Its Father Geek here with Elston and his weekly recap of the confirmed Tinseltown stories from the week that was, sooooo dive right in and catch up on all the tidbits that may have passed you by during your recent workweek... They're all right here each and every week in...
THE WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Rip Torn and Molly Shannon will star in Sofia Coppola's MARIE ANTOINETTE
for Sony. Torn will play Louis XV, father of Louis XVI, played by Jason
Schwartzman, while Shannon will play a lady of the court, Anne Victoire, who
also is Marie-Antoinette's aunt. Kirsten Dunst is toplining as Marie. Biopic
about the 18th century Gallic queen recently started production in France.
Coppola penned the screenplay for the pic, which she is producing with Ross
Katz through American Zoetrope.
* Tricia Helfer has been cast in MEM-O-RE for 3210 Films. She will play
Billy Zane's love interest in the psychological thriller, which co-stars
Ann-Margret and Dennis Hopper. Co-writer Bennett Davlin will direct.
* Brian White (MR. 3000) joins the casts of Fox 2000's THE STONE FAMILY,
starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Claire
Danes, as well as the indie pic WAYS OF THE FLESH, opposite Zoe Saldana.
* Hope Davis will replace Michelle Pfeiffer as socialite Slim Keith in
Warner Independent Pictures' Truman Capote biopic EVERY WORD IS TRUE,
written and directed by Doug McGrath. Script is based on George Plimpton's
1997 oral biography on Capote.
* Susan Sarandon will star in IRRESISTABLE, a thriller for writer/director
Ann Turner (CELIA). She'll play a woman tortured by the fear that her
husband's co-worker is trying to steal him, their children and her life. Sam
Neill plays her spouse, and Emily Blunt is the co-worker. Bud Tingwell and
Georgie Parker have also joined the cast.
* Tom Hulce (AMADEUS), Linda Hunt ("The Practice") and Tony Hale ("Arrested
Development") have joined the cast of Marc Forster's STRANGER THAN FICTION.
Hulce and Hunt will play shrinks who diagnose Will Ferrell, while Hale will
play Ferrell's best friend and IRS co-worker. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin
Hoffman, Emma Thompson and Queen Latifah also star. Shooting begins in
April.
* Travis Aaron Wade has landed roles in Universal's JARHEAD and
DreamWorks/Warners' WAR OF THE WORLDS. Wade will also receive a writing
credit on JARHEAD.
* Jesse McCartney has been cast in the romantic drama KEITH for No Hands
Prods. and Furst Films. The 17-year-old pop singer will play the title role.
Todd Kessler will direct his own script, co-written with David Zabel.
* Will Ferrell is in talks to star in ELF 2 for New Line Cinema, though no
deal has been made. The first pic's director Jon Favreau has the right to
look at a script first, but it's unsure whether he'll end up behind the
camera for a sequel. Scott Armstrong, who did uncredited work on the first
ELF and co-wrote Ferrell starrer OLD SCHOOL, is expected to be tapped as the
writer for ELF 2.
* Ron Livingston, Virginie Ledoyen and Udo Kier will co-star in HOLLY, a
drama that recently began production in Cambodia. Chris Penn co-stars,
taking a role originally slated for Tom Sizemore. Guy Moshe directs the pic,
in which an American dealer of stolen artifacts encounters a rebellious
12-year-old Vietnamese girl desperate to return to her family. Moshe and
producer Guy Jacobson wrote the script. Pic also introduces Vietnamese
native Thuy Nguyen.
* Keri Russell and Thomas Kretschmann will star in the psychological
thriller BUTTERFLY, A GRIMM LOVE STORY for Atlantic Streamline and director
Martin Weisz. The project, which draws its story from the recent Internet
cannibal scandal in Germany, centers on an American grad student who finds
she falls apart while researching the life of a cannibal killer. T.S. Faull
wrote the script.
* Shannyn Sossamon and Alecia Moore (also known as Pink) will star in
CATACOMBS for writers/directors David Elliot and Tom Coker, Lions Gate Films
and Twisted Pictures, the genre division of Evolution Entertainment. It's
the story of a young woman who, while on a visit to Paris, is taken to an
underground party in the Catacombs, a 200-mile labyrinth of 14th Century
limestone tunnels under the Left Bank. She is separated from her friends and
becomes convinced that someone or something is chasing her. Production
begins Monday in Bucharest, Romania.
* Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal are set to star in
Paramount's BABEL, written by Guillermo Arriaga, for Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu (21 GRAMS) to direct. The film will portray four interweaving
stories set in Morocco, Tunisia, Mexico and Japan. Story's kicked off with a
tragedy striking a married couple on vacation.
* Jennifer Aniston and Meryl Streep are attached to star in Sheldon Turner's
upcoming adaptation of Kim Wozencraft's novel WANTED for Plan B to produce.
The story follows a female cop in Texas who is framed for narcotics
trafficking and sent to prison. Her cellmate is a war protester who's
renounced violence, and the two plot an escape.
* Robert Duvall will play Eric Bana's father and poker opponent in Curtis
Hanson's LUCKY YOU for Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures.
The project follows a professional poker player who gets a lesson in life
from a struggling singer, played by Drew Barrymore, as he collides with his
estranged father at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Debra Messing
also stars. Production begins shooting on location in Las Vegas on March 23
and is scheduled for a December release. Hanson, Carol Fenelon and Denise Di
Novi are producing from a script by Eric Roth and Hanson.
* Nicolas Cage's next picture will be director Neil LaBute's remake of 1973
thriller THE WICKER MAN for Millennium Films, Equity Pictures and
Emmett/Furla Films. LaBute adapted the screenplay, in which a sheriff
investigates the disappearance of a young girl on a remote island off the
coast of Maine. His hopes of unraveling the girl's disappearance become
increasingly uncertain when he discovers evidence of pagan rituals.
* Craig Kilborn and Jon Lovitz are teaming with Rob Schneider and David
Spade on Revolution baseball comedy THE BENCHWARMERS for Adam Sandler's
Happy Madison production company. Shooting will begin in April. Based on an
original idea by Sandler and scripted by Allen Covert and Nick Swardson,
story is about three men who try to make up for their lack of athleticism by
forming a three-man baseball team to challenge youth teams. Dennis Dugan
will direct.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Robert Evans and Stan Lee are teaming up to produce FOREVERMAN, a new
superhero franchise for Paramount Pictures. Peter Briggs (HELLBOY) will
write the screenplay in collaboration with Lee, who is creating an original
superhero, complete with all the trappings of the best-known of Lee's other
creations. Evans and Lee's POW! Entertainment is producing the feature in
tandem with Idiom Films. The new superhero will be akin to those Lee
created at Marvel Comics. He will have all the problems of saving the world
as well as the problems of dealing with everyday life.
* Antoine Fuqua is in negotiations to direct Mel Gibson in UNDER AND ALONE
for Warner Bros. and Icon. Scripted by Ned Zeman and Daniel Barnz, the
project is based on the true story of Vietnam vet William Queen. He
channeled his Special Forces training into undercover work with the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and became a full-fledged member of the San
Fernando chapter of the Mongols motorcycle gang.
* Paul H-O and Tom Donahue are directing the documentary GUEST OF CINDY
SHERMAN for Film Sales Co., which follows the photography master. Plot
explores the complicated relationship that builds after H-O -- a onetime
host of the Art TV cable series "Gallery Beat" -- interviews media-shy
Sherman and is subsequently pulled into an undertow of art, love and fame.
The project includes rare access to the artist, as well as interviews with
key art world figures and clips from H-O's irreverent cult cable show.
* Paul Haggis (MILLION DOLLAR BABY) will write and direct the drama DEATH
AND DISHONOR for Warner Bros. and Blackfriars Bridge. Based on a Mark Boal
investigative article that appeared in Playboy last summer, the project is a
gritty fact-based drama about a career officer's search for his soldier son.
The youth, who was reported AWOL after returning from the frontlines of
Baghdad, was murdered by several members of his platoon after a night of
rowdiness in Georgia. Haggis plans to fictionalize the story into a topical
murder mystery that will not shy away from Boal's reports of the horrific
battlefield experiences that hardened Davis and fellow soldiers. Haggis said
he will design the film for Clint Eastwood to star. Haggis will also write a
script based on an idea given him by Spielberg, which he will direct, as
well as helm his New Line script adaptation of the Bart Baker novel
HONEYMOON WITH HARRY.
* Paramount Pictures has purchased film rights to Robert Kirkman's
teen-superhero comic Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Circle of Confusion to
produce. Kirkman will write the story, based on the bestselling Image Comics
series about the coming of age of teen Mark Grayson, son of the world's most
powerful superhero. The story will focus on the father/son dynamic during
the time that the son, who appears to be a normal teen, begins to exhibit
his father's powers.
* New Line snapped up Michael Davis' action script SHOOT 'EM UP for Davis to
direct. Don Murphy is set to produce through Angry Films. Project is a
violent action pic in the vein of a John Woo movie about a mysterious man
protecting a newborn baby from criminals out to kill it. Set pieces include
a shootout during a sex scene and another in the midst of a freefall.
* Walt Becker (NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER) will direct IN THE NAVY for
Touchstone Pictures. The project is about a wily, scamming Navy clerk who
accidentally switches places with a legendary Navy SEAL and is sent on a
covert operation in Cuba. Jason Filardi (BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE) wrote the
script.
* Twentieth Century Fox has acquired the rights to Michael Krieger's ALL THE
MEN IN THE SEA: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ONE OF THE GREATEST RESCUES IN HISTORY
for Tony Gayton to adapt and John Moore to direct. Nonfiction book tells the
story of the divers and seamen of Barge 269, a cargo ship caught in the path
of Hurricane Roxanne's 90-mph winds and 45-foot waves in 1995.
* Universal picked up Stephen Belber's (THE LARAMIE PROJECT, TAPE) spec
script THE POWER OF DUFF for Marc Platt to produce. The script concerns a
local newscaster in Rochester, N.Y., who, after the death of his father,
begins praying aloud for things to happen while reading the evening news.
When his prayers start coming true, it ignites controversy about whether
he's a prophet, a pundit or a charlatan. Belber is also writing THE CHET
BAKER STORY for Richard Linklater to direct and DEVIL'S BRIDGE for Philip
Kaufman.
* Christopher Hampton will adapt Susanna Clarke's novel JONATHAN STRANGE &
MR. NORRELL for New Line Cinema. Tale concerns a magician and his apprentice
who use their powers in the war against Napoleon but are eventually pitted
against each other.
* Disney has purchased NUTJOBS, a comedy pitch to be developed as a
producing/directing vehicle for Adam Shankman. In the murder mystery
scripted by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, a sufferer of obsessive
compulsive disorder teams with a compulsive liar in an attempt to prove
their therapist's supposed suicide was murder.
* Ed Zwick will direct the adventure drama DIAMOND (formerly known as
OKAVENGO) for Warner Bros. Pictures. It's the story of a poor African farmer
who gets caught up in a conflict between an American diamond smuggler and
the syndicate that controls the local diamond-mining industry, all in the
path of one very valuable diamond. Zwick and Bedford Falls partner Marshall
Herskovitz rewrote the original script from Charlie Mitchell. Charles
Leavitt also did a rewrite.
* Writer/director Nanda Anand will direct RAJAPUR, scheduled to shoot this
month in India for Plum Pictures. Lynn Collins, Kelli Garner, Justin
Theroux, Manoj Bajpai, Celia Weston, Jason Lewis and Frank Langella. Story
follows the adventures of two women discovering a mystical Indian town. A
man they meet ends up touching their lives in an unexpected way. Anand's
follow-up project will be NISHA SHARMA, a pic based on a segment aired on
"60 Minutes." Story follows an Indian woman who risks her life by publicly
decrying the dowry system and becoming a feminist icon. Aishwarya Rai (BRIDE
AND PREJUDICE) will star.
* Director Stuart Gordon has finished David Mamet's EDMUND, starring William
H. Macy, Julia Stiles, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, Dylan Walsh, Joe
Mantegna and Rebecca Pidgeon, for First Independent Pictures. Project is the
dark tale of man who tries to come to terms with a dull and meaningless
life, only to descend from respectability into a dark world of murder and
prison.
* John Boorman will direct MEMOIRS OF HADRIAN, a biopic based on the
Maguerite Yourcenar bestseller about the peace-loving Roman emperor, for
Istituto Luce, RAI Cinema, Italian Culture Minisitry and Massimo Pacilio's
Movieweb.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Paramount is moving Nicolas Cage starrer THE WEATHER MAN back six months
from April 1 to Oscar season. The movie centers on a successful
weathercaster whose personal life unravels.
* Fox 2000 has optioned Stuart Hill's fantasy bestseller THE CRY OF THE
ICEMARK, with Jigsaw Films and Chicken House Entertainment attached to
produce. Set in a mythic, quasi-Nordic prehistory, story concerns a teenage
queen fighting to save her homeland from a powerful invading army. She and
her best friend, a witch's son, must bring together an alliance of
werewolves, vampires and talking snow leopards to combat the invaders.
* Bruce Nash, who teamed up with John Moffet to produce an ESPN doc on NFL
player Fritz Pollard, is in the process of pitching a feature take on the
life of the man some call the Jackie Robinson of football. Pollard, a Brown
U. pigskin star who went on to play for the Akron Pros starting in 1919, was
one of the first two African-American members of the AFL (which would later
become the NFL). The first black man to play in the Rose Bowl, he'd also go
on to become the first black coach of a pro team. DeLuca said ESPN is
already talking about reairing the documentary on one of its channels in
conjunction with the NFL Hall of Fame induction ceremony in August, in which
Pollard will be inducted.
* Danny Glover has teamed with screenwriter Joslyn Barnes to form Louverture
Films. Their goal is to make six independently financed features and docs
over the next three years, focusing on global African experiences. The
venture will begin with TOUSSAINT, a biopic of Haitian revolution hero
Toussaint Louverture, who led one of the few successful slave uprisings in
history, that will mark Glover's feature directing debut. Barnes and Vijay
Balakrishnan scripted. Production will start in April 2006, shooting in
Mozambique and South Africa. They plan to follow with NO FEAR, a
Barnes-scripted film about Marsha Coleman-Adebayo. She waged a
groundbreaking racial discrimination case after being ostracized and
persecuted for blowing the whistle on U.S. corporate wrongdoing in South
Africa. The company is developing an adaptation of GOD'S BITS OF WOOD,
Ousmane Sembene's book about a 1947 strike in Senegal by African railroad
workers.
* Warner Bros. has optioned upcoming novel romantic comedy THE HIGH IMPACT
INFIDELITY DIET for Team Todd to produce. Eric Pfeffinger and Lou Harry's
novel revolves around three portly pals whose wives trick them into losing
weight by promising them a night of bliss with a mysterious beauty.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* David Duchovny will star in Parallel, a metaphysical drama by first time
writer/director Josh Boone. Melanie Greene and Richard Murphy are
producing. Jory Weitz (Napoleon Dynamite) is on board as the casting
director.
* Check out the trailer to Infinite Entertainment and Stag Films' PERVERT, a
Russ Meyer-inspired exploitation comedy starring Mary Carey, at
http://www.pervertthemovie.com
* On Tuesday, March 22, 2005, Eric Caidin and Brian Quinn will present
another in their ongoing monthly series of Grindhouse Film Festivals at the
New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. This special event will feature the
screening of two rare cult films, Lee Frost's blaxploitation 'classic' THE
BLACK GESTAPO (1975) and Rino Di Silvestro's Euro sex-and-horror fest THE
LEGEND OF THE WOLF WOMAN (1976). The event starts at 7:30pm, and admission
for the double feature is only $6.00.
* DEATH WALKS THE STREETS, an action-horror in which The Undead, Demons,
Werewolves, and Vampires clash with a Crime Syndicate for control of an
ancient artifact that holds the power to destroy them all, will soon film in
Illinois. For more info, visit http://www.deathwalksthestreets.com or
http://imdb.com/title/tt0447920/
If you have a movie to promote, a screening to push, movie gossip missed by
the trades, fire a **one-paragraph, 50 words-or-less** GUNN SHOT to
elstongunn@hotmail.com. If it's not **one paragraph, 50 words-or-less,**
it'll be tossed. Sorry.
Until next week...
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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