Father Geek here with another week in review from Elston Gunn and The Weekly Recap...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Mia Maestro has been cast as the female lead in THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES for
director Walter Salles. Shooting begins in Argentina, Chile and Peru late
this month. Gael Garcia Bernal will portray Che Guevara.
* Maggie Gyllenhaal will join Julia Roberts in MONA LISA SMILE for
Revolution Studios and Shoelace Prods. Julia Stiles and Kirsten Dunst also
have recently joined the project for director Mike Newell.
* Orlando Bloom joins Johnny Depp in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. Geoffrey
Rush will play Capt. Blackheart.
* Reese Witherspoon will star in MGM's LEGALLY BLONDE 2: RED, WHITE & BLONDE
where here character finds herself running for politcal office. Production
begins in November for a July 2003 release.
* Writer/star Nia Vardalos (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING) will co-star in the
female buddy comedy CONNIE AND CARLA DO L.A., which she also wrote, for
Spyglass Entertainment. Shooting is planned to begin in the spring.
* LeAnn Rimes is attached to star for director Rocky Lang in THE GIRL WHO
STRUCK OUT BABE RUTH, based on a true story of Jackie Mitchell, who, in
1931, became the only woman to strike out baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou
Gehrig back-to-back, then was tossed out of the major leagues for being a
woman.
* Rachael Leigh Cook and Jonathan Tucker are set to star in the drama
STATESIDE for writer/director Reverge Anselmo and First Look Media. Agnes
Bruckner, Carrie Fisher and Ed Begley Jr. are in talks to round out the
cast. It's about a rich, rebellious teenager who, while on leave from the
Marines, falls in love with a young rock star who is stricken with a mental
illness.
* Martin Short is set to play Jiminy Glick in the feature comedy LALAWOOD,
for director Vadim Jean and Gold Circle, from a script written by Short,
Michael Short and Paul Flaherty. The movie will be largely improvisational
and will supplement a murder mystery plot. Some shooting will take place at
the Toronto Film Festival. It will also be an opportunity to grab
pic-promoting celebs for impromptu cameos.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Columbia Pictures snapped up the comedy pitch PRIZONAZ OF WAR from Robert
LoCash and Nick Creature about four hapless street criminals who escape from
a chain gang by hopping into an Army truck and wind up in Afghanistan.
* Paramount Pictures has optioned the feature film rights to the Jacquelyn
Mitchard novel A THEORY OF RELATIVITY with Lisa Loomer writing the
screenplay and Luis Mandoki attached to direct. The drama concerns the
custody of a 5-year-old girl when a tragic accident happens to her parents
and centers on the journey of the victim's brother, who becomes a man by
becoming a father.
* Joan Chen will direct THE UNWANTED, based on Kien Nguyen's memoir about
life as an Amerasian boy raised in communist Vietnam, for National
Geographic Feature Films.
* Mark Lewis will direct WOLF B36, a story adapted from a New York Times
Magazine article by Sara Corbett, for National Geographic Feature Films.
It's about a female wolf that was among 66 wolves relocated to Idaho under
the Endangered Species Act in 1995. When the wolves slaughter local
livestock, a young field biologist gets caught up in a battle between
environmentalists and ranchers determined to kill the wolves.
* United Artists has grabbed worldwide rights to the upcoming dark comedy
SAVED for Michael Stipe to produce. It's about a pregnant girl at a
Christian high school. The film will star Macaulay Culkin, Chris Evans,
Patrick Fugit, Jena Malone, Heather Matarazzo, Mandy Moore and Eva Amurri.
Mary-Louise Parker is in talks to join the cast. Brian Dannelly will direct
from a script he penned with Michael Urban. Shooting is slated to begin in
mid-September.
* David Mamet will write for Warner Bros. a film about gangster John
Dillinger for Kimberly Peirce (BOYS DON'T CRY) to direct.
* Universal Pictures has optioned the Irwin Shaw short story WHISPERS IN
BEDLAM with Stephen Falk writing a screenplay based on the material. The
story centers on a football player whose career is on its last legs until he
undergoes experimental surgery. The surgery accidentally endows the player
with super hearing, not only making him a superstar on the gridiron but
transforming his life off the field as well.
* Peter O'Brian will direct HOLLYWOOD NORT for Winchester Entertainment.
It's set in 1979 and satirizes runaway production and tax-sheltered
filmmaking in Canada. Alan Bates stars with Matthew Modine, Jennifer Tilly,
Deborah Unger and John Neville, Alan Thicke, Kim Coates, Fab Fillipo, Clare
Coulter, Joe Cobden and Saul Rubinek.
* Former fashion photographer Sean Ellis will make his feature directing
debut on the thriller BROKEN for Gold Circle Films from his own script about
a woman who comes out of a coffee shop in a bustling city street and thinks
she sees herself driving past in a car. Disturbed by the event, the woman
follows the driver and tries to find out who she is and why she may be
trying to replace her.
* Rod Lurie (THE CONTENDER) will rewrite and direct Spyglass Entertainment's
THE ANGEL OF DEATH, about the police investigation of a hospital worker who
killed his patients.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Gebbia Brothers Prods. has optioned the feature film rights to recently
paroled NBA prospect Lee Benson's life story. The project is being
executive produced by Robert Townsend and is described as a story about
redemption. Benson, one of the nation's top high school basketball hopes,
went to an Ohio prison for drug trafficking and abduction. There, he played
hoops and met up with his former coach and youth counselor, now also an
inmate. After being paroled, Benson played at a Kansas junior college and
now hopes to reach the NBA.
* Producer John Williams (SHREK) will partner with Walt Disney Studios in a
multi-project animated film agreement. The first film to go into production
will be VALIANT, a comedy written by George Webster and George Melrod,
followed by an anticipated slate of three more CG-animated films. VALIANT
centers on a lonely and comically misfit pigeon through boot camp at the
Royal Pigeon Service. Vastly unqualified for the job, Valiant squeaks his
way through RAF training and is abruptly sent on the most important mission
of the war, charged with carrying key dispatches from the French Resistance
to Allies regarding the D-Day landing in Normandy.
* C/W Prods. banner is in final talks to pick up remake rights to THE EYE, a
Thai/Hong Kong co-production directed by Oxide Pang and Danny Pang about a
blind woman who undergoes a corneal transplant that restores her sight; she
discovers, however, that her new eye allows her to see unearthly things.
* 20th Century Fox has pushed back the opening of the crime-actioner THE
TRANSPORTER to Oct. 11. The studio wants more time to build awareness with
prospective moviegoers.
Until next week.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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