Father Geek here with Elston's once a week rehash of the film news you may have missed during the last work-week. Lots of coolness out in Tinseltown in the past seven days sooooo I'll get out of here and let you get into it, and...

The WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Johnny Depp is in talks to star in two films for producer Jerry Bruckheimer: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN for director Gore Verbinski and TAKEDOWN for director Michael Haussman, both for Disney. PIRATES begins production in October while TAKEDOWN is set for a March start.

* Piper Perabo, Stephen Rea, Sarah Polley and Stephen Lang join Ryan Phillippe in the thriller THE I INSIDE for MDP Worldwide and director Roland Suso Richter (THE TUNNEL). Michael Cooney wrote the script, based on his play POINT OF DEATH, about the life of Simon Cable, who wakes up in the hospital with amnesia after a near-death experience. While trying to piece together the puzzle of his past, Simon learns he has the power to travel back in time, change his future and solve the mystery of his brother's murder.

* Steve Harvey is in talks to join Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyonce Knowles in Paramount/MTV's THE FIGHTING TEMPTATIONS as well as the Fox Searchlight urban comedy HOLY WAR.

* Brendan Fraser will star in the Warner Bros. live action/animated pic LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION for director Joe Dante. Production begins July 29 for a November 2003 release. The feature will follow Bugs Bunny and gang on adventures through Hollywood, Las Vegas and Africa as they search for the Fraser character's missing father and the mythical Blue Diamond. Warner Bros. is also producing a series of Looney Tunes shorts to run with other Warners pictures prior to the release of BACK IN ACTION.

* Zuleikha Robinson will star opposite Viggo Mortensen in the horse racing adventure pic HIDALGO for Disney and director Joe Johnston. The project is based on the true story of an 1890 Pony Express courier who travels throughout the world with his mustang, Hidalgo, to compete against Arabian thoroughbreds in a dangerous race.

* Edward Norton and Jason Statham join Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron in Paramount's THE ITALIAN JOB for director F. Gary Gray and DeLine Pictures. Production begins late July or early August. Donna and Wayne Powers wrote the script, which is a remake of the 1969 pic of the same name. It's about a thief who stages a traffic jam in order to steal back a gold-filled safe that had been stolen by a double-crossing associate.

* Alexandra Holden (SUGAR AND SPICE) will star in the Mandy Moore pic HOW TO DEAL for New Line and director Claire Kilner. Shooting begins June 24. The project, based on Sarah Dessen's young adult novels THAT SUMMER and SOMONE LIKE YOU, is about a teen who is surrounded by examples of love gone wrong and decides it doesn't exist.

* Diane Lane is in talks to star in the Disney romantic comedy UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, based on the Frances Mayes memoir, for writer/director Audrey Wells (GUINEVERE). Production begins in September. It's about an American woman who goes to Italy in search of a more satisfying life. She buys a villa in the Tuscan countryside and decides to begin anew, finding love and fulfillment while restoring her home.

* Isaiah Washington, Mos Def, Wood Harris and Monica Calhoun will star in the urban indie pic FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN for writer/director Jerry LaMothe, who also stars. Shooting begins in August in Brooklyn. The project is a coming-of-age story about a young guy who narrates the chronicles of his past 20 years growing up with his four best friends in Brooklyn.

* Jim Caviezel will star in the high-speed action flick HIGHWAYMEN for New Line about a young widower who drives the highways hunting for his wife's killer, a dehumanized villain who uses a car as an expression of his rage against the world. An innocent woman gets caught in the game as the men chase each other in 1970s muscle cars.

* Kelly Preston will play a professional singer opposite Amanda Bynes and Colin Firth in AMERICAN GIRL for director Dennie Gordon.

* Sigourney Weaver and Paul Rudd are attached to star in ACCIDENTAL BABY for writer/director John Walsh about a woman who gets pregnant during a one-night stand. She realizes this may be her last chance to have a baby and she must learn to have some kind of relationship with the father, someone she never expected to see again.

* Peter Gallagher is in final talks to play father to Mandy Moore's character in the New Line pic HOW TO DEAL for director Claire Kilner. Allison Janney and Alexandra Holden also join the project.

* Amy Poehler ("Saturday Night Live") and Christopher Walken join the comedy ENVY, starring Ben Stiller and Jack Black, for DreamWorks and director Barry Levinson. Production begins in July. It's about the souring of a relationship between two best friends after one of them becomes rich after selling an invention.

* Jeri Ryan joins Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor in DOWN WITH LOVE, a romantic pic that pays homage to the comedies that starred Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Peyton Reed directs. It's about an advice columnist who has all the answers until a sly journalist playboy starts asking the questions.

* Adam Goldberg will star opposite Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in Paramount's HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS. Donald Petrie (MISS CONGENIALITY) directs the romantic comedy which starts shooting June 17. The project is loosely based on the book by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long, centering on a ladies' man who bets he can't say in a relationship for more than 10 days. The girl he picks then tries to get rid of him using many of the tips from a wrong-headed guide to romance.

* Donald Faison ("Scrubs") will join Brittany Murphy, Dakota Fanning, Marley Shelton and Jesse Spencer in the MGM comedy MOLLY GUNN for director Boaz Yakin about a city socialite who takes a job as a nanny after losing a lot of money.

* Marla Sokoloff ("The Practice") will star in the indie pic THE TOLLBOTH for writer/director Debra Kirschner. Tovah Feldshuh, Liz Stauber, Rob McElhenny and Idina Menzel also star. The story revolves around an American Jewish family as three daughters come of age and question the values of their traditional parents.

* Jennifer Garner ("Alias") is in talks to star in Revolution's 13 GOING ON 30 about a 13-year-old girl who dreams of popularity. During her birthday party, she takes part in a game called Seven Minutes in the Closet. Humiliated, she refuses to come out of the closet and be subjected to more embarrassment. When she eventually comes out, she finds herself five days shy of her 30th birthday, looking fabulous and very popular. Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa wrote the script.

* Hugh Jackman is in talks to star in VAN HELSING for Universal and writer/director Stephen Sommers. The project is set in the late 19th century and finds Bram Stoker's monster hunter Van Helsing summoned to a distant Eastern European land to vanquish evil.

* Stockard Channing joins Woody Allen's untitled pic, starring Jason Biggs, Danny DeVito and Christina Ricci.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Todd Alcott (ANTZ) will write SAMURAI JACK, the live-action version of the popular animated series, for director Brett Ratner, New Line Cinema and Rat Entertainment. The project will be based on a treatment from series creator Genndy Tartakovsky. The series centers on an ancient Japanese warrior Samurai Jack, son of an emperor who was defeated by an evil wizard. Jack trains for revenge, but the wizard sends him into the future through a time portal and the samurai spends his moments trying to get back in time to free his family, fighting the wizard's followers.

* David Koepp will write the first draft of SPIDER-MAN 2 based on his own idea for the project for Columbia Pictures, temporarily setting aside his adaptation of Stephen King's TWO PAST MIDNIGHT: SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN. Scribes Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (SHANGHAI NOON) were originally set to write the sequel, but will first wait for Koepp's draft and begin working from there. The sequel has a January start date set for a May 7, 2004 release.

* New Zealand filmmaker Christine Jeffs will make a feature adaptation of the Richard Ford novel WILDLIFE. The story is set in Montana and centers on a teen, his family and their attempts to find a better life.

* Columbia Pictures has grabbed the script CLASS CLOWNS from Grant Calof and Greg Lee for Konrad Pictures to produce. It's about two friends who think they've discovered the ultimate teaching gig but wind up at their old school, which is still run by the principal who swore revenge on them as kids.

* DreamWorks Pictures and Aardman are developing the claymation comedy FLUSHED AWAY about a British rat who is inadvertently flushed from his penthouse flat into the London sewers. He winds up falling for the sewers and its inhabitants while trying to find his way home. Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais will write the script.

* RKO Pictures will remake its 1947 film noir feature BORN TO KILL about a greedy woman who hires a con artist to murder her rich stepsister without realizing he may have an agenda of his own. Richard Dana Smith is writing the new version for producer Pierre David (INTERNAL AFFAIRS).

* Barry Sonnenfeld will direct a feature version of the bestselling book series LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS fore Nickelodeon Movies. SNICKET creator Daniel Handler is writing the script for producer Scott Rudin. The series is about three orphans names Sunny, Klaus and Violet who find themselves put off on a series of strange people, including Lemony Snicket, who narrates each book. The recurring antagonist is a distant family relative named Count Olaf, who at first takes in the kids but is obviously trying to keep them from a family inheritance.

* Jim Kouf (SNOW DOGS) will write the Jamie Foxx golf comedy INGLE WOODS for New Line.

* Griffin Dunne is in final talks to direct THE JANE PLAN for Disney. It's about a devoted assistant of a real estate magnate who takes her for granted. When she quits as he's working on his most important deal, his advisers devise a strategy to get her back at any cost. John Strauss and Ed Decter (THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY) wrote the script with Ron Burch and David Kidd.

* Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga of AMORES PERROS will make a follow-up entitled 21 GRAMS (a reference to the amount of weight the human body loses upon death). The drama attributes that to the weight of a soul leaving the body. Shooting is expected to begin in the fall.

* Mark Schwahn will write OLD SCHOOL: THE KEN CARTER STORY for Paramount, MTV Films and Tollin/Robbins Prods. Paramount purchased the rights to the life story of Richmond (Calif.) High School basketball coach Ken Carter, who, in 1999, benched his entire undefeated basketball team for poor academic performance. He forfeited two games and prohibited the students from entering the gym unless their grades improved. His son, Damon, was one of the members of the team who went on to earn four-year athletic scholarships. His scholarship was to the West Point Military Academy.

* Marty Navis and Robert Ellsworth have sold the pitch PLANET CLAIRE to Warner Bros. about a wily naif on the campaign trail.

* Twentieth Century Fox grabbed the comedy pitch ANIMAL CONTROL about attendants at a zoo where the world's mythical creatures (Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, etc.) are kept to prevent them from taking over the world. Barry Josephson will produce the pic based on an original idea from scribes Eric Kripke and Eric Gewirtz.

* Twentieth Century Fox has hired Erik Jendresen ("Band of Brothers") to write THE 300 SPARTANS, an epic about elite Greek warriors who held off a million Persian invaders in the Battle of Thermoplyae. Universal is developing GATES OF FIRE, a similar project written by David Self based on the Stephen Pressfield novel with Michael Mann attached to direct.

* Miramax will make TRUTH, JUSTICE & THE AMERICAN WAY, written by Paul Bernbaum, based around the death of TV's original Superman, George Reeves. Michael and Mark Polish (TWIN FALLS, IDAHO) will direct and produce the film.

* Production-management company Guy Walks Into a Bar has set up a wedding comedy pitch by Molly McAlpine (NUMBER ONE GIRL) at Intermedia Films.

* Phoenix Pictures has purchased the screen rights to the Agatha Christie novel DESTINATION UNKNOWN to be developed into a feature with a contemporary setting. Nic Osborne is writing the adaptation. The story centers on a young woman who, after traumatic family events, resolves to kill herself. A ruthless CIA operative persuades her instead to become part of a suicide mission, but when the woman gets caught by the bad guys, she suddenly finds a purpose in life.

* Rod Lurie will write an untitled project revolving around the media world in contemporary New York for DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg, who will supervise the script's development with an eye toward directing.

* Jerry Bruckheimer Films is developing a sequel to COYOTE UGLY to be written by Gina Wendkos, who penned the original.

* New Line Cinema picked up the pitch LEAVENWORTH from scribe Jason Keller. The project is described as a con movie in the vein of THE STING. Industry Entertainment will produce.

* Joel Schumacher will develop, with an eye toward directing, Warner Bros.' remake of A STAR IS BORN for producer Jon Peters.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Fox-based New Regency has joined the Warner Bros. production of the sci-fi epic THE FOUNTAIN (aka THE LAST MAN) with Brad Pitt attached to star and Darren Aronofsky set to direct from a script he co-wrote with Ari Handel. New Regency replaces Village Roadshow Pictures as a co-financier on the pic.

* Spyglass Entertainment is developing the live-action/CGI pic UNDERDOG after grabbing the feature rights to the 1960s cartoon series of the same name. The broad comedy centers on an inept watchdog transformed into a superhero after being accidentally exposed to an experimental elixir.

* Producer Arthur Sarkissian has optioned remake rights to the 1961 pic EL CID. It's about war-torn Spain during the 12th century and a lord who became one of the greatest heroes of all time, calling upon Christians and Moors to stand up against the fanatical religious warrior Ben Yussuf and his army.

Until next week...

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com