Father Geek here with our latest edition of Elston's weekly look back in time for those of you who may not have been able to keep up with all the Hollywood news during the immediate past wild and wacky work week... soooo if that fits you then jump right into...

THE WEEKLY RECAP...

CASTING
* Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars"), Lou Taylor Pucci and John Hensley will star in FIFTY PILLS for first-time director Theo Avgerinos and Coalition Film. The film follows college student Darren Giles who, after losing his scholarship, must sell 50 Ecstasy pills in a day in order to make his tuition payment so that he can stay with his girlfriend. Hensley plays Pucci's metrosexual roommate who supplies the drugs. Nora Zehetner ("Everwood"), Eddie Kaye Thomas, Monica Keena, Daniel Spink, Donnell Rawlings ("Chappelle's Show") and Rachel Boston ("American Dreams") also join the cast.
* Neve Campbell, Danny DeVito and Kathy Bates will star in the lead female role opposite Ron Livingston in the indie RELATIVE STRANGERS for producer DeVito. The project, directed by Greg Glienna, centers on an uptight professional who sets out to meet his biological parents only to discover that they are from the wrong side of the trailer park.
* Dominique Swain, Ben Foster, Vincent Kartheiser, Sean Hatosy, Vincent Laresca, Shera Danese and David Thornton are in talks to join Nick Cassavetes' upcoming feature ALPHA DOG. It's about a skinhead who seeks revenge on his drug dealer after the dealer murders his brother. They join Justin Timberlake, Emile Hirsch and Sharon Stone in the film, which is based on the real life story of Jesse James Hollywood, a drug dealer who became one of the youngest men ever to be wanted by the FBI.
* Julie Gonzalo has landed a lead role opposite Diane Lane in MUST LOVE DOGS for Warner Bros. Pictures and writer/director Gary David Goldberg.
* Newcomer Spencer Locke (SPANGLISH) joins Sony Pictures/Imagemovers' MONSTER HOUSE for director Gil Kenan. Locke has been cast an aggressive and entrepreneurial young girl who teams with her two male buddies to defeat the ravenous Nebbercracker house and its appetite for kids. The film will be made using "performance capture" animation.
* Jeff Garlin ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") and Vincent Curatola ("The Sopranos") join the cast of FUN WITH DICK AND JANE for director Dean Parisot, Imagine and Sony Pictures.
* Todd Stashwick joins the cast of BEWITCHED for Sony Pictures and director Nora Ephron. He will portray a young actor who begins dating Will Ferrell's soon-to-be ex-wife and wants to form a friendship with Ferrell's character.
* Trevor Wright has landed a role in the indie film SPECIAL ED playing a teenager who puts up a front with everyone but deep down really just wants to be closer to his dad.
* Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes will star in THE DARWIN AWARDS, a romantic comedy written and to be directed by Finn Taylor. David Arquette, Jeffrey Tambor and Tim Blake Nelson will take supporting roles in the pic, with Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer in cameos. Production begins Nov. 29. Fiennes portrays a forensic detective who pairs with an insurance claims investigator on a road trip to create the profile of a potential Darwin Award winner.
* Fay Masterson (PAPARAZZI), Sandrine Holt (RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE) and Stephen Bishop (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) star in the thriller SAM'S LAKE for writer/director Andrew Christopher Erin, Maverick Films and Mirovision. The pic concerns the aftermath of the legend of an escaped mental patient who slaughters his family and disappears. Lensing is under way in Vancouver.
* Nicole Kidman is in negotiations to join Russell Crowe, Geoffrey Rush and director Jocelyn Moorhouse in EUCALYPTUS for Fox Searchlight. It's an adaptation of Murray Bail's novel about a widower who, after sheltering his beautiful daughter, announces she will be wed to the man who can correctly identify the species of each and every one of the thousands of eucalyptus trees on his estate. Michelle Joyner and Moorhouse wrote the script.
* Andie MacDowell will star opposite Olivia Williams in TARA ROAD, a drama adapted from the novel by Maeve Binchy, for director Gillies MacKinnon (HIDEOUS KINKY). It's about two women -- one American, one Irish -- who make a house swap that alters their respective destinies. MacKinnon adapted the screenplay with Shane Connaughton (MY LEFT FOOT). "My Left Foot").
* Alicia Witt joins Queen Latifah in Paramount's remake of the 1950 British comedy LAST HOLIDAY. The new script, by Peter Seaman and Jeffrey Price, concerns a shy, unassuming sales clerk who vanishes to a European resort upon being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Wayne Wang will direct the film, which begins shooting Nov. 15 in New Orleans and later Prague.
* Kal Penn (HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE) joins the cast of MAN ABOUT TOWN, starring Ben Affleck and Rebecca Romijn, for director Mike Binder and Media 8. Binder also wrote the script, which tells the story of a top Hollywood talent agent (Affleck) whose life begins to unravel when he discovers his wife (Romijn) is cheating on him and his journal has been stolen by a reporter who could expose him.
* Jeffrey Donovan, Bruce Dern, Samantha Mathis and Heather Matarazzo will star in BELIEVE IN ME, an adaptation of young-adult novel BRIEF GARLAND by Harold Keith. Robert Collector directs from his script. The film also marks the debut of Diana Taurasi, the WNBA Phoenix Mercury star who was part of the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. hoops team in Athens. Project, which concerns a high school girl's basketball team and its coach in the 1960s, has begun shooting in New Mexico.
* Ray Liotta and Jason Statham are on board to star in the action drama REVOLVER for director Guy Ritchie, EuropaCorp and Ska Films about a hotshot gambler who becomes tangled in a game with deadly consequences. Ritchie wrote the script with Ethan Gross and Paul Todisco.
* Nick Nolte is in negotiations to star in PAPA, the film based on Denne Bart Petitclerc's script about his life in Cuba with Ernest Hemingway.
* Burt Reynolds and Willie Nelson are in final negotiations to join Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott and Jessica Simpson in THE DUKES OF HAZZARD for Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow. Reynolds would play the role of Boss Hogg, with Nelson looking to play Uncle Jessie.
* Teen popster JoJo is in talks to make her feature film debut opposite rising star Emma Roberts in the Fox 2000 project AQUAMARINE, based on the Alice Hoffman novel. Elizabeth Allen will direct. John Quaintance is adapting the comedic project, due to start shooting in February. Hoffman's novel revolves around two teenage girls who discover a mermaid in their beach club's swimming pool.
* Kristin Davis is in negotiations to star opposite Tim Allen in the remake of THE SHAGGY DOG for Disney.
* Warner Bros. and Playtone have set Julia Roberts to top its vocal cast for ANT BULLY, the CGI animated film written and being directed by John Davis (JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS). Shirley MacLaine, Paul Giamatti, Alan Cumming, Cheri Oteri and Ricardo Montalban. It's based on the illustrated children's book by John Nickle about a mischievous boy who menaces an ant colony and destroys its anthill with his water gun. He's shrunk to insect size and sentenced to hard labor in the colony. Newcomer Zach Tyler will voice the shrunken kid, Lucas Nickle.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Ehren Kruger will be doing the rewrite of JOHN CARTER OF MARS, based on the first book (Princess of Mars) in Edgar Rice Burrough's famous 11-book science-fiction series, for director Kerry Conran, Producers Jim Jacks, Sean Daniel and Harry Knowles, Paramount Pictures and Alphaville.
* Dax Shepard (WITHOUT A PADDLE) sold his script GUERRILLA PHOTOGRAPHER to Revolution Studios for Happy Madison to produce. It centers on an aspiring National Geographic photographer who is forced to take a job as a paparazzo to make ends meet. The photographer, who would likely be played by Shepard, then must act like a chameleon to assume different identities in order to get his shots.
* Disney picked up Brad Gann's script INVINCIBLE for Mayhem Pictures to produce about a bartender from Philadelphia who went to an open tryout for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles and made the squad.
* Director Sean McNamara (RAISE YOUR VOICE) and his producing partner David Brookwell are developing a quartet of follow-up features for McNamara to direct including BETTER WATCH OUT, a holiday black comedy about Santa's greedy twin brother. Annie de Young and Max Enscoe wrote the script. McNamara will follow with POPE JACK, a Bud Weiser and Patt Shea script about what happens when the newly elected pope turns out to have been married. He'll also helm DEATH TAKES A VACATION, a Gil Christner-scripted comedy revolving around the grim reaper's decision to take three days off in a resort town. McNamara and Brookwell also came up for the story for DAYTONA CABBIE, about a cab driver who winds up competing in NASCAR which John Warren is writing.
* Gregg Ostrin's romantic comedy script PLAYING IT STRAIGHT will be produced by Farrell Paura Prods. at Sony's Columbia Pictures. The story concerns a work-obsessed man whose relationship with his girlfriend becomes further muddled when he gets too much help from his identical twin gay brother.
* FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS second unit director Allan Graf has signed on to direct TURNING THE TIDE for Whitelight Entertainment. Graf co-wrote the project with John Ledesma based on a story by John Papadakis. It centers on the Sept. 12, 1970, college football showdown between the all-white Alabama Crimson Tide -- led by the legendary Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant -- and the integrated USC Trojans.
* Bruce Feirstein (GOLDENEYE, TOMORROW NEVER DIES, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH) is writing THE A-TEAM, based on the movie version of popular 1980s television series for Fox. The show concerned an unofficial team of Vietnam vets wanted by the military for a crime they didn't commit. Their action-packed adventures combined helping the innocent while running from the law. Show creator Stephen J. Cannell will produce the movie with Spike Seldin. The project will be updated from the Vietnam era and reflect contemporary issues and politics. Tone of the film will be less cartoony and more serious, in the vein of DIE HARD and LETHAL WEAPON. Mr. T is expected to have a cameo in the pic.
* Universal Pictures and Adam Herz's Terra Firma Films picked up BACK TO AFRICA, a comedy scripted by Don Yost and Joel Kauffmann, about an ordinary guy who discovers he's an African prince andheads to the continent to claim his kingdom. It's not what he expected.
* Marc Klein will direct an adaptation of Melissa Bank's best-selling short-story collection, A GIRL'S GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING for Warner Independent Pictures and Odd Lot Entertainment. The book is an urban female's bittersweet take on love.
* John Singleton is set to direct and Mark Wahlberg is in negotiations to star in FOUR BROTHERS for Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Paramount Pictures. The contemporary feature concerns four brothers who set out to avenge the death of their mother. Dave Elliot and Paul Lovett are writing the script.
* Jessica Bendinger (BRING IT ON, FIRST DAUGHTER) will make her directorial debut on the Disney comedy STICK IT, based on her script. It's about a renegade girl who imports the idea of rebellion into the ranks of her fellow gymnasts, who are fierce rule followers.
* Robert Luketic (LEGALLY BLONDE) is in talks to direct DALLAS, based on the big-screen version of the hit TV show, for Regency Enterprises. Robert Harling (STEEL MAGNOLIAS) wrote the screenplay.
* Joel Schumacher will direct THE CROWDED ROOM, a true story of a man with 24 separate personalities based on the book THE MINDS OF BILLY MILLIGAN.
* Michael Mann is in negotiations to script, produce and direct MIAMI VICE, based on the television show which he exec produced, for Universal. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are being pursued by the studio to play Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, respectively.
* New Line Cinema picked up FRATERNITY WARD, a comedy by brothers Jim, Dan and Mike Redmond. The story revolves around a bunch of rowdy, immature frat brothers who find themselves having to take care of a baby for a week, resulting in chaos.
* Chris Columbus is directing a psychedelic 3-D, hi-def rock 'n' roll extravaganza, entitled 3-D ROCKS -- shot at an ambitious summer concert organized by rocker Steven Van Zandt ("The Sopranos"). Little Steven's all-day mega-garage gig -- dubbed the Intl. Underground Garage Festival -- went down on New York's Randall's Island in August with a long lineup of luminaries and neophytes alike storming the stage, from icons Iggy and the Stooges, Big Star and the New York Dolls to alt rock darlings the Strokes and the White Stripes. Also appearing were pre-garage icons Nancy Sinatra, Bo Diddley and the Pete Best Combo.
* Regency Enterprises has acquired HAPPY PLACE, a pitch from the writing team of Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (SCARY MOVIE), about a stressed-out family man who gets stuck in his mental "happy place" only to find it a living hell.
* Paramount and Carsey-Werner have grabbed an untitled pitch from Bobby Newmyer and Scott Strauss' Outlaw Prods. Writer Johnny Rosenthal and director Phil Dornfeld have signed on to the project, described as a subversive comedy set in the world of miniature golf. Idea was inspired by the professional mini golf tour, with competition for cash purses, a Masters title and a green bomber jacket at Myrtle Beach, S.C.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Paramount Pictures is moving its release of ALFIE back two weeks, from Oct. 22 to Nov. 5.
* IDT Entertainment is going ahead with production on YANKEE IRVING, the computer-animated feature film Christopher Reeve had been directing. It centers on a father and his baseball-playing son who overcomes personal obstacles to realize his dreams.
* Producers Arnold and Anne Kopelson formed a joint venture with Chicago-based Star Farm Prods., a company that develops children's properties and turns them into books. First up in the venture is EDGAR & ELLEN, a book series about precocious twins who, left alone by their parents, torment the townsfolk of Nod's Limbs.
* New Line has purchased screen rights to JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL, the bestselling fantasy novel by Susanna Clarke. Story, set in 19th century England, is about a master practitioner of real magic and his apprentice, who share an uneasy alliance when they channel their powers in the war effort against Napoleon. One of them goes too far, tapping into an alternate dimension to bring a person back from the dead.

GUNN SHOTS

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Father Geek here with our latest edition of Elston's weekly look back in time for those of you who may not have been able to keep up with all the Hollywood news during the immediate past wild and wacky work week... soooo if that fits you then jump right into...

THE WEEKLY RECAP...

GUNN SHOTS

User login

Reader Talkback

Quick Talkback

Talkbacks