Father Geek here at Geek Headquarters in Austin, Texas with another of Elston's fine reviews of the news from Tinseltown for those of you who may have let the SoBig Worm problems keep you off line some last week, allowing all kinds of interesting little bits of info to slip by you in the process...

Soooooo with no further delay from me here's...

THE WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Raven ("That's So Raven," "The Cosby Show") will star in SPARKLE, the remake of the 1976 drama about a Supremes-like group of singing sisters, for Warner Bros. Michael Elliot (LIKE MIKE) will rewrite the script by E. Lynn Harris. Whitney Houston and Debra Martin Chase are producing.

* Chris Rock will star in Universal's comedy SICK DAY, written by Nick Marine, for Imagine Entertainment. It's about a man who phones in sick to skip work only to see his plans for the day go awry as he proceeds to get involved in numerous destructive misunderstandings with his neighbors, nearly scotching his affectionate wife's chances at a job promotion in the process.

* Val Kilmer is in talks to join Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx in the Michael Mann-directed COLLATERAL for DreamWorks/Paramount. Production begins in October.

* Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson will star in A GOOD WOMAN for director Michael Barker (BEST LAID PLANS) Shooting will take place in October in Italy. Howard Himelstein wrote the script inspired by the Oscar Wilde play LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN. Hunt will play a seductress who steals the husband of a younger woman played by Scarlett Johansson.

* Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Elisabeth Shue, Michelle Trachtenberg, Bill Sage, Jeff Licon, Chris Mulkey, Billy Drago, Richard Riehle and Mary Lynn Rajskub will star in Gregg Araki's MYSTERIOUS SKIN. Based on the novel by Scott Heim, the story centers on two boys who meet when they are 18 and discover a common past that has shaped both of them in different ways.

* Shawn Ashmore (X2) will star opposite Nick Cannon in Miramax Films' THE UNDERCLASSMAN for director Marcos Siega and Tapestry Films. The project begins shooting in October. It's about a detective who goes undercover at an elite private school and stumbles upon an international stolen-car ring led by one of his rivals at the school. The investigation gets even more surprising when the detective uncovers the person who has been using the students to steal. David Wagner and Brent Goldberg wrote the script.

* Johnny Depp is in negotiations to play Willy Wonka in CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY for Warner Bros. and director Tim Burton.

* Sharon Stone is in talks to play the female villain opposte Halle Berry in Warner Bros.' CATWOMAN for director Pitof, with Village Roadshow Pictures and Di Novi Pictures producing. Josh Lucas is also in negotiations for a role.

* Rachel Weisz is in negotiations to star opposite Keanu Reeves in Warner Bros. Pictures' CONSTANTINE, based on an adaptation of the DC-Vertigo comic book, for director Francis Lawrence.

* Angelina Jolie will star (replacing Nicole Kidman) with Brad Pitt in MR. AND MRS. SMITH for director Doug Liman and New Regency. Production begins in November. Pitt and Jolie will play a couple in a dead marriage. They happen to be assassins, and when they are sent on the same job, they realize that each is supposed to terminate his or her marital mate. Simon Kinberg and Jezz Butterworth wrote the script.

* Adrien Brody is set to star in THE JACKET, a Mandalay Pictures/Section Eight drama to be directed by John Maybury (LOVE IS THE DEVIL). It's about a soldier who has been convicted of a murder. He's put into a psychiatric hospital under the care of a shady physician, and the soldier begins to believe he is travelling through time. Marc Rocco and Massy Tadjedin wrote the script.

* Ryan Reynolds is in talks play a vampire hunter opposite Wesley Snipes in BLADE: TRINITY for writer/director David Goyer and New Line.

* Bruce Greenwood (THIRTEEN DAYS) will play the other lead human role opposite Hayden Panettiere in Alcon Entertainment's live-action/CG pic RACING STRIPES. The pic, which also features the voices of Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, Frankie Muniz, Joe Pantoliano, Mandy Moore, Patrick Stewart, Joshua Jackson, Michael Rosenbaum, Steve Harvey, David Spade, Michael Clarke Duncan and Jeff Foxworthy, starts shooting Sept. 15 in South Africa. It's about an abandoned baby zebra who grows up believing he's a racehorse. With the help of barnyard friends and a teenage girl who dreams of being a jockey, he overcomes prejudice and self-doubt to pursue his dream of running with thoroughbreds. Frederik Du Chau (QUEST FOR CAMELOT) will direct.

* Tracey Ullman and Chris Isaak will star in John Waters' upcoming A DIRTY SHAME, with Johnny Knoxville, Selma Blair and Paul Giamatti are already attached to the project, about a working-class convenience store owner who suffers a concussion only to become a sex addict with wild urges. Shooting is set begin later this year in Baltimore.

* Jane Krakowski will play Liza Minnelli in Dan Minahan's Roy Halston biopic, SIMPLY HALSTON, opposite Alec Baldwin. She will also join the cast of the ALFIE remake.

* C. Thomas Howell and Nicholas Turturro will play cousins/mass murderers Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, respectively, for helmer Chuck Parello in an indie film about the Hillside Strangler case from the 1970s.

* Malcolm McDowell will star opposite Jim Caviezel in STROKE OF GENIUS, the indie biopic of legendary golfer Bobby Jones, for writer/director Rowdy Herrington, BJ Films and Dean River Prods. Production begins this month in Scotland and Atlanta.

* Judy Greer has joined the ensemble cast of M. Night Shyamalan's THE WOODS, starring Adrien Brody, Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver. Production begins in Philadelphia in October.

* Dougray Scott will play the lead, while Saffron Burrows and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers are in talks to co-star in PERFECT CREATURE, a vampire pic to be directed by Glenn Standring, who also wrote the script.

* Stanley DeSantis will play Louis B. Mayer in THE AVIATOR for director Martin Scorsese.

* Diane Kruger will star opposite Nicolas Cage in NATIONAL TREASURE for Disney and director by Jon Turteltaub. It's a caper story about a secret code in the U.S. Constitution that bears the whereabouts of a treasure buried during the 1700s.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Jeff Wadlow will direct LIVING THE LIE, a teen thriller focuses on a group of precocious boarding school seniors at a fictional school called Westover Preparatory Academy. Too rich, pretty and bored, the students begin playing a mysterious game of lies only to see the lies become personal, raising the stakes with disastrous ramifications. Produced by Hypnotic and supported by Universal Pictures, the pic starts shooting in October.

* John Rando (Broadway's "Urinetown") will helm TRUTH & ART for Intermedia Films and Outlaw Pictures. It's based on a true story of two brothers from the Midwest who combined a theater program and a string of strip clubs.

* Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield (COMING TO AMERICA) will write the new version of THE HONEYMOONERS for Paramount and Deep River Prods. Cedric the Entertainer and Mike Epps have been cast in the Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton roles, respectively, with John Schultz (LIKE MIKE) directing.

* Len Wiseman (UNDERWORLD director) is writing BLACK CHAPTER for Disney about the CIA enlisting ghosts as undercover agents.

* Russell Mulcahy will direct ESCAPE, the sequel to MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, for Quinta Communications, Miramax Films and IAC Films. The project is based on the book THE RETURN by Billy Hayes.

* Chris Robinson will direct Warner Bros.' JELLY BEANS for Overbrook Entertainment. It's described as a music-oriented feature in the vein of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER set in an Atlanta roller-skating rink.

* Patrick Stettner (THE BUSINESS OF STRANGERS) is attached to direct THE NIGHT LISTENER, based on the novel by Armistead Maupin, for Hart Sharp Entertainment. Maupin and writing partner Terry Anderson are working on the script. The book was inspired by a real-life mystery that consumed the author and Anderson for more than six years and resulted in a widely read New Yorker magazine investigation. It centers on a San Francisco writer attempting to bounce back from a broken relationship, who strikes up a long-distance telephone friendship with a dying boy only to be confronted by troubling doubts about the boy's identity.

* Pete Jones (STOLEN SUMMER) will direct DOUBTING RILEY, which he wrote and will star in and produce. The project goes into production this week in Chicago, with Nathan Fillion ("Angel") and Michael McDonald ("Mad TV") starring alongside Jones. It's about an Irish Catholic family who learns that one of their siblings is gay.

* Juan Taratuto is directing NO SOS VOS, SOY YO (I'M NOT YOU, I'M ME) about a surgeon-disc jockey whose girlfriend travels to the U.S. to find an American husband -- and a green card.

* David Sporn will direct the supernatural thriller TAMARA, written by Jeffrey Reddick, about an awkward and unpopular teen whose life is taken after she is the victim of a vicious prank. When Tamara comes back from the dead, she is reborn as a seductive, mind-controlling vixen hellbent on revenge. City Lights Pictures will co-produce with Short End Productions.

* United Artists and Hart Sharp Entertainment are teaming to develop a film from Anna Thomas Soffee's comic memoir SNAKE HIPS about how the Middle Eastern shimmy helped heal the wounds of a bad bust-up. Sylvia Sichel (ALL OVER ME) will adapt the book about the author's returning to live with her parents in Richmond, Va., after being dumped by her tattoo artist boyfriend. Stumbling upon belly-dancing classes, the author -- a nerdy, rock 'n' roll-loving schoolteacher -- finds distraction from self-pity, a way to reconnect with her Lebanese roots, a rediscovered sense of passion and, ultimately, love.

* Amy Heckerling is in talks to direct New Line's NO PLACE LIKE HOME, which will star Vince Vaughn as a cocky, upwardly mobile New Yorker who has the world at his fingertips and a deep aversion to his parents. But when he breaks up with his girlfriend and his life falls apart, he ends up moving into his parents' Long Island house. Margaret Heidenry wrote the script.

* F. Gary Gray is in talks to direct BE COOL for MGM and Jersey Films. The studio is hoping for a November start on the Peter Steinfeld-scripted adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel.

* Peter Care will direct BRIDGE AND TUNNEL, written by Jonathan Greenberg, Jonathan Lisco and C. Jay Cox, for New Line Cinema and Tribeca Films. It's the story of a suburban 16-year-old who uses his parents' computer to become a whiz-bang day trader and multimillionaire.

* Hillary Seitz (INSOMNIA) will script the remake of THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD for Paramount.

* Disney picked up the comedy pitch THE OTHER GUY from writers Brent Goldberg and David Wagner (NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER) for Offspring Entertainment to produce with Tapestry Films as a potential vehicle for Adam Shankman to direct. It's about a couple who find their relationship falling apart after 25 years of marriage. As a result, the wife decides to move into the big city in search of adventure and a new life, where she meets the hottest man alive. When he hits on her and the two start dating, her husband is forced to compete with the younger man to win her back.

* Guy Ritchie has temporarily halted REVOLVER and will instead turn his attention to SIX SHOOTERS, a Civil War-era heist pic at Columbia. Shooting is expected to begin in March. John Enbom wrote the script that takes place in the last days of the Civil War. Confederate President Jefferson Davis loaded the entire gold reserves aboard trains during the siege of Richmond. Two Union officers along with two infantrymen, one a former slave and the other a brothel owner, plot to steal the loot.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Shadedbox is teaming with Walt Disney Feature Animation to develop the CG-animated feature LET'S GET FRANCIS. Shadedbox is attached to direct the film, which is based on a script it is also developing. The project is set during the holiday season and revolves around two hamster brothers, Joe and Francis, who vie for the attention of customers inside a pet store in a bustling mall. When a little girl decides that Joe must be hers, Francis runs away in a jealous fit, prompting the ragtag crew of loyal pets to embark on an impossible mission to save their friend.

* Russell Crowe's impending fatherhood will delay production on CINDERELLA MAN, which was scheduled for a January start but will now get under way on March 1.

* Paramount Pictures has decided to take a turn at REWIND, with Walter Latham and David Permut co-producing the romantic comedy. The original script centered on a groom reassessing his life on the verge of taking his wedding vows after a car accident enables him to relive relationships when he hears a song. Latham and Permut are looking for a writer to re-conceive the project to target urban sensibilities.

* The weather in Antarctica and the peccadilloes of penguins have put EMPEROR ZEHNDER, starring Richard Gere and to be directed by Gregory Hoblit, on hold for a year. National Geographic Feature Films and Hyde Park Entertainment have delayed the movie over concerns they'll miss the planned October start date.

GUNN SHOTS

(NOT from the trades)

* Check out C.J. Johnson's latest short "Mona's Voice" and serial feature "Eat My Shorts" at http://movies.kikizo.com/features/eatmyshorts01.asp

* There are new updates on Steve Balderson's film FIRECRACKER at http://www.dikenga.com/films/firecracker/index.htm

* On July 28, FAB Press released FEAR WITHOUT FRONTIERS: HORROR CINEMA ACROSS THE GLOBE, edited by Steven Jay Schneider (Harvard University/New York University) -- a new anthology that surveys horror films from around the world. The book includes new work from renowned horror experts like Kim Newman, Pete Tombs, and Mitch Davis; interviews with legends of world horror (old and new) such as Takashi Miike, Nonzee Nimibutr, Jorge Molina, and Sion Sono; and includes chapters on the horror cinema of countries ranging from Italy to India, Cuba to Czechoslovakia, France to the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, Hong Kong, Austria, Brazil, Indonesia, Korea, and many other countries besides. Click on the following link for full details, reviews and ordering info: http://www.fabpress.com/pages/fab/books/FearWithoutFrontiers.html

Until next week...

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com