Ol'Father Geek here deep in the heart of central Texas with Elston's regular weekly column on all that interesting Tinseltown stuff you may have let sneak by you during the past week while you were chained to your work station with some snoop'n supe breathing down the back of your neck. Well, alot has been going on out in Hollyweird and the other film capitals of the world while the whip has been being cracked overhead. That's exactly why we've run this report of Gunn's each & every week for the last several years (since March of 1998 to be exact). Its here on AICN so you can play catchup as easily and cheaply as possible with ALL the confirmed movie production news listed in one easy to find location each week in our regular edition of...
THE WEEKLY RECAP
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Laura Prepon, Tim Blake Nelson and Diane Ladd are joining Ashley Judd in Bold Films' COME EARLY MORNING for writer/director Joey Lauren Adams. It's about a small-town woman who has never committed to a serious relationship.
* Meryl Streep will star in Fox 2000's upcoming fashionista comedy THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA for director David Frankel and producer Wendy Finerman. Based on Lauren Weisberger's novel, the story centers on a young woman who goes to New York to work for an all-powerful magazine editor named Miranda Priestly. Aline Brosh McKenna (THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION) wrote the script.
* Izabella Miko (HBO's "Deadwood") has joined the cast of indie THE HOUSE OF USHER for director Hayley Cloake. It's a modern udate of the Edgar Allan Poe story, also starring Austin Nichols and Beth Grant.
* Brian White (MR. 3000) has been cast in Impact Pictures/Constantin Film's DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE. Based on the vidgame, pic stars White as a fighter trying to escape a mad scientist's island. Natassia Malthe also stars for director Corey Yuen.
* Mark Moses ("Desperate Housewives") joins 20th Century Fox's BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE 2. He plays a Harvard-educated computer whiz who hires Big Momma as his children's nanny. Nia Long and Zachary Levi also star in the sequel, directed by John Whitesell.
* Ian Holm, JJ Field, Patrick Bruel, Said Taghmaoui and Tom Conti star in BEYOND FRIENDSHIP for writer/director Elie Chouraqui. Based on the novel O JERUSALEM by Dominique Lapierre & Larry Collins, the film is set during the turmoil that erupted during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
* Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell, Adrien Brody, Richard Gere, Julianne Moore and Charlotte Gainsbourg are in talks to star in Todd Haynes' I'M NOT THERE, an unconventional film bio of Bob Dylan, for Killer Films and Wells Prods. As envisioned by Haynes, pic follows seven characters, each embodying a different aspect of Dylan's life story and music. Pic is the first biographical feature project to secure the approval of the pop culture icon. Project had been set up at Paramount last year, but has fallen off the studio's slate following its recent regime shift.
* Kevin James is in negotiations to star in MAN IN UNIFORM for New Line and Landscape Entertainment as a beleaguered everyman whose life radically changes after he takes possession of a policeman's missing uniform.
* Justin Timberlake will provide the voice of Artie, King Harold's rebellious nephew, in DreamWorks' SHREK 3.
* Crispin Glover and Michael Paloma will star in the indie horror film SIMON SAYS, to be directed/produced by William Dear. The pic, written by Dear and Paloma and based on an original story by Paloma, deals with a group of beautiful teenagers who are isolated and killed off one by one.
* Zach Braff and Amanda Peet are in talks to star in the upcoming comedy FAST TRACK for 2929 Prods. and This Is That Prods. The film will be released domestically by the WeinsteinCo, Bob and Harvey Weinstein's new company. Jesse Peretz is set to direct the film. Written by David Guion and Michael Handelman, the story centers on an underachiever who is forced to take a job he doesn't want after his wife becomes pregnant and quits her high-paying job.
* Melissa George (AMITYVILLE HORROR) will join Josh Duhamel in TURISTAS for director John Stockwell about a group of young adventure travelers who must cope with the aftermath of a bus accident that maroons them in a remote Brazilian beach town.
* Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are in talks to star in the long-gestating adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald story THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, which David Fincher is directing for Paramount and Warner Bros. The story centers on an elderly man who gets younger as time passes and encounters complications when, at age 50, he falls in love with a woman who is 30.
* Sarah Michelle Gellar is set to star in Warner Independent Pictures' untitled Marc Klein project, based on the stories from Melissa Bank's book, A GIRL'S GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING. Odd Lot Entertainment is producing along with Darryl Taja. The story follows a young New York book editor who always has defined herself by the type of man she can get. When she meets and ensnares the affections of an older, very powerful and extremely sophisticated man, she thinks her problems are solved when they've only just begun. Klein wrote the screenplay.
* Chris Tucker is expected to sign a two-picture contract at New Line, which would put RUSH HOUR 3 on track for a late fall start in Los Angeles and Paris. Jeff Nathanson will begin writing the sequel script as soon as Tucker signs. Nathanson pitched his vision to all of the principals weeks ago. Brett Ratner would return as director. Tucker has also toyed with the idea of sequelizing another Ratner-directed comedy, MONEY TALKS.
* Cameron Diaz will star in HOLIDAY, a Sony Pictures Entertainment comedy that Nancy Meyers wrote and will direct this fall. It's an ensemble romantic comedy with five central characters. Diaz will play a woman with man trouble until she crosses paths with a woman from a small English village with a similar dilemma.
* Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman are being wooed to star in a period epic that Baz Luhrmann will direct later this year. Luhrmann is collaborating with Stuart Beattie on a romance being called an Australian GONE WITH THE WIND and expected to be made through Fox.
* Donnie Wahlberg, Franky G., Glenn Plummer, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Beverley Mitchell, Eric Knudsen, Shawnee Smith, Dina Meyer and Tobin Bell star in SAW 2 for Twisted Pictures. It was written by Leigh Whannel and Darren Lynn Bousman, who also is making his feature directorial debut.
* Sophia Bush ("One Tree Hill"), Adam Goldberg, Milo Ventimiglia ("American Dreams") and Jimmi Simpson (D.E.B.S.) have joined the cast of horror/thriller STAY ALIVE. Steve Zahn, Frankie Muniz, Samaire Armstrong and Jon Foster star in the pic, about a deadly vidgame. It's directed by William Brent Bell and co-produced by Spyglass Entertainment, Endgame Entertainment and McG's Wonderland Sound & Vision.
* Marley Shelton has landed a role in DreamWorks/Lakeshore Entertainment's THE LAST KISS. She stars opposite Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Rachel Bilson and Michael Weston in the Tony Goldwyn-helmed remake.
* Jane Alexander has joined Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. in the Diane Arbus biopic FUR. She will play Gertrude Nemerov, Arbus' mother. Steven Shainberg is directing the film, lensing this month in Gotham.
* Kathleen Robertson (XX/XY) and Robin Tunney have been tapped for roles in Focus Features' TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY. Actresses will star alongside Adrien Brody, Diane Lane and Ben Affleck in the film, about a detective investigating the death of TV's Superman, George Reeves. Allen Coulter is directing from a script by Paul Bernbaum and Howard Korder.
* Will Arnett ("Arrested Development") has been cast in Red Wagon's RV at Columbia, joining leads Robin Williams and Cheryl Hines. Barry Sonnenfeld is directing the pic, which begins shooting this month in Vancouver. Arnett will play Todd, slave-driving boss to Bob at the Sparkle Beverage Co., who tells Bob that if he wants to keep his job he can't go on vacation but instead has to take a meeting in Colorado. Bob opts to load his family into an RV en route to Boulder, hoping they won't realize the real reason for the trip. Geoff Rodkey penned the script; Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel did the rewrite.
* Jennifer Connelly has joined the Todd Louiso adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy MACBETH, also starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Antidote Films is producing the pic.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Emmett/Furla Films has signed a two-picture deal with writer Darryl J. Quarles (BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE): ABSOLUTE JUSTICE is an action-thriller in which an urban street cop is mentored by a veteran Southern detective. MERCY is a buddy-action pic set in the underworld of New Orleans.
* Spike Lee will be the seventh director of ALL THE INVISIBLE CHILDREN, a collection of short films produced by MK Film Prods. and RAI for UNICEF. The other directors, previously announced, are John Woo, Ridley and Jordan Scott, Stefano Veneruso, Katia Lund, Mehdi Charef and Emir Kusturica. Lee's script, written by his siblings Joie Lee and Cinque Lee, is the story of the daughter of drug addicts who is born HIV-positive but kept in the dark about her status; all hell breaks loose when her classmates find out. The cast includes Rosie Perez, Andre Ryo, Lynn Whitfield and newcomer Hannah Hudson.
* Alan McElroy will write BONESAW, a CG horror feature, for Platinum Studios and the Shop Prods. The story is based on Rob Moran's upcoming graphic novel in which a horror-fantasy writer discovers her novels are about to release the hellish creatures she's been writing about into the real world.
* British producer John Heyman and director Hugh Hudson (CHARIOTS OF FIRE) will take on Egyptian history, telling the story of beautiful Queen Nefertiti and her affair with Pharaoh Akhenaten -- who may or may not have been the same person as Moses. The film is based on Ahmed Osman's 1990 book MOSES AND AKHENATEN: THE SECRET HISTORY OF EGYPT AT THE TIME OF EXODUS.
* Richard Linklater will direct FAST FOOD NATION, starring Catalina Sandino Moreno. Inspired by Eric Schlosser's bestselling nonfiction expose of junk food companies, the fictionalized thriller will be produced by Thomas with Malcolm McLaren. Shooting is slated for the fall.
* Carine Adler (UNDER THE SKIN) will direct the feline chiller STRAY, starring Emily Mortimer. Richard Stanley wrote the script.
* Richard Stanley will direct digital action thriller VACATION, about an American couple on a holiday from hell, with Michael Riley and RPC's Alexandra Stone producing.
* Universal Pictures has optioned feature film rights to AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DATES for producers Reese Witherspoon, her production partner Jennifer Simpson and Michael De Luca. Jeff Rake has signed on to write the adaptation of the book, which is part travel guide and part relationship primer, combining dating realities with romantic settings.
* U.S. producers Barry Levinson and Frederic Golchan have acquired the remake rights to the psychological thriller LA PEAU BLANCHE (WHITE SKIN), Quebec filmmaker Daniel Roby's debut feature. Levinson and Golchan will adapt the story, based on the novel by Joel Champetier, a drama about two young men facing violence and sexual obsession in Montreal.
* William Monahan has been set by Warner Bros. to write MARCO POLO, a historical epic based on Polo's autobiography TRAVELS that will be a star vehicle for Matt Damon. Pic will be produced by Gambit Pictures.
* J. Mills Goodloe is adapting John Grisham's high school football novel BLEACHERS for Revolution Studios. Don Burgess will direct the pic is about a high school football hero returning to his small-town Southern home to join a vigil for a dying coach, who was both loved and feared by his players.
* Gabriella Tagliavini (LADIES' NIGHT) is set to direct RUMBLE for MTV Films about four female high school volleyball players from well-off families who transfer to the barrio school of their inner-city rivals when their private campus burns down. It's based on the real-life experience of scribe Karol Ann Hoeffner, whose daughter and niece are volleyball players.
* Spike Lee starts SAVE US JOE LOUIS, his long-planned Joe Louis feature, immediately after completing INSIDE MAN with Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Clive Owen for producer Brian Grazer at Universal. Lee and Budd Schulberg have been writing the project for five years. It's the story of the two Louis-Max Schmeling championship bouts (1936 and 1938) and the global ramifications. Characters involved in the pic will include FDR, Hitler, Mussolini and Sugar Ray Robinson among many others.
* DreamWorks has bought the pitch CEO by Ian Roberts and Jay Martel for Adam McKay to direct and produce. Story concerns the chief exec of a company who is demoted to the mailroom and has to work his way back up.
* Sanji Senaka will direct INTO THE MIRROR for Regency Enterprises. It's a horror pic penned by scribe Joe Gangemi that's described by insiders as in the vein of THE RING, wherein spirits from a different plane terrify shoppers in a mall.
* Gabriele Muccino will direct Columbia Pictures' PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, starring Will Smith. The project is based on the rags-to-riches tale of investment banker Chris Gardner. The film is being produced by Overbrook Entertainment and Escape Artists. Steve Conrad (THE WEATHER MAN) wrote the script.
* Universal Pictures has acquired ONCE IN A LIFETIME, a drama pitch from writers Adam Cooper and Bill Collage. Cooper and Collage will write and co-produce the project.
* Michael Cunningham has begun scripting GOOD GRIEF, an adaptation of the Lolly Winston novel that is being tailored as a potential screen vehicle for Julia Roberts.
* Paul Verhoeven is set to direct BEAST OF BATAAN, a bigscreen adaptation that follows the war crimes trial of Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma at the end of WWII. Homma was the Japanese officer in charge of the Bataan death march endured by American and Filipino prisoners of war in 1942 in the Philippines. Pic is an adaptation of the book A TRIAL OF GENERALS, by Lawrence Taylor. Mark Jean penned the screenplay.
* Gary Goldman has sold a pitch based on Curt Siodmak's 1959 sci-fi novel SKYPORT to Warner Bros. It follows a scientist's quest to build an orbiting space city.
* John Glenn will direct THE HEAVEN PROJECT from his own script for Mandeville Films and the D.H. Blair Film Capital Fund. The thriller follows a reformed criminal who wants to be reunited with his family. Armada PicturesArmada Pictures Intl. handles international sales and will debut the project in Cannes.
* Marleen Gorris (ANTONIA'S LINE) will direct the love-triangle romance ROSA for Bold Films. Written by Athena Stensland, pic is slated to begin shooting June 7 in Florence, Italy.
* Shawn Levy will direct and Nick Kurzon will write an as-yet untitled project for Warner Bros. Pictures, based on an original pitch by Kurzon. Levy will also produce the comedy along with Plan B. The high-concept comedy follows a selfish bachelor who wakes up to discover he has a biological clock, and it's ticking.
* Chuck Leavitt has been brought on board to adapt Dave King's THE HA-HA: A NOVEL for Warner Bros. Pictures and director Akiva Goldsman. Goldsman also is producing through his Weed Road Pictures banner. The book, by Dave King, is written from the perspective of a brain-damaged Vietnam veteran who can't speak or write. When his high school sweetheart, for whom he still pines, dumps her 9-year-old son on his doorstep so she can enter drug rehab, the vet is forced to break out of his sheltered routine.
* Warner Bros. has set Bryan Singer to direct and Brandon Boyce (APT PUPIL) to adapt THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET, Randy Shilts' look at the life and assassination of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk. Milk, the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the U.S., was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by supervisor Daniel White.
* New Line is planning a remake of the 1984 Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin comedy ALL OF ME and set writers Brent Goldberg and David Wagner to write a modern take on the story. Studio is aiming to cast Wanda Sykes in the Tomlin role of a dying heiress who tries to transfer her soul to a young woman but instead finds herself possessing the right side of the body of her lawyer.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Lawrence Bender Prods. has optioned Carrie Gerlach Cecil's book 5th AVENUE BUM, the story of a sexy executive who runs a baby food company but hates babies and chews up men as fast as her employees. When her father threatens to hand the reins to another executive unless his daughter can find balance in her life, Sam bribes a wisecracking bum to pretend he's in love with her.
* Warner Bros. has acquired screen rights to A LONG WAY DOWN, the new novel by Nick Hornby. The film will be produced by Graham King, Johnny Depp and David Heyman. The comic novel focuses on four people who meet on New Year's Eve and form a surrogate family to help themselves weather the difficult holiday period.
* Paramount Pictures has acquired film rights to Dan Zevin's THE DAY I TURNED UNCOOL: CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT GROWN-UP and set up the project with Kevin Misher. Zevin's book centers on the author's awkward transition from his 20s to his 30s, marked by such milestones as employing his first cleaning lady, becoming abnormally attached to his dog and committing flagrant acts of home improvement.
* Paula Weinstein's Spring Creek Pictures is in talks with writers to pen a screenplay for Warner Bros. based on the biggest scandal to hit the NYPD. Warners came away with life rights of onetime detective Tommy Dades, who played a key role in exposing former veteran cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa as mob hit men.
* Korean animation studio DG Spot and its production arm Morph have optioned an American property, the graphic novel MASTERMINDS, to adapt into an animated feature. Production on the film, which will include a role voiced by Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, is slated to start this summer. It's the story of five freakish felons who have only one thing standing between them and global domination: each other. The group, led by the Maniacal Monocle, includes mad scientist Doktor Pimento, giant robot CPU-571, mobster Vinnie DiThug and the mutant monkey Gorilla King. Ultimately, their dream of being able to call the shots for one day is marred by overly complicated plans and infighting. The twist of the story is that it's told from the villain's point of view.
* Walden Media has purchased film rights to Susan Cooper's five-book THE DARK IS RISING SEQUENCE fantasy-adventure series and set it up with Marc Platt to produce. Walden said its first feature in the series will be based on the second book, THE DARK IS RISING, centering on a modern-day boy who learns on his 11th birthday that he's the Sign Seeker -- the last of a group of immortals who have dedicated their lives to fighting forces of the Dark. As he uncovers a series of clues, some dating back to biblical times, the boy also discovers the future of the world rests in his hands.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Paramount Pictures has released a one-minute behind-the-scenes featurette for the upcoming film WAR OF THE WORLDS. This featurette is now available online from http://www.7mpictures.com.
* The filmmakers of MISSION TO MATRIMONY explore both sides of the controversial issue of marriage for same-sex couples. View the trailer and more info at http://www.missiontomatrimony.com/
* Hugo Speer (THE INTERPRETER, SWING, THE FULL MONTY) has joined the cast of spy thriller DAISY SCARLETT. He will play MI6 Agent Farrell.
If you have a movie to promote, a screening to push, movie gossip missed by the trades, fire a **one-paragraph, 50 words-or-less** GUNN SHOT to elstongunn@hotmail.com. If it's not **one paragraph, 50 words-or-less,** it'll be tossed. Sorry.
