Ol' Father Geek here with one more of Elston's fantastic regular WEEKLY RECAP columns. As usual this ones chock full of the confirmed, essential news out of Hollywood during last week. Just perfect for your Sunday morning catchup reading while you sip that hot cup of Java and savor the taste of your favorite breakfast munchie, check it all out below... Now here's Elston Gunn and...
TAKEN FROM HOLLYWOOD REPORTER AND VARIETY
CASTING
TAKEN FROM HOLLYWOOD REPORTER AND VARIETY
CASTING
* Marc Blucas ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Henry Thomas will star in I CAPTURE THE CASTLE for director Tim Fywell. The period romance, based on a 1940s novel, follows two rich and dashing Americans who cause romantic turmoil for the young daughters of a broke upper-crust English family living in an old castle. Rose Byrne, Romola Garai and Bill Nighy also star. Shooting begins Sept. 24. Tim Fywell will direct.
* Joaquin Phoenix will replace Mark Ruffalo, who was forced out of the project due to an ear operation, in the SIGNS for director M. Night Shyamalan. Mel Gibson stars in the pic which begins shooting in October.
* Kate Beckinsale ("Pearl Harbor") is in talks to join Frances McDormand and Christian Bale in Lisa Cholodenko's LAUREL CANYON.
* Marisa Tomei, Ron Eldard, Kyra Sedgwick, Marley Shelton, Taye Diggs, Sarita Choudhury, Zoe Caldwell and Patrick Breen star in JUST A KISS for director Fisher Stevens and Paramount Classics. The live-action/animated pic, written by actor Breen, follows a group of thirtysomethings having problems with fidelity who get an opportunity to go back in time for a bit.
* Mike Myers will star in AUSTIN POWERS: GOLDMEMBER, the third installment of New Line's popular spy comedy franchise, for director Jay Roach. Shooting begins in November for a July 26 release date. Myers and Michael McCullers wrote the script which will feature the actor in four roles: Powers, Dr, Evil, Fat Bastard and new villain Goldmember. Verne Troyer is in talks to return as Mini-Me and the studio is planning to have Seth Green, Robert Wagner and Rob Lowe reprise their roles from the series. Heather Graham's involvement is up in the air, but a new love interest will be introduced.
* Julia Stiles will star opposite Jason Lee in the romantic comedy A GUY THING for MGM and director Chris Koch (SNOW DAY). It's about a guy who wakes up the morning after his bachelor party with an unknown woman in his bed. Scared that he may have cheated on his would-be bride, he tries to cover up his the incident. Shooting is slated to begin in mid-November.
* LL Cool J is in talks to star in the action/thriller MINDHUNTERS for director Renny Harlin and Intermedia. Production begins in November in the Netherlands.
* Meg Ryan will star in Paramount's AGAINST THE ROPES, a biopic on the life of female boxing manager Jackie Kallen, for director Charles S. Dutton. The project is expected to begin in mid-November. Cheryl Edwards (SAVE THE LAST DANCE) wrote the screenplay centering on Kallen, who has guided the careers of several boxers and is now the commissioner of the International Female Boxers Assn.
* Greg Kinnear will play late "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane in AUTOFOCUS, a feature about the comic actor's murder, for director Paul Schrader and Propaganda Films. Willem Dafoe will co-star in the project, which is based on the book THE MURDER OF BOB CRANE by Robert Graysmith. Production begins at the end of November.
* Chaney Kley and Emma Caulfield ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") will star in the horror pic DON'T PEEK, which starts shooting in November in Australia with Jonathan Liebesman directing. It's about a young man believed to be crazy by the townspeople, except for his childhood sweetheart and her little brother. The man is the only thing standing between a legendary evil and the young boy.
* Rhona Mitra ("Gideon's Crossing") is in negotiations to star in both THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE for Universal/Intermedia as well as SWEET HOME ALABAMA, starring Reese Witherspoon.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* David Mamet is currently writing a script for which he hopes Jude Law will star with his wife Rebecca Pidgeon. He described the project as a " turn-of-the-century melodramatic thriller."
* Writer John Grisham and director Hugh Wilson have completed the film MICKEY and are preparing to develop SKIPPING CHRISTMAS, a holiday comedy. Hopes are for that film to be released Christmas 2002. The two may also work on THE BRETHREN.
* Top Cow has picked up the sci-fi action pitch FALLEN ANGEL by William Zide. It's about an archangel who has been cast out of heaven for starting a rebellion and tries to redeem himself with good works on earth.
* Playwright/screenwriter Doug Wright will adapt the Donald E. Westlake comedic crime novel BAD NEWS for director Milos Forman. The novel focuses on a professional thief facing a mid-life crisis who gets dragged into a grave-robbing and reburial scam to gain control of a Native American casino. Forman will direct the pic for Phoenix Pictures.
* Bruce Leddy ("Mad TV") will make direct an untitled action spoof written by Tad Safran for Summit Entertainment.
* Michael Cimino will next year shoot MAN'S FATE, based on French author Andrew Malraux's 1933 novel LA CONDITION HUMAINE (THE HUMAN CONDITION).a drama set in Shanghai against the backdrop of the Chinese revolution. The film, set against the backdrop of the Chinese revolution, will shoot entirely on location in Shanghai.
* Reggie Rock Bythewood (GET ON THE BUS) is in talks to direct BIKER BOYZ, based on a New Times article of the same name by Michael Gougis, about a father and son relationship set in the California biker culture.
* Steve Carr (DR. DOLITTLE 2) is in talks to direct the comedy BALLS OF FURY for Disney/Spyglass Entertainment. Tom Lennon and Ben Garant wrote the script ping-pong comedy loosely inspired by the 1973 Bruce Lee pic ENTER THE DRAGON.
* Fox Searchlight has picked up the feature comedy script NUMBER 1 WITH A BULLET with Tracy Morgan ("Saturday Night Live") attached to star. Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme and Paul Soter (part of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe) wrote the script about a hip-hop artist who realizes that his 15 minutes of fame are almost up when his follow-up album doesn't sell. He decides to fake his death in an effort to find posthumous success and stay in the limelight but then must deal with an aftermath that he didn't forsee.
* Artists Production Group/Studio Canal grabbed writer Brian Carr's untitled supernatural thriller spec script about a female New York investment banker and media darling known for her knack at picking stocks. When she becomes the target of a killer, the woman begins to experience visions of a badly deformed apparition that may or may not be trying to tell her something.
* Montecito Picture Co. have picked up Casey McCabe's script RAISED ON ROBBERY, described as ERIN BROCKOVICH meets THE STING.
* Oliver Stone is in negotiations to make a movie about the 1984 chemical gas leak disaster in India which killed over 22,000 people, based on French author Dominique Lapierre's book IT WAS FIVE PAST MIDNIGHT IN BHOPAL.
* Paramount has tapped Art Monterastelli to adapt Tom Clancy's novel RAINBOW SIX, which focuses on John Clark, the mercenary who showed up in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER.
* George Hickenlooper (THE MAN OF ELYSIAN FIELDS) will direct A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, which fuses to Oscar Wilde short stories and his play; and VULTURES, about a young photographer in a dillema, as part of a two-picture deal with producers Donald Zuckerman and Andrew Pfeffer.
* William Friedkin will produce and direct a Howard Hughes project based on Richard Hack's nonfiction book HUGHES: THE PRIVATE DIARIES, MEMOS AND LETTERS: THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY OF THE FIRST AMERICAN BILLIONAIRE.
* Writer/director Nancy Meyers (WHAT WOMEN WANT) will direct an untitled comedy she is scripting for Sony Pictures Entertainment. She describes the project as "a multicharacter, multigenerational piece about falling in love."
* Intermedia Films has purchased the buddy action comedy script CRACKERJACK written by Ari Steinbeck and Jeff Gutheim. It's about a suave British card sharp working the tables in Vegas who teams up with African American security pro to pull off one of the biggest scams the city has ever seen.
* James Wong and Glen Morgan will to write, direct and produce a remake of the 1973 TV movie "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" for Dimension Films. Morgan has also written a remake of the 1971 film WILLARD for which he will make his directorial debut for New Line. It's about a socially persecuted young man who exacts revenge on his co-workers with a bloodthirsty rat. DARK will begin production after WILLARD.
* Joel Schumacher is in talks to direct Intermedia Films' SLEEPWALKER, an English-language remake of the Swedish/Norwegian thriller about a man whose wife and children disappear in the middle of the night. The man's normal day-to-day existence is called into question as clues start to appear that he may be sleepwalking and leading a double life and might have committed a horrible crime. Nicholas Kazan penned the English version. Production is planned for a spring start.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment will develop a live-action feature of FATHOM, based on the bestselling comic book from Top Cow Prods and creator/illustrator Michael Turner. It centers on a beautiful young girl who is found on an abandoned yacht with no memory of her past. As she matures, she becomes an Olympic swimmer and a marine biologist. She later discovers not only a mysterious underwater race but her own water-based powers.
* DreamWorks has picked up the remake rights to the 1956 science-fiction film FORBIDDEN PLANET about space travelers in 2020 who find that all is not well as they happen upon a doctor and his daughter, who are the sole survivors of a previous attempt to colonize a planet.
* Chorion has nabbed the worldwide rights to the works of French author George Simenon, which includes 75 novels featuring the character Inspector Maigret.
