Father Geek here one more time with our regular weekly column by Elston Gunn on the confirmed news out of Hollywood last week. Soooo, if you think you might have missed some juicy bits during your busy work week just scroll on thru this week's edition of...

THE WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Mischa Barton ("The O.C.") will star in the horror thriller HEXXX, written
by Mark Gibson and John Raffo, for MGM and Apartment 3B Prods. The story
revolves around the world of voodoo and is set against the backdrop of New
Orleans.

* Cheryl Hines ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") will star opposite Michael Keaton in
Disney's HERBIE: FULLY LOADED for director Angela Robinson as well as
BICKFORD SCHMECKLER'S COOL IDEAS, opposite Patrick Fugit, for director Scott
Lew.

* Paula Patton joins HBO Films' MY LIFE IN IDLEWILD, starring OutKast's
Andre 3000 and directed by Bryan Barber. In the musical, set in the
Prohibition-era American South, Patton plays a rising superstar who mixes it
up in a speakeasy.

* John Noble is joining Paul Walker in RUNNING SCARED for director Wayne
Kramer. Noble plays Ivan Yugorsky, a Russian mob boss who enforces his law
upon Walker and company when his son and a neighbor find a dirty gun used in
a murder.

* Jose Pablo Cantillo has been cast opposite D.L. Hughley in the indie
RIKERS for director Charles Winkler and producer Rob Cowan. He will play a
juvenile inmate at Rikers Island Prison who wins a poetry slam contest with
the help of a prison teacher only to have bigger battles later on.

* Wilmer Calderon joins the cast of ANNAPOLIS for director Justin Lin.

* Seymour Cassel will star in BITTERSWEET PLACE for director Alexandra
Brodsky about a patriarch of a dysfunctional family who is diagnosed with
cancer and finds religion, while the rest of the family go through their own
crises.

* Ellen Hollman joins Paris Hilton in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S PLEDGE THIS!

* Will Wallace and Myrton Running Wolf join Colin Farrell in THE NEW WORLD
for New Line and director Terrence Malick.

* Maria Conchita Alonso will star in the Venezuelan romantic comedy
UNAUTHORIZED CLIFFORD with Edgar Ramirez for director Elia Schneider.
Written by Schneider and Fernando Butazzoni, the pic centers on a playwright
whose characters come to life in order to prevent him from scrapping them
from his play.

* Paramount is in talks to bring back Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Seth
Green, Mos Def and Jason Statham for the sequel to THE ITALIAN JOB for
producer John Goldwyn with hopes to start shooting in late March for a
November 2005 release.

* Ben Affleck, David Schwimmer, William H. Macy, Richard Kind and German
director Werner Herzog will star in director Zak Penn's comic feature set
around an international poker tournament for Insomnia Entertainment. Pic
will shoot in February at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Penn will present
each cast member with a fully fleshed-out character and then work with them
to form the basis for what will be mostly improvised scenes.

* Steve Zahn will join Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz in the comic Western
BANDIDAS for 20th Century Fox and co-helmers Joachim Roenning and Espen
Sandberg. Shooting on the feature begins next month in Mexico. Zahn is
slated to play a New York police investigator sent to Mexico to track a
string of bank holdups. However, he ends up being kidnapped by Hayek and
Cruz, who star as bank robbers. Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen wrote the
script.

* Mena Suvari will star in Tony Scott's DOMINO opposite Keira Knightley. The
pic tells the real-life story of Domino Harvey, daughter of actor Laurence
Harvey, who starred in the original version of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. She
ditched a career as a Ford model to become a bounty hunter. Suvari will play
a producer's assistant in the project, which was penned by writer/director
Richard Kelly.

* Alec Baldwin and Nikki Reed (THIRTEEN) will star in MINI'S FIRST TIME for
Bold Films and Trigger Street Prods. Written and to be directed by Nick
Guthe, the dark comedy centers on a rebellious, unwanted child who joins an
escort service where her stepfather is a client.

* Meryl Streep is in negotiations to join Sean Penn and Jude Law in ALL THE
KING'S MEN, while Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo are in talks about the
project. Steven Zaillian is set to direct for Columbia Pictures from his own
adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's novel, which is based on the life of late
Louisiana Gov. Huey Long.

* Geoffrey Rush is in talks to join Russell Crowe in the big-screen
adaptation of Australian author Murray Bail's award winning novel
EUCALYPTUS. Rush would play the Australian widower Holland, a man who plants
hundreds of different eucalyptus trees on his plantation west of Sydney.
When his daughter Ellen comes of age, Holland tests all potential suitors by
making them correctly identify every single species. Only one man succeeds,
but by then Ellen already has lost her heart to a handsome stranger played
by Crowe, who has entranced her with stories not of trees but about people.
Jocelyn Moorehouse directs from a script by Michelle Joyner and Moorehouse.

* Sharon Stone will star in COUGARS, a romantic comedy about a 40ish woman
who falls for a 27-year-old man. Pic, scripted by Tara Miele and Kristine
Skeie, will be produced by Gold Circle Films and SideStreet Entertainment.

* Justin Timberlake and Emile Hirsch are teaming to star in ALPHA DOG for
director Nick Cassavetes, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and A-Mark
Entertainment. Sharon Stone also stars. Production begins Oct. 25. The
project is inspired by the real-life story of Jesse James Hollywood, a drug
dealer who became one of the youngest men ever to be on the FBI's most
wanted list.

* Sean Hayes has signed to star in the feature comedy SIMON SAYS for
Revolution Studios, Storyline Entertainment and Mosaic Media Group. Based on
a pitch by scribes Jeremy Miller and Dan Cohn from an original concept by
Mosaic's Eric Gold, the story will see Hayes star as Simon Christopher,
winner of a prestigious national teacher of the year award. There isn't a
child he can't tame until he is hired to home-school the difficult children
of a Manhattan media mogul, who is later placed under house arrest.

* Catherine Keener is in talks to play novelist Harper Lee in United
Artists' untitled Truman Capote feature. Samantha Morton had been in talks
for the role. Philip Seymour Hoffman is set to play Capote in the film,
which will be helmed by Bennett Miller from a script by Dan Futterman. Chris
Cooper and Clifton Collins Jr. also star.

* Donnie Wahlberg joins the cast of Disney's Naval Academy boxing drama
ANNAPOLIS, starring James Franco and Jordana Brewster, for director Justin
Lin. Tyrese and Vicellous Shannon also stars.

* Vincent Cassel will star opposite Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen in
DERAILED, the Miramax adaptation of the James Siegel novel to be directed by
Mikael Hafstrom (EVIL).

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Gale Anne Hurd and Platinum Studios will produce the feature film ATLANTIS
RISING, a political sci-fi thriller about an underwater kingdom and the
surface world coming to the brink of war, with both civilizations hanging in
the balance. The project, written by Scott O. Brown, is based on a Platinum
graphic novel created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

* Chris Pappas and Mike Bernier are set to write the untitled Dax Shepard
and Al Shearer project at Fox Searchlight. The duo also might direct. The
project is based on an idea by Shepard and Shearer, who also will star in
the movie, about two guys from different racial backgrounds who come to find
out that they are actually brothers who must compete against each other for
an inheritance.

* McG's production company, Wonderland Sound & Vision, has teamed with
writer/actor Danny Comden on the Universal Pictures pitch YOU'RE AMAZING, to
be produced by Prospect Pictures.

* Southpaw Entertainment has signed deals with Kirsten Sheridan to direct
AUGUST RUSH and David Nutter to helm WINDSOR ROAD. RUSH is described as a
modern-day fairy tale about an orphaned musical prodigy who tries to find
his parents through their shared musical gifts. ROAD is a psychological
thriller about a psychiatrist whose life is unraveled by the patient he is
trying to save.

* Paramount Pictures has optioned the script STARSHIP DAVE, written by Rob
Greenberg and Bill Corbett, for Guy Walks Into a Bar and Deep River Prods.
The comedy centers on a man who emerges in New York's Central Park unscathed
from a ball of flames, which turns out to be a starship operated by aliens.
On a mission to save his own planet, the alien captain goes against orders
and falls in love with an Earth girl.

* Shawn Levy (CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, THE PINK PANTHER) will direct the adult
comedy FATHER KNOWS LESS for New Line. Script is based on a pitch by Aline
Brosh McKenna about a successful but aloof dad who is abandoned by his
young, fed-up trophy wife. Left to raise his young kids on his own, he must
rely on the guidance of the disaffected older offspring from his first
marriage.

* Mike Nichols and Julia Roberts are in talks to develop the romantic comedy
SEVEN-YEAR SWITCH for Columbia Pictures and Red Wagon. Roberts would play a
woman coming up on the seventh year of a relationship. The proverbial
seven-year itch takes a rather extreme turn as the woman gets to see what
might have been if she had made different choices in her life.

* Paul Feig ("Freaks And Geeks" creator) will rewrite and direct STAR GIRL,
based on the young adult novel by Jerry Spinelli, for Paramount/Nickelodeon.
Book tells the story of 16-year-old Leo Borlock's first love -- an eccentric
beauty. Peer pressure forces him to choose whether or not to stay with the
crowd and shun a girl he loves.

* Dave Kajganich will script the new PET SEMATARY for Paramount and
Alphaville.

* Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber (BUTTERFLY EFFECT) will rewrite and direct
A COOL BREEZE ON THE UNDERGROUND for New Line and producer Don Murphy's
Angry Films. It's the first of five mystery novels by Don Winslow, each
featuring the character Neal Carey, a 23-year-old graduate student whose
college education is paid for by "The Bank," an exclusive New England
institution that keeps its wealthy clients happy and out of trouble. The
Bank also gives him an education on how be a private investigator.

* Jon Vitti will write DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, DreamWorks' remake of Francis
Veber's French comic hit LE DINER DE CONS (THE DINNER GAME) starring Sacha
Baron Cohen, aka Ali G. In the original, a Paris publisher holds a weekly
dinner party and challenges his friends to bring along the most pathetic
guest possible. In the new version, Cohen will play a character said to
possess such "extraordinary schmuckiness" that he's capable of ruining the
life of anyone who spends more than a few minutes in his orbit.

* Michael Schiffer (CRIMSON TIDE) is set to write the military action
thriller FIRST CLASS for producer Michael Davis and Revolution Studios. Set
against the backdrop of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., the movie
revolves around a close-knit group of Navy first class midshipmen who
discover an illegal operation under the military's radar in a nearby
port-of-call. Together, they must use their training and leadership skills
to put a stop to it, risking their careers and lives in the process.

* Laurence Dunmore (upcoming THE LIBERTINE) will direct A MILLION LITTLE
PIECES, based on the book by James Frey, for Warner Bros. Pictures. The
story is described as a first-person nonfiction account of a man's recovery
from a nearly fatal addiction to drugs and desperate living. Plan B and John
Wells are producing.

* New Line Cinema has reunited the Tony Award-winning HAIRSPRAY team to
bring the Broadway musical to the bigscreen. Director Jack O'Brien and
choreographer Jerry Mitchell will make their feature helming bows on the
project, joining screenwriters Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan and
lyricists Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. New Line hopes to put the film
into production in time for a 2006 release.

* Denzel Washington has lined up his next two directing assignments: Miramax
Films' THE GREAT DEBATERS and Alcon Entertainment's BROTHERS IN ARMS.
DEBATERS is based on the true story of a professor at the historically black
Wiley College in East Texas. In 1935, Melvin B. Tolson inspired his students
to form the college's first debating team, which went on to defeat Harvard
in national championships. Harpo Films is producing the pic, with Suzan-Lori
Parks rewriting a script by Robert Eisele (RAY). BROTHERS is based on the
book by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anthony Walton. David Chisolm adapted the
screenplay, which chronicles the first all-black tank battalion's 183 days
on the frontlines, including fighting during the Battle of the Bulge.

* Tom Dey is in negotiations to direct FAILURE TO LAUNCH, written by Tom
Astle and Matt Ember, for Scott Rudin Prods. and Paramount Pictures. The
comedy centers on a thirtysomething guy who begins to suspect that his
parents actually set him up with the love of his life in an attempt to get
him to finally move out their home.

* Simon Kinberg (FANTASTIC FOUR, MR. & MRS. SMITH) will write the script for
X3 for 20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios.

* Disney picked up Michelle McGrath's pitch HIP HOP NANNY based on the true
story of a Scottish woman who comes to the United States to become a nanny
for a hip hop/rap couple and their child.

* Roger Allers (LION KING) has joined the directing team of Sony Pictures
Animation's upcoming animated feature OPEN SEASON, and Steve Bencich and Ron
J. Friedman have come on board as writers. Also, Lisa Addario and Joey
Syracuse have been hired to write SURF'S UP, the studio's second animated
feature about surfing penguins.

* Chris Columbus will write and direct a screen adaptation of Jonathan
Larson's Pulitzer- and Tony-winning musical RENT for Revolution Studios.
Production is expected to begin by next spring for a holiday 2005 release.
Columbus has also closed a deal with Warner Bros. to develop and direct
SLANTED AND ENCHANTED based on a script by Ben Queen. It's described as a
dramedy about a recovered pathological liar who must return home and
interact with his parents in order to unravel the mystery of his sister's
illness. Things spiral out of control, though, as he falls into
self-destructive patterns.

* Stephen and Paul Raphael, sons of director Frederic, are making a
mockumentary about the world's bestselling vibrator, the Rabbit, popularized
on "Sex in the City." Scripted and produced by Stephen, exec produced by
Paul, RABBIT FEVER follows a group of recovering Rabbit addicts. Stephanie
Powers and John Standing appear alongside a young cast of unknowns, with
cameos from Richard Branson, Germaine Greer and Tom Conti. Ian Denyer
directs.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Emmett/Furla Films has picked up the feature rights to the true-life story
of Rin Tin Tin. The original puppy was saved from the ruins of a bombed-out
kennel during World War I. The German shepherd grew up to become Rin Tin
Tin, star of 22 films.

* Intellectual Properties Worldwide has acquired feature rights to the
long-running comicbook GROO THE WANDERER, created by Sergio Aragones with
Mark Evanier. Deeply dim, the title character is nonetheless able to lay
waste to dragons, wizards and witches as he travels with his adoring dog.

* Five Windows Prods. and Circle Of Confusion are developing a live-action
remake of French animated sci-fier FANTASTIC PLANET. Other projects for Five
Windows include a remake of 1972 British supernatural thriller THE ASPHYX,
about a man who can photograph souls as they leave the dying, and 1970 pic
BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW, in which the children of a village slowly become a
satanic coven. The company is teamed with co-producer Ian Levy on EVENMERE,
an adaptation of James Stoddard's fantasy novel THE HIGH HOUSE.

* Dimension Films has optioned film rights to Japanese author Koji Suzuki's
(THE RING) short story ADRIFT from Kadokawa Pictures. It's the story of a
crew of fishermen who come across an abandoned yacht only to discover that
it is haunted.

* Sean Connery has dropped out of Fox's JOSIAH'S CANON. Pic has been in
development for some time and was ready to begin shooting in Prague in
February with Brett Ratner directing.

* MGM has put the development of a new James Bone installment on hold. As a
result, the movie will not be hitting theaters in its traditional November
2005 slot as originally planned.

* Miramax and Dimension Films have inked a multi-year agreement Wild Brain
to co-finance and co-produce CGI-animated films. First up is OPUS, based on
the penguin character from Berkeley Breathed's Pulitzer Prize-winning
comicstrip BLOOM COUNTY. Craig Mazin (SCARY MOVIE 3) is writing the script.

* AEON FLUX has resumed production after Paramount and MTV were forced to
shut down production of the sci-fi actioner Aug. 31, two weeks after lensing
started, due to an injury suffered by Charlize Theron.

GUNN SHOTS

(NOT from the trades)

* TYING THE KNOT, a documentary about two woman in their personal struggle
for equality following the losses of their partners, opened this weekend in
select cities. The film claims to go behind the politics and expose the
deeply personal side behind the fight for marriage equality. Visit
http://www.tyingtheknotthemovie.com for more.

* 13 SECONDS will be available on Special Edition DVD in video stores
everywhere in the US and Canada on October 19th. This is the film that Joe
Bob Briggs of UPI and TNT's MonsterVision declared "a technical
tour-de-force that turns every horror cliche upside down. This film is
disturbing." Go to http://www.rainstorm-pictures.com for more.

* Movie related paintings, concept art and sketches at
http://www.moviexplosion.com/xmovieartus.html

* Assouline Publishing (Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's HITCHCOCK STYLE, Dolce &
Gabbana's HOLLYWOOD, Diane Von Furstenberg's THE WRAP and Amanda Eliasch's
BRITISH ARTISTS AT WORK) will release a fantastic new book entitled The
Movie Game Book: A Serious Pursuit of Film Trivia by Pierre Murat and Michel
Grisolia. For more information visit http://www.assouline.com.

* Check out a review of the final cut of ALL BABES WANT TO KILL ME that
debuted at the San Diego Comic-Con and an interview with Colin Miller and
Alex Cain at http://www.forcesofgood.com/interviews/041004/all_babes.php

Until next week...

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com