossing film in Hong Kong.
* James Frey is adapting his critically acclaimed memoir A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, a gritty look at Frey's attempt to kick drugs and alcohol.
* Miguel Arteta (THE GOOD GIRL) will direct and exec produce BOOK OF JOE, an adaptation of the upcoming Jonathan Tropper novel BUSH FALLS. Doug Wright is scripting the story of a man who grows up an outcast in a Connecticut town, then moves to Gotham and gains fame as a writer by lampooning his hometown. He's got much to answer for when he returns home to care for his ailing father.
* Jeremy Leven (THE NOTEBOOK) will adapt the Audrey Niffenegger novel THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE for New Line, Plan B and Industry Entertainment. It's a love story between a woman and a man, the latter of whom is cursed with a time-travelling gene that causes him to spontaneously appear and disappear at different times.
* Bill Witliff will adapt Plan B/Gaylord Entertainment's MY LOSING SEASON, the Pat Conroy coming-of-age memoir about his senior season as point guard for the Citadel basketball team in 1966-67. It is a bittersweet story as the youth must come to grips with saying goodbye to the sport that provided refuge from his bullying fighter pilot father.
* Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan Lori Parks (TOP/DOG UNDERDOG) will script ACT V, a fact-based drama about a female director who works with maximum security prisoners to stage act five of HAMLET.
* Antoine Fuqua is attached to direct and Nicolas Cage to star in and produce LOU ZAMPERINI, a memoir about the famed Olympian and his harrowing experience of being captured by the Japanese and singled out for abuse by a camp commander. Robert Schenkkan and Neil Tolkin wrote the screenplay.
* William Goldman has scripted THE LONER, a Warner Bros. film based on a Texas Monthly article about an undercover cop whose diligent work makes him a target.
* Daniel Farrands ("Amityville 2000," HALLOWEEN 6) will write a feature based on the myth of the haunted house immortalized in the book and film THE AMITYVILLE HORROR for Emmett/Furla Films, Barstu Prods. and Integrated Films and Management. In 1974 in a house in Amityville, N.Y., Ronald DeFeo murdered his parents and four siblings while they slept. What made the house infamous was a 1977 account written by Jay Anson that claimed the family who bought the house after the DeFeos' demise was tormented by a series of bizarre and bloody supernatural events.
* Edgar Michael Bravo is set to direct the dramedy THE BOY WHO COULDN'T SAY NO, which he co-wrote with Brian Patterson, about a 19-year-old Mormon youth whose seduction by an older woman exposes some of the secret lives of his community. No Restrictions Entertainment and Sudden Storm Productions will co-produce with Palisades Pictures providing some financing.
* Richard Linklater will write, direct and produce an untitled feature film set at a Texas college in the 1980s. The pic will revolve around the trials and tribulations of a freshman who arrives at the school to join the baseball team. Paramount Pictures and Alphaville will produce the project, which is set to begin in early to mid-2004, after Linklater wraps shooting the sequel to Castle Rock's BEFORE SUNRISE.
* Roman Polanski and screenwriter Ronald Harwood (THE PIANIST) will reteam for a feature adaptation of Charles Dickens' OLIVER TWIST. Plans are to shoot in Europe next summer, using a British cast.
* Robert Luketic is in negotiations to direct Jennifer Lopez in New Line's MONSTER-IN-LAW for Benderspink. Jane Fonda continues to eye the pic's title role. Anya Kochoff wrote the story of a young woman who must reconsider her engagement when confronted with her nightmarish future mother-in-law.
* Jennifer Lopez's Nuyorican Prods. will produce with HBO the documentary LOS QUINCES, about the traditional coming-of-age ball that marks a Cuban girl's 15th birthday. Docu will be shot in and around Miami later this year by Vincent Castellanos. Every year, thousands of young Cuban girls go through the rite of passage, marking what for many is the single most important day of their lives up to that point. Told through the eyes of a young Cuban-American girl, docu will follow one family's preparations for the event.
* Dror Soref will direct the thriller DEL RIO about a kidnapping that uncovers long-kept secrets that threaten to destroy a Latino family living in a Texas border town. Soref and Tomas Romero penned the script. Soref has partnered with Grant Cardone to form Skyline Picture, who will produce.
* Andrew Mudge was named winner of the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival on Monday, receiving a $1 million production deal with Universal and production company Hypnotic. Mudge will make THE P.T. JOHANSEN FIELD GUIDE TO NORTH AMERICAN MONSTERS concerns the son of a Sasquatch hunter who defends his evidence against a skeptical Cub Scout.
* Lolafilms has inked with Santiago Segura to star in the gross-out comedy franchise initiated by ISI DISI -- AMOR A LA BESTIA. Directed by Chema de la Pena (SHACKY CARMINE), the pic will follow two fanatical devotees of Australian hard rock group AC/DC, who fall for a stunning blonde, who in turn loves Spanish folk rock singer Joaquin Sabina. Jaidy Michel will play the two friends' object of desire. Fernando Tejedo looks set to play the buddie.
* Dylan Kidd (RODGER DODGER) will direct Topher Grace and Laura Linney in the romantic comedy P.S. Filming begins Sept. 27 in New York. It's a Kidd-scripted adaptation of Helen Schulman's novel about a woman who falls in love with a man 15 years her junior because he might just be the reincarnation of her dead high school boyfriend.
* John Polson will direct Robert De Niro in HIDE & SEEK at 20th Century Fox. Polson replaces Albert Hughes, who originally was attached to direct. The project is a psychological thriller about a man who suspects that his young daughter has come up with an unexpected and terrifying way to deal with her mother's death.
* Universal Pictures is in negotiations to pick up the rights to Dave Eggers' A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS, which New Line Cinema has put into turnaround after three years of development. Kimberly Peirce is attached to develop the project, which was adapted by Nick Hornby and D.V. DeVincentis.
* Art Monterastelli will write the thriller SILVER STRIKE for Fox 2000 and director John Bonito. The pic follows a military unit that goes to Eastern Europe and discovers its enemies are werewolves.
* Director Zhang Yimou (HERO) will shoot SHI MIAN MAIFU (AMBUSHED FROM ALL SIDES), starring Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Set during the Ming Dynasty, pic is about two policemen, played by Lau and Takeshi. Script was written by helmer Zhang and screenwriters Li Feng and Wang Bin.
* Aaron Sorkin is writing a feature screenplay concerning the man who invented the TV picture tube, Philo Farnsworth, and his lengthy legal battles with David Sarnoff of RCA, who wanted to use the new technology to start the NBC network.
* Peter Newman is directing LAST TYCOON STANDING, a documentary about Ted Hartley, who has owned RKO for the past 11 years with wife Dina Merrill, agreed to the film even as RKO Pictures is in the midst of being sold. Newman's pic covers Hartley's rise from Iowa farm boy to Navy flier who, after breaking his back in a crash, became a military liaison at the White House. A stint at Harvard Business School got him into showbiz first on the business side, then as an actor, most notably as Clint Eastwood's nemesis in HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* FIFA, the international association that governs football (soccer) announced on September 11 in Zurich that they plan to co-operate on creating a major Hollywood trilogy about the sport. The press release can be found here: http://www.fifa.com/en/display/mrel,71869.html
* Andrew Kevin Walker will speak at Screenwriting Expo 2 (Oct. 18, 3 PM) in Los Angeles. He joins William Goldman, Aaron Sorkin, Callie Khouri, Shane Black, Tom Schulman, John Lee Hancock, Linda Seger, Mike Medavoy, Peter Guber, and Peter Bart at the largest conference ever held for screenwriters. Visit http://www.screenwritingexpo.com for more info.
* See Ken Gamble's 26-minute "Leo's Oscar" at http://www.Eyekandy.com.
