Hey folks, Harry here... With Terry Gilliam visiting the world of the brothers Grimm, Drew (pant pant) Barrymore doing an OZ sequel and Nicole Kidman joining the remake of THE STEPFORD WIVES... well, I'm just thinking these are all good things... and Billy Crudup joining BIG FISH for Tim Burton... man, that's for dinner... BTW... Glenn Shaddix will be joining that movie as well, because they're shooting in his backyard essentially... I'll explain that better some day. Here's Elston with the full rundown...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Michelle Williams will star in the indie comedy A HOLE IN ONE for writer/director Richard Leeds. The project is set in the 1950s and focuses on a young woman who is convinced that she needs a lobotomy, a common surgical procedure to treat depression during that time. She meets a doctor who will perform the surgery; at the same time, she is trying to get out of a relationship with her abusive boyfriend. Meat Loaf, Tim Guinee, Louis Zorich, John Tremblay, Robb Wells and Jonathan Watton also star.
* Billy Crudup will star in Columbia's BIG FISH for director Tim Burton, with Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney also starring. John August adapted Daniel Wallace's book.
* Sela Ward will co-star with Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal in DAY AFTER TOMORROW about a climatologist trying to save the world from abrupt global warming and rescue his young son in Gotham, which is in the grip of a new Ice Age. Roland Emmerich will direct the pic, which will begin production in mid-November in Montreal.
* Drew Barrymore is attached to star in SURRENDER DOROTHY, a follow-up to THE WIZARD OF OZ for Warner Bros. and producer Robert Kosberg.
* Nicole Kidman will star in the remake of the 1975 thriller THE STEPFORD WIVES about a group of husbands who transform their feisty wives into robots that cater to their every whim. Frank Oz will direct.
* Shannyn Sossamon will play the female lead in New Line's THE OTHER SIDE OF SIMPLE, starring Vince Vaughn, Don Cheadle and Hayden Christensen. Joseph Ruben (MONEY TRAIN) will direct from a script by Eric Kmetz.
* Rob Schneider will star in the comedy BLIND SIDED about a guy who regains his sight after many years only to find out that the world is a very different place from what he had imagined. Billy Kimball will rewrite the pic, which was originally scripted by Tim Garrick and Scott Russell.
* Val Kilmer will star in the indie thriller BLIND HORIZON about an amnesiac who tries to warn a small-town sheriff about an assassination plot against the president. Michael Haussman will direct.
* Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear are in negotiations to play conjoined twins in STUCK ON YOU for the Farrelly brothers and 20th Century Fox. It's about what happens when one conjoined twin decides to follow his dreams of making it in Hollywood, and persuades his sibling to go along for the ride. The Farrellys wrote it with Bennett Yellin and Charlie Wessler. Damon is also in talks to star in PAYCHECK for John Woo.
* Jimmy Fallon will star opposite Claire Danes and Steve Martin in SHOPGIRL, based on Martin's novella, for Lakeshore Entertainment and director Anand Tucker.
* Disney is in talks with Joaquin Phoenix to star in LADDER 49 for director Jay Russell, about a firefighter who is waiting to be rescued in a burning building, during which time he reflects on his career and family. Lewis Colick wrote the script.
* Robert Redford and screenwriter Larry Gelbart are collaborating on a continuation of the 1972 political drama THE CANDIDATE. Redford plans to star in, produce and direct the project in which he will reprise his role as Bill McKay, years later.
* Cillian Murphy (upcoming 28 DAYS LATER) joins GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, starring Colin Firth, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson, Alakina Mann, Judy Parfitt and Essie Davis. Peter Webber is directing this adaptation of Tracey Chevalier's bestselling novel about the relationship between 17th century Dutch painter Jan Vermeer and his maidservant.
* Donald Faison ("Scrubs") will lend his voice to MGM's live-action family pic GOOD BOY! alongside Matthew Broderick, Liam Aiken, Brittany Murphy, Carl Reiner, Molly Shannon and Kevin Nealon.
* Jon Gries will join The Rock, Seann William Scott and Christopher Walken in Peter BergÃs untitled action project (aka HELLDORADO) for Universal.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Renny Harlin will direct FULL THROTTLE for Outlaw Prods. about an aspiring speedboat racer in Miami who is given a chance to pilot top-level boats by a wealthy benefactor. He soon realizes that he's made a deal with the devil and is actually working for a drug kingpin who forces the racer to become a drug runner.
* Michael Elliot (LIKE MIKE, BROWN SUGAR) will write an untitled hip-hop musical for State Street Pictures and Fox 2000. It's a classic love story that revolves around an ambitious aspiring singer who risks losing fame and fortune when he falls in love.
* Fine Line snapped up FIVE DOLLARS A DAY by Neal H. Dobrofsky and Tippi Dobrofsky about a son forced to reunite with his con-artist father during a cross-country odyssey.
* Sony Pictures Animation has tapped screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson (THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS) to develop a script based on a story set in Shangri-La, where two sibling dogs are on a journey.
* John Woo is in talks to direct PAYCHECK for Paramount about a man who has part of his memory erased and begins to find clues to his whereabouts for the past two years.
* Kimberly Peirce (BOYS DON'T CRY) is in negotiations to direct and David Benioff (THE 25th HOUR) is in talks to write a project for DreamWorks about Miami Beach nightclub impresarios Ingrid Casares and Chris Paciello. They joined forces to open and operate nightclubs in Miami Beach. Though he was movie star-handsome and well-connected, Paciello was arrested for a racketeering charge of felony murder and bank robbery, all relating to his involvement years earlier while doing work in a mob crew associated with the Bonanno crime family.
* South African filmmaker Jack Lewis is developing PROTEUS, a movie based on the homosexual relationship between two 18th century prisoners on Robben Island, which later housed Nelson Mandela.
* Ehren Kruger is working on two projects at Universal: SKELETON KEY and THE TALISMAN. The plotline of the first project is being kept a secret, but it's known as a gothic story in New Orleans centering on a twentysomething woman. The latter project is an adaptation of the epic novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub about a 12-year-old boy who travels between parallel universes to obtain a talisman that will save the life of his ailing mother.
* Warner Bros Pictures has picked up the script A PRIVATE'S LIFE by Samantha Goodman and Andrew Stern for John Wells to produce. It's a military thriller about an Army psychiatrist who is brought in by the military to rubber-stamp a GI death that at first glance seems an open-and-shut case of suicide. However, during the course of the investigation, the psychiatrist begins to feel the death is suspicious and goes above and beyond the call of duty to try to reveal the truth.
* Warner Bros. is in talks to acquire the English-language remake rights to Hong Kong martial arts comedy HITMAN, with Mark Perez set to adapt. The film revolves around a paranoid billionaire who transfers his wealth to an escrow account with instructions that should anyone murder him, the money should go to whomever kills his killer.
* Columbia Pictures has picked up Joel Wyman's action script RPM with helmer Simon West attached to direct. The pic is described as a high-octane, fast-paced, character-driven action-thriller.
* Terry Gilliam has signed on to develop with an eye to direct BROTHERS GRIMM for MGM and Mosaic Media Group. It's a fictional action-adventure tale about folklore collectors and brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. While traveling from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures, they encounter a real sorceress with terrifying powers and are put to the test.
* Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy sold their script SHAKE IT to MGM for Zide/Perry Entertainment to produce. The project is described as a female-driven fish-out-of-water comedy.
* Sobini Films and Permut Presentations have hired Meg Richman (UNDER HEAVEN) to polish the script JULIA PASTRANA about a woman with a grotesquely deformed face and the dashingly handsome showman who makes her an international sensation in Victorian England.
* Mark Mylod will direct the comedy THE BIG WHITE for Landscape Pictures and Ascendant Pictures from a script by Collin Friesen. It's set in Alaska and follows a hapless travel agent whose wife suffers from psychosomatic Tourette's Syndrome. Convinced a warmer climate might cure her ailment, he hatches a scheme to cash in on a million-dollar life insurance policy by stealing a corpse and pretending it's his long-missing brother.
* Ed Decter will direct THE MOGULS about a small town that bands together to make a porn movie. Michael Traeger (DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS) wrote the script for Newmarket Films.
* Journalist Anna David will script a contemporary version of RKO's 1938 Lucille Ball romantic comedy AFFAIRS OF ANNABEL. The new adaptation will tell the story of an actress who goes undercover as a maid and nanny in order to win a role in a movie and ends up re-evaluating her life and falling in love.
* Jon Avnet will direct and produce Phoenix Pictures' psychological thriller THE UNDERSTUDY about an understudy in a Broadway play who finally gets her shot at the leading role, only to sense that she is being undermined in turn by her own understudy.
* Hyde Park and Crusader Entertainment have tapped Steven De Souza (DIE HARD, 48 HOURS) to write THE PHANTOM, based on the classic comic book hero. The new film will have nothing to do with the 1996 flop that starred Billy Zane.
* Warner Bros. purchased Kelly BoweÃs script PARENTAL GUIDANCE for Raja Gosnell (SCOOBY DOO) to direct. ItÃs a role reversal story, all the adults emotionally revert to teenagers and rediscover their friendships, rivalries and dreams of that period.
* Fox 2000 has picked up an untitled pitch from Larry Levin (DR. DOLITTLE) for Jay Roach to direct. ItÃs about two regular people who are both married to saint-like do-gooders. Both of the regular folk are decent, sensitive people, but believe they pale in comparison to their "better" halves.
* Warner Bros. picked up the script PARENTAL GUIDANCE by Kelly Bowe for Raja Gosnell to direct. The project is a role reversal story in which all the adults emotionally revert to teenagers and rediscover their friendships, rivalries and dreams of that period.
* Michael Seitzman will adapt the novel CLASS ACTION: THE STORY OF LOIS JENSON AND THE LANDMARK CASE THAT CHANGED SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAW, penned by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler, for Warner Bros. ItÃs the true story of Lois Jenson, who in 1975 was a single mother on welfare and took a job working in the mines. There, she endured sexual harassment and, banding together with other women who worked there, filed a class-action suit against the company. After 25 years and three trials, Jenson prevailed.
* Chuck Russell (THE SCORPION KING) will direct the martial arts pic WAY OF THE RAT for DreamWorks. Russell is adapting the screenplay from the CrossGen comic book, a Hong Kong-set story that involves a young acrobatic hero, a wise-talking monkey and a princess who's handy with blades.
* Killer Films is producing an adaptation of Sydney TaylorÃs classic series of young adult books ALL-OF-A-KIND FAMILY, adapted by Matthew Weiss, under a new banner Sunshine Films. The books follow the daily adventures of five sisters growing up in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family in 1912, visiting the library and Rivington Street market, bathing at Coney Island and doing chores around the house.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Paramount will have first dibs at screen rights to a new installment of late author Mario Puzo's THE GODFATHER series, which is in the planning stages at Random House. It's too early to know who would write the book, and a choice won't be made until a final selection of story outlines are accumulated Nov. 4.
* Universal Pictures will release SEABISCUIT: AN AMERICAN LEGEND, starring Tobey Maguire, on July 25. TOMB RAIDER 2 may also open the same weekend.
* Spike Jonze has dropped out of Columbia Pictures' MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA adaptation, based on the novel by Arthur Golden. Meanwhile, Wesley Snipes has dropped out of Intermedia's GODFORSAKEN for director Mike Van Diem.
* Raw Progressive has acquired four new projects: Jan Golab's book DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE, which is being adapted by Larry Gross (TRUE CRIME); John Keats Rosenthal's novel A KILLER ROUTINE; Denis JohnsonÃs ALREADY DEAD; and the romantic comedy spec script FRIENDS WHO KISS by Chris MacEwan.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* Producers and writers of the Geri Halliwell-starrer British spy flick, SEMPER OCCULTUS, are trying to shake off all trace of Spice Girl-ism and tracking more class, style and above all talent.with a plot involving a dark subject of human organ traficking. AuroraMedia Features wants to create American-style movies in London.
* Brit R&B singer Romeo is rumored to be joining Steven Seagal in yet another actioner.
* Vinnie Jones has confirmed he is joining THE BIG BOUNCE, jetting off to Hawaii this week.
* Mise-en-chien productions is proud to announce the iFilm Premeire of two of their most popular short films: THE SECRET OF ZOMBIE MOUNTAIN at click here and YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND at Click Here too Both films have been designated "iFilm Picks" by the iFilm Programming Commitee.
* The next HD EXPO will take place on Thursday, November 7, 2002 from 5:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., at The Production Group Studios in Hollywood. Representatives from Panasonic will discuss the shooting of NBCÃs Movie of the Week, ìCarrie,î in high definition. In addition, Sony and Panasonic will bring their high def cameras for a side-by-side comparison.
Until next week
Elston Gunn
Mail me and be Enlightened!
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