Father Geek here with Elston Gunn and another of our week-in-review reports for all of you who may have missed some of the last work-week's breaking tinseltown stories the first time around, sooooo get comfortable, fill your trusty supersize AICN mug with your fave warm drink and prepare to dig into...

The WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Reese Witherspoon is attached to star in the romantic comedy SPORTS WIDOW,
written by Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro, for Universal Pictures. The studio
is the new home for Witherspoons production company Type A.

* Bill Murray, Laura Linney and John Turturro are in advanced negotiations
to co-star in THE SQUID AND THE WHALE for writer/director Noah Baumbach
(KICKING AND SCREAMING, MR. JEALOUSY) and producers Wes Anderson and Peter
Newman. It's about an eccentric Brooklyn family whose patriarch claims once
to have been a famous novelist but now teaches. When his wife becomes a
literary talent it breaks up the family, leaving the two teenage sons
divided between their parents. The wife starts an affair with her younger
son's tennis coach, while the husband starts sleeping with a student whom
his elder son is courting.

* Sean Penn and Woody Allen will star in WHY MEN SHOULDN'T MARRY for
writer/director/producer Steve Bing and Shangri-La Entertainment. It's about
a man who rebounds from a painful divorce by becoming an anti-marriage guru.
He finds himself in conflict with a veteran divorcee man who still believes
that a marriage can be successful. Production begins in Los Angeles next
August.

* Eddie Griffin will star in the action pic BLAST!, which is described as
DIE HARD on an oil rig, for director Anthony Hickox (HELLRAISER III). Steven
E. De Souza (DIE HARD) wrote the script. Shooting begins in December in
South Africa.

* Ashton Kutcher and director Phil Joanou are in negotiations to star in and
helm, respectively, the action/comedy REGULATORS for Disney. Tristan
Patterson wrote the script about a surfer cop working in Long Beach who
finds himself teamed up with a black officer from the "hood" who is ready to
clean up his newly assigned city.

* Morris Chestnut is in final talks to star opposite Jamie Foxx in THE BREAK
UP HANDBOOK for Screen Gems and writer/director Daniel Taplitz. Shooting
begins next month in L.A. The comedy centers on a man who writes a how-to
book on breaking up and becomes a best-selling author on the subject. Not
wanting his male friends to suffer the same fate, he gives them advice on
dumping their mates, and a comedy of errors ensues.

* Actress Romola Garai will star opposite Diego Luna in HAVANA NIGHTS: DIRTY
DANCING 2 for director Guy Ferland, Miramax Films and Artisan Entertainment.

* Josh Lucas will join the cast of New Line's SECONDHAND LIONS starring
Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, Haley Joel Osment, Kyra Sedgwick and Nicky
Katt for director Tim McCanlies (THE IRON GIANT).

* Nicole Kidman is attached to star in MANDALAY, Lars von Trier's second
part of a trilogy that begins with DOGVILLE. Kidman will play the same
character in the project which is scheduled to begin production in August
2003.

* Andy Garcia will direct and star in the drama THE LOST CITY, written by
Cuban exile author G. Cabrera Infante. Robert Duvall, Dustin Hoffman,
Benicio Del Toro, Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt and Tomas Milian will also
star. It's about three brothers caught in Cuba's turbulent transition from
the increasingly oppressive regime of Fulgencio Batista to the Marxist
government of Fidel Castro in the late 1950s. Castro's regime ultimately
leads the club owner to flee to New York. Bratt will play one of Garcia's
brothers, and either Del Toro or Bardem will likely play the other brother.
Duvall will play the head of Batista's secret police force. Hoffman will
portray Meyer Lansky, who with fellow gangster Lucky Luciano crafted the
mob's infiltration into Havana nightlife. Shooting begins at Miami Beach in
April.

* Julianne Moore is attached to star in RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, based on the
novel by Augusten Burroughs, for writer/director Ryan Murphy. It's about the
author's mother Deirdre, a bipolar poet with delusions of grandeur who falls
into the care of an unorthodox male psychiatrist in the mid-1970s.

* Pierce Brosnan has agreed to play James Bond for the fifth time for
producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson. Filming probably would not
begin until early 2005.

* Mandy Moore is in discussions to star in a remake of A SUMMER PLACE for
Edmonds Entertainment, Gold Circle Films and Storyopolis Prods. The romantic
drama centered on two teens who fall in love at a summer resort at the same
time that her married father and his married mother also rekindle an affair
from years ago. Nicholas Di Bella is writing the new script.

* Indian superstar Salman Khan will star in MARIGOLD for director Williard
Carroll.

* Mike White will star opposite Jack Black in Paramount's comedy SCHOOL OF
ROCK, which he penned for director Richard Linklater and producer Scott
Rudin. Production begins Nov. 25.

* Juliette Binoche will star with Daniel Auteuil in CACHE for director
Michael Haneke. It's about a couple thrown into turmoil when they receive
anonymous videocassettes depicting their own lives. Production will begin
in the summer.

* Jessica Lange is in talks to star in BIG FISH for director Tim Burton and
Columbia Pictures. Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney and Billy Crudup also star.
John August adapted the novel by Daniel Wallace.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Columbia Pictures has snapped up Geoff Rodkey's family comedy pitch RV for
Red Wagon to produce. An average, dysfunctional American family sets off on
the most dangerous, high-stakes, life-threatening and traumatizing adventure
of their lives: two weeks together in an RV.

* Daniel Seligmann will write THE FORGOTTEN for Winchester Films and The
Donners Co. The plot line is being kept under wraps, but it is described as
a supernatural thriller in the vein of MEMENTO and THE SIXTH SENSE.

* Anand Tucker is attached to direct NOVEMBER 5TH about the Gunpowder Plot
to blow up the English Houses of Parliament in 1605. Frank Cottrell Boyce
will write the script for Artists Independent Network.

* Steven Soderbergh will direct one segment of a three-part ensemble film
titled EROS, comprising works by Michelangelo Antonioni and Wong Kar-wai.
Soderbergh is replacing Pedro Almodovar on a segment, though Almodovar will
still contribute by creating a visual "framework" for the three tales of
human love and sexuality.

* Theory Films picked up the film rights to GATEKEEPER, Philip Shelby's 1998
novel about an American in Paris who discovers that the assassin who
murdered her parents 15 years ago is on the move to the U.S. She teams up
with a covert assassin, known as a gatekeeper, to track him down and stop
him from killing again. Jeff Sherwood (THE BRINK) is close to a deal to
adapt. Shelby is also signed to write a script titled PAYLOAD.

* New Line Cinema has optioned the rights to MEMORY OF DEMONS, the latest
book from David Ambrose, with Peter Care in talks to direct from a Fernley
Philips adaptation. The upcoming novel follows a father whose demons come
back to haunt him when his young daughter appears possessed by a murdered
girl.

* Gerard Jugnot will direct the third ASTERIX film for Claude Berri's Reen
Prods. Production may begin next year.

* David Mackenzie (YOUNG ADAM) will replace Paul McGuigan as director of
Paramount's ASYLUM, but producers are still looking for a new lead for the
project after Liam Neeson dropped out. Natasha Richardson stars in the pic,
which Patrick Marber adapted from the Patrick McGrath novel. It's about a
woman who moves outside London after her forensic psychiatrist husband takes
a job in a remote maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane.
There, she falls under the spell of a charismatic artist who has been
confined for murdering his wife.

* Rick Rosenthal will direct NEARING GRACE for his newly-formed Whitewater
Films. It's a coming-of-age drama, based on the novel by Scott Sommer,
about an eccentric teenager who nearly drops out of life after the death of
his mother, but who rediscovers life in the arms of a woman named Grace.
Jacob Estes wrote the adaptation. Other projects in development at
Whitewater include the L.A. cop flick BULLDOGS; the script MEAN CREEK about
kids who accidentally kill the school bully; the urban comedy SHOOTING
BLANKS; and BURNT BRIDGE ROAD, about a guy who changes the fate of a small
New England town.

* Working Title Films is developing a feature based on the true story of
Betty Ann Waters, a high school dropout who represented her brother in a
murder case. Tony Goldwyn will direct from a script by Pamela Gray (MUSIC
OF THE HEART, A WALK ON THE MOON) is writing.

* William Monahan will write a fourth installment of JURASSIC PARK for
Universal Pictures and producers Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy.

* Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS 2) have sold their
script PHOTOGRAPH to Lions Gate, with Rat Entertainment attached to produce.
Set in Las Vegas, the thriller centers on a female boxer and her
down-on-his-luck ex-husband, who has to track down an elusive photograph
before the subject of the photo catches up with him.

* Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi's (SNOW DAY) pitch WE'RE HAVING A BABY was
picked up by Paramount for Kerner Entertainment Company to produce. It's a
domestic comedy that chronicles the chaotic two weeks before the birth of a
young couple's first child as the families of both the mother and the father
come to "help." The pitch is based on an original idea by Kerner.

* Kevin Allen will direct New Line's SMART AND SMARTER about two genius
brothers raised in a think tank. When they're suddenly thrust into the real
world, they find that they're so smart, yet lacking common sense, that they
actually think themselves into problems. Dan Wilson and David Gilbreth
wrote the script, which is not related to DUMB AND DUMBER.

* Doug Liman is in talks to direct the action/adventure MR. AND MRS. SMITH,
written by Simon Kinberg, for Regency Enterprises. It's about a bored
married couple who discover they are enemy assassins hired to kill each
other.

* Scott Silver (8 MILE) will write Universal/Imagine's biopic about Playboy
creator Hugh Hefner.

* Lasse Hallstrom will direct the Disney period pic CASANOVA about the famed
Lothario who learns the meaning of love when he finds a woman immune to his
charms.

* David Gordon Green (GEORGE WASHINGTON) will direct A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES
from a script by Scott Kramer and Steven Soderbergh, based on John Kennedy
Toole's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, for Miramax Films. Production will
begin in New Orleans in the spring. The novel centers on Ignatius J.
Reilly, a colorful would-be academic who suffers through a series of lousy
jobs, stilted romances and misadventures while living at home with his
mother in 1960s-era New Orleans. Kramer will also produce with Flower
Films' Nancy Juvonen and Drew Barrymore, who will play a role in the film.
Soderbergh and Scott Rudin will serve as executive producers.

* Argentinean filmmaker Tristan Bauer is directing the drama ILUMINADOS POR
EL FUEGO about the 1982 Falkland Islands war. The project is based on a
book by Argentinean journalist Edgardo Esteban, who was a soldier during the
conflict. Bauer co-wrote the adaptation with Esteban, journalist Miguel
Bonasso and poet-writer Gustavo Romero Borri.

* New Line and Warner Bros. are partnering with Vice, a Brooklyn-based
underground music magazine, on the DIRTY BOMBS by magazine co-founder Shane
Smith and managing editor Eddy Moretti. It's about a man who heads to
Eastern Europe hoping to find and photograph a black market nuke.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Warner Bros. picked up the remake rights to the Korean pic MARRYING THE
MAFIA, about a lawyer who finds himself in hot water after awakening from a
one-night stand to discover that his bedmate is the daughter of a mob
kingpin. The lawyer's given the choice of marriage or extinction.

* Mindfire Entertainment has picked up the feature rights to Sega's ninja
video game franchise SHINOBI. The project is targeted for a summer 2004
release.

* Crystal Sky has made a deal with Namco and Gaga for feature rights to
"Pac-Man" for a live-action pic.

* Universal Pictures has picked up the graphic novel series WHITEOUT in
turnaround from Columbia Pictures for Radiant Prods. and Type A to produce
as a Reese Witherspoon vehicle. The Greg Rucka-created graphic novel follows
U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko as she uncovers the first murder ever in the
Antarctic just as the sun is about to set for six months. She must catch the
killer before he leaves the ice or be stuck there with him in the dark for
six months.

* Phoenix Pictures has optioned SOCIAL CRIMES, Jane Stanton Hitchcock's
novel about a Gotham socialite who, after she loses her position to her
husband's mistress, enters a cat-and-mouse game with the younger woman to
exact revenge. Joel Schumacher is in talks to develop the project.

* Warner Bros. Pictures is in close to acquiring the feature rights to the
comic book series BALL & CHAIN by Scott Lobdell, who will write the
adaptation. The romantic comedy centers on a divorced couple who become
endowed with superpowers that function only when the bickering twosome are
together.

* BJ Film is developing a biopic of golfing legend Bobby "the Georgia
gentleman" Jones, who dominated the sport from 1923-29 and retired at 28.
Shooting begins in March in Atlanta.

* Universal is in talks to snap up Larry McMurtry's 19th century American
West novel BOONE'S LICK for the Playtone Co. to produce. The book focuses
on the Cecil family, led by Mary Margaret Cecil, who packs up her brood of
kids and travels from Boone's Lick, Mo., to Fort Phil Kearny, Wyo., to
search for her wayward husband.

GUNN SHOTS

(NOT from the trades)

* Key West Indie Fest is now accepting script submissions via email. Find
out more at This Location.

* The Tinseltown Web Show is a 24-hr Celebrity Fest of the latest news,
Hollywood features, the spiritual side of Hollywood, music news & features
and London news/features. For an exclusive sneak preview of the show log
on to: By Just Clicking Here.

* See THE TUNNEL in L.A. at Raleigh Studios in the historic Chaplin Theater
on Sunday, Nov. 10th @ 2:30pm as part of the FirstGlance Film Festival.
More info at these two spots www.raleighstudios.com and www.firstglancefilms.com/losangeles

* Sylvester Stallone may star in a UK-set action thriller as the lead
villainous role. A former Dutch/English Para Trooper who robs a priceless
Picasso from Europe's largest shopping mall comes up against an ex colleague
who now works as a security guard.

* Vin Diesel is apparently up for Michael Knight in the feature version of
KNIGHT RIDER.

* David Fincher's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3 was almost about the destruction of
Wonders of the World, but since the tragic events of 9/11, a script is now
being re-worked - set predominantly in Africa - about human organ trafficking.

* 7th Art Releasing presents the directorial debut of acclaimed photographer
Danny Clinch and filmmaker Sam Lee, PLEASURE & PAIN, an intimate documentary
of roots rock icon Ben Harper. Begins US Theatrical Run in Los Angeles at
Laemmle's Sunset 5 on Thursday, November 14th at 9:30pm. For more info
visit one of these locations http://benharper.net, www.7thart.com, www.greengalactic.com

Until next week...

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com