Father Geek here taking a little time out from the Fun-tastic SXSW triple fan fair (Film... Music... Interactive) to post up Elston's regular weekly column looking back over the week that was out in movie-tinsel-land. Soooo if you didn't have time to surf for every little bit of film news during your busy work-week, orrrr were tied up like me at some festival somewhere around the globe then this is where you need to be to catch up on ALL the CONFIRMED news you may have missed. Annnd not just this week, but every week you can play catch up right here in AICN's longest running weekly column...
THE WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. are negotiating to star in FUR, a
drama about the life of photographer Diane Arbus, for director Steven
Shainberg (SECRETARY) and River Road . Production is expected to begin
production in May. Based on a biography by Patricia Bosworth, the project
will be written by Erin Cressida Wilson. Arbus, one of the great American
photographers of the 20th century, is known for her bizarre and disturbing
snapshots. She committed suicide in 1971.
* Golden Brooks, Mike Epps, Donald Faison, Taraji P. Henson, Blair Underwood
and Alfre Woodard have joined the cast of Focus Features/Homegrown Pictures'
untitled romantic comedy starring Sanaa Lathan and Simon Baker. Sanaa Hamri
directs.
* Joel David Moore (DODGEBALL) has been cast in 20th Century Fox's NANA'S
BOY for Happy Madison Prods. and director Nicholas Goossen. Allen Covert,
Doris Roberts, Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight also star.
* Jaime Pressly (TORQUE) will star in DOA, an indie from Constantin Film
Produktion. Co-starring Natassia Malthe and Devon Aoki, pic starts shooting
later this month in China.
* Kelli Garner will star opposite Justin Theroux in Merchant Ivory's CITY OF
SAND AND STONE. Lynn Collins and Jason Lewis also star in the pic, helmed by
Nanda Adand. Shooting has already begun in India.
* Bruce Willis will next star in 16 BLOCKS for director Richard Donner,
Millennium Films and Willis' Cheyenne Prods. Written by Richard Wenk, story
concerns an aging cop who escorts a witness to the nearby courthouse and the
adventure that takes place during their brief walk.
* Billy Crystal is in talks to play Wilbur Turnblad in New Line's film of
HAIRSPRAY, while Aretha Franklin is negotiating to play R&B record shop
owner Motormouth Maybelle.
* Jim Caviezel will play a dark mystery man in UNKNOWN, an independently
financed thriller that starts filming later this month under director Simon
Brand. Caviezel will star with Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano, Bridget
Moynahan, Jeremy Sisto and Peter Stormare. Plot is being kept under wraps,
but the drama is likened to MEMENTO in that participants and viewers don't
know until the end who the bad guy is. Darby Parker and Matt Waynee wrote
the script.
* Timothy Olyphant has been set to star with Jennifer Garner in Sony
Pictures' romantic comedy CATCH AND RELEASE for writer/director Susannah
Grant. Olyphant will play a film director whose best friend dies on the way
to his wedding. The director finds himself growing close to his pal's
fiancee.
* Salma Hayek will play a serial killer in LONELY HEARTS, starring John
Travolta and James Gandolfini, for writer/director Todd Robinson and
Millennium Films. Hayek is set to play the female lead role of Martha Beck,
a serial killer in the 1940s who, with accomplice Raymond Martinez
Fernandez, found victims through personal ads. Travolta and Gandolfini play
the homicide detectives who track the killers. Production begins in April.
* Rock group Motley Crue will appear as claymation characters in the feature
DISASTER! THE MOVIE for Dream Entertainment. The animated parody of such
actioners as ARMAGEDDON, TWISTER and APOLLO 13 is being directed by Roy Wood
from a script by Paul Benson and Matt Sullivan.
* Vanessa L. Williams will star in the family drama MY BROTHER for director
Anthony Lover, Liberty Artists and My Brother Prods. Williams plays a
terminally ill mother trying to get her sons, played by Nashawn Kearse and
Rodney Henry, adopted.
* Lynn Collins (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE) joins IL MARE for Warner Bros.,
starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock and Christopher Plummer. Alejandro
Agresti directs the romantic comedy.
* Danny Huston (BIRTH, THE AVIATOR) has joined the cast of Sony's MARIE
ANTOINETTE, starring Kirsten Dunst, for Sophia Coppola. He will play Joseph
II, brother of the 18th-century French queen. Judy Davis, Steve Coogan, Asia
Argento, Marianne Faithfull, Aurore Clement and Shirley Henderson round out
the cast. The project will be shot over 11 weeks in France.
* Jon Heder (NAPOLEON DYNAMITE) is joining Rob Schneider and David Spade as
the third hapless athlete in Revolution's comedy BENCHWARMERS for Happy
Madison Productions and director Dennis Dugan. Story concerns three guys who
try to make up for their lack of athleticism in school by forming a
three-man baseball team to challenge youth teams. Craig Kilborn and Jon
Lovitz also star. Allen Covert and Nick Swardson wrote the script.
* Emma Roberts will star in teen fantasy-comedy BRAS AND BROOMSTICKS for Fox
2000 and Store Front Pictures. Project's based on Sarah Mlynowski's book
about an angst-ridden teenage girl who discovers that her socially inept
younger sister has inherited her divorced mother's magical powers. Despite
the mother's warning not to cast spells, the younger sister succumbs to
temptation, with disastrous results.
* Anna Faris will reprise her role as virginal and slightly dimwitted
heroine Cindy Campbell in SCARY MOVIE 4 for director David Zucker and
Dimension Films.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Peter Chan will direct PERHAPS LOVE for The Ruddy Morgan Organization and
Applause Pictures. The project is the first full-blown Mandarin-language
musical by a Hong Kong director since the heyday of the Shaw Brothers Studio
in the 1960s. Set in mainland China, the story revolves around a love
triangle that develops during the making of a musical. The film will star
Takeshi Kaneshiro (HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) and Xun Zhou (BAOBER IN LOVE).
* Videogame scribes/producers Flint Dille and John Zuur have signed a
two-year first-look deal with Dimension Films. The deal calls for Dille and
Zuur to bring videogame concepts and existing game properties to the studio
that might be adapted into films through their Bureau of Film and Game
shingle. The duo are working on a game based on SIN CITY, the comic book
adapted into the upcoming Dimension pic.
* Writer/director Nick Cassavetes will be the creative catalyst behind
A-Mark Entertainment, a new venture powered by overhead and development
funding from entrepreneur Steve Markoff. Cassavetes has set Paul Johansson
("One Tree Hill") to direct Ashley Judd in UNLESS THAT SOMEONE IS YOU, a
script Cassavetes wrote with his late father, indie maverick John
Cassavetes. A-Mark also has optioned Richard Zacks' book THE PIRATE HUNTER,
which will be used as a template for a period epic about Captain Kidd.
Cassavetes will write and direct that pic as well as CROSSROADERS, about
illegal ways to beat casinos. Cassavetes also hopes A-Mark will allow him to
realize a 10-year dream to direct his adaptation of the Tim O'Brien novel
GOING AFTER CACCIATO.
* Tim Sullivan will write SHREK 4 for DreamWorks, while SHREK 3 nears
pre-production. DreamWorks is plotting a May 2007 release for SHREK 3.
* Andrea Berloff will adapt the drama BLOOD FATHER, based on the the novel
by Peter Craig, for Anonymous Content and Warner Bros. Pictures. Story
concerns a runaway who turns to her reformed ex-con father after she
witnesses a murder. To protect his long-estranged daughter, he is forced to
return to his criminal lifestyle.
* Aleksi Makela will direct MATTI for Solarfilms about five-time ski-jumping
Olympic medalist Matti Nykanen, whose private life provided as much fodder
for the scandal sheets as his winter athletics.
* Quentin Tarantino is considering writing and directing a new installment
in the FRIDAY THE 13TH series for New Line Cinema.
* Focus Features has optioned the novel NICK AND NORA'S INFINITE PLAYLIST,
by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, for Lorene Scafaria to adapt and Chris
and Paul Weitz to produce through their Depth of Field company. Set during a
night in the nightclub scene in downtown New York, the novel revolves around
a drummer and the best friend of the girl he just broke up with. The novel
covers the twists, turns and turmoil of a defining evening.
* Russia's premier producer Sergei Selyanov is making MONGOL, PART 1 about
Genghis Khan. Pic is to be directed by Sergei Bodrov (PRISONER OF THE
MOUNTAINS) and will be in Russian, Mongolian, Cantonese, Kazakh and Tatar
languages. Channing Tatum (COACH CARTER) will play the young Genghis Khan,
with Tadanobu Asano (ZATOICHI) as Jamukha, his brother.
* Sony's Screen Gems has bought the spec script PRIEST by Cory Goodman. Mike
De Luca, Sam Raimi and Josh Donen will produce. Vampire Western concerns a
warrior priest who disobeys church law by teaming with a young sheriff and a
priestess to track down a band of renegade vampires who have kidnapped his
niece.
* Paramount has purchased SNOW BLIND, by Paul Benz and Steve Tomlin, and is
setting the thriller up with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura to produce. Project's
described as a contemporary thriller in the vein of THE FUGITIVE and
BREAKDOWN.
* Rob Cohen is in talks to direct Columbia Pictures' THE 8th VOYAGE OF
SINBAD, which Keanu Reeves is in negotiations to topline, for Original
Films. The story follows the continuing adventures of Sinbad and his crew,
who are marooned off the coast of China in the 8th century. Once ashore,
they embark on a quest for the Lamp of Aladdin, teaming up with an empress
to battle fantastical creatures and a rebellious Chinese general. Charlie
Mitchell is rewriting a script by Cormac and Marianne Wibberly and Tedi
Sarafian.
* Eli Roth will direct the horror pic HOSTEL for Next Entertainment and
Screen Gems. Jay Hernandez is in final talks to star in the project, which
begins shooting this month. Pic's plot is being kept under tight wraps, but
Hernandez will star as a traveler abroad.
* Paramount Pictures has hired Lasse Hallstrom to direct DAUGHTER OF THE
QUEEN OF SHEBA, based on the bestseller by Jacki Lyden, for Store Front
Pictures. Karen Croner (ONE TRUE THING) is scripting. Lyden's book centers
on her mother's manic-depressive episodes while raising a family in a small
Wisconsin town. Hallstrom is also poised to direct HOAX, a film about
Clifford Irving, the man who wrote and sold a bogus biography of billionaire
aviator Howard Hughes to McGraw-Hill. Richard Gere is in talks to play
Irving, and Alfred Molina is in talks to play Richard Suskind, his
accomplice in pulling off one of the great media hoaxes. William Wheeler
adapted. Stuart Gordon produces and is setting up the project at Stratus for
financing on a modest budget.
* Roger Kumble will direct New Line's action/comedy RIDE ALONG, which the
studio is crafting as a starring vehicle for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and
Ryan Reynolds. Kumble will do a rewrite of a Greg Coolidge script to tailor
the pic to the stars. Johnson will play a tough cop who tries to halt a
budding romance between his sister and a fellow schoolteacher.
* Cory Koller will write the family comedy BIG BROTHER for Paramount/Nick
Movies. It centers on a man in his mid-20s who reacts to a life crisis by
moving back in with his parents and making his ambitious 15-year-old brother
miserable by stealing his bedroom, parents' attention, girlfriend and best
friends. The younger brother responds by trying to run his sibling out of
the house in hopes of reclaiming his only-child status.
* Twentieth Century Fox Animation is set to turn the Dr. Seuss classic
HORTON HEARS A WHO into a CGI-animated film. Blue Sky will produce. Fox's
deal also comes with an option for a sequel based on the Seuss book HORTON
HATCHES AN EGG. Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio (THE SANTA CLAUSE 2) will pen the
screenplay. It's story of the elephant who incurs the wrath of everyone
around him to protect a speck of dust that, he believes, contains a living
being. Blue Sky is in the early stages of visual development on the project
with a director expected to be announced in a few months. The film is slated
to follow Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios' ICE AGE 2 in late 2007 or
early 2008.
* Francis Lawrence (CONSTANTINE) will direct a feature film adaptation of
Philip Ardagh's children's fantasy novel A HOUSE CALLED AWFUL END for Warner
Bros., Weed Road and Circle of Confusion. The film will be titled AWFUL END
and will tell the story of an 11-year-old British boy who finds himself in
the questionable care of Mad Uncle Jack and Mad Aunt Maud when his parents
become ill. The relatives turn him over to St. Horrid's Home for Grateful
Orphans, where he stages a breakout with other orphans. The book is the
first of the EDDIE DICKENS TRILOGY. The second book is titled DREADFUL ACTS,
the third is yet to be published. Matthew Huffman scripted the project,
which will involve both live action and animation.
* New Line Cinema is in final talks with filmmaker Don Coscarelli to bring
the cult horror film PHANTASM back to the big screen. The first film, which
Coscarelli wrote and directed, was released in 1979. It told the story of a
young boy named Mike and his friends, who face off against a mysterious
grave robber known as the Tall Man and his killer flying spheres. The new
version will find Tall Man traveling from town to town turning the dead into
his own army and using his deadly spheres against anyone who opposes him.
Mike, who is developing psychic powers, and his brother try to stop him. The
movie is being developed as a relaunch and as a possible trilogy about
Mike's coming of age.
* Linda Bloodworth-Thomason is set to adapt and direct her novel LIBERATING
PARIS into a feature. It's the tale of six friends from a small Southern
town who reunite as each turns 40. Michelle Pfeiffer, Billy Bob Thornton and
Dwight Yoakam are attached to star. She and her husband, Harry, will produce
with Jeff Sagansky. That team is also working on SOUTHERN COMFORT, a script
Bloodworth-Thomason wrote and will direct based on the Kate Davis-directed
documentary.
* Audrey Wells (UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN) will write and direct romantic comedy
REARRANGED for Disney's Touchstone. It's about a woman who consents to an
arranged marriage set up by her best friends.
* Indie filmmaker Todd Wade (THE APPOINTMENT) will direct LOOK @ ME as part
of a deal with producer Linda Palmer to form a feature film arm of Palmer's
commercial production company, Runaway Prods. The new partners plan to
produce three to four films per year.
* Ivan Reitman is in talks to direct the comedy SUPER EX, by Don Payne ("The
Simpsons") for Regency Enterprises about a man who discovers that the needy,
manipulative woman he's dating is a superhero. When he breaks up with her,
she uses her superpowers against him.
* Adam Shankman (BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE) will direct 20th Century Fox's
sequel to CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, starring Steve Martin. Production is
expected to begin in June. Story is again by Sam Harper (JUST MARRIED) and
follows the 12-kid family on vacation and in a head-to-head competition with
a rival neighborhood family of eight kids.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Here Films has acquired worldwide distribution rights to the gay-themed
horror feature HELLBENT by writer/director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts. Project
follows five characters fighting for survival during West Hollywood's annual
carnival. Pic will be rolled out with Regent Releasing in June.
* Venture Management has optioned a pair of comicbook properties: Sean
Kelley McKeever's THE WAITING PLACE and Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn's
FIREBREATHER. THE WAITING PLACE centers on teenagers desperate to flee the
remote tourist-trap town they're forced to call home. FIREBREATHER revolves
around high school teen Duncan Rosenblatt, who's half-human and half-dragon
with divorced parents -- a typical suburban soccer mom who wants him to get
into a good college and a 300-foot monster who wants him to conquer the
Earth.
* Eriq La Salle's Humble Journey Films has acquired film rights to John
Shors' BENEATH A MARBLE SKY: A NOVEL OF THE TAJ MAHAL and has partnered with
Cinemaya Media to develop the project. The novel centers on the eldest
daughter of the emperor who built the Taj Mahal, which was commissioned in
1632 by Hindustani emperor Shah Jahan to symbolize the love between him and
his wife after she died during childbirth. The story traces the construction
of the mausoleum against the background of war, rebellion and religious
fundamentalism, and it contrasts the opulence of the court with the severe
poverty of the citizens.
* Vin Diesel's One Race Films is partnering with Blur Studio to make a CGI
feature based on the indie toon house's short ROCKFISH. Diesel will voice a
lead character in the sci-fi actioner, which will likely be aimed at a more
mature audience than most digitally animated pics. The short is about a man
on an alien planet trying to catch a giant "rock fish" that lives
underground and disrupts the planet's miners.
* Bristol Bay Prods. will team with the Kennedy/Marshall Co. on THE CHARM
SCHOOL, an adaptation of Nelson DeMille's bestselling 1988 Cold War spy
thriller. Frank Marshall will produce. Drama revolves around a CIA agent who
investigates an Air Force officer held prisoner in a covert Russian facility
that forces American POWs to train KGB agents.
* Universal Pictures has picked up the feature film rights to Sophie
Kinsella's upcoming book THE UNDOMESTIC GODDESS for Tribeca Films to
produce. It's about an attorney who is fired on the day she is to be made
partner at her firm and then flees to London, where she winds up getting a
job as a maid.
* Spanish toon pic producer Dygra Films is ramping up production with three
3-D animated features, THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST (sequel to THE LIVING
FOREST), family comedy HOLY NIGHT! and THE GOLDEN ASS, which is a loose
adaptation of the second-century comic novel by Lucius Apuleius about the
culture shock suffered by the Roman conquerors and the original inhabitants
of Spain.
* Initial Entertainment Group and Johnny Depp have optioned nonfiction book
THE BOMB IN MY GARDEN, written by Iraq's top nuclear scientist Mahdi Obeidi
and People magazine foreign correspondent Kurt Pitzer. Pic will tell the
story of how, after Saddam Hussein's capture, Obeidi tried to turn himself
and his secrets over to the U.S., only to find the CIA and other government
agencies didn't believe him. The journo hatched a scheme to get Obeidi and
his family out of the country before he was killed by insurgents who wanted
to silence him. Obeidi gave over secrets that included a uranium enrichment
device he buried in his yard.
* Sony has moved BEWITCHED from July 8 to June 24. Move comes a month after
Twentieth Century Fox moved THE FANTASTIC FOUR to July 8. June 24 releases
include HERBIE: FULLY LOADED and THE DUKES OF HAZZARD. Sony's remake of FUN
WITH DICK AND JANE had previously been on the June 24 date, but that pic has
been pushed into the holidays and will unspool Dec. 21.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* REVENGE OF THE SITH soundtrack listings exclusive to IESB.net at
http://www.iesb.net/movies2/movie031405.php
* Check out http://www.DizHub.com for an announcement of the official fan
site for Pirates of the Caribbean (http://www.keeptothecode.com) .
* Production H Films presents first time helmer's Paul H. and Joe
Francazio's film KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL. Lensing in Providence, RI, pic
centers on the corporate days and murderous nights of an banking industry
drone played Paul H. Co-starring in the pic are Mandy Swindle and TORTURED
HEARTS star Lawrence DiGiusto.
* Writer/director David Presley (FACE OF THE ENEMY short) is in talks with
Sony Pictures to make his feature film debut. No word on which project
Presley will eventually helm. David Presley is repped by manager Zack Urbina
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1413904/).
* The website http://www.woandco.com has released two new short comedies for
download. The first SUPER HERO starring Nick Wo, Emily Holly, Cory Gomez and
Jason Weiler, the second SENSITIVITY, starring Jason Weiler. Check out the
all new site from WoandCompany Productions.
* You can see the new Japanese trailer for the upcomming spectacle on
themoviebox.net at
http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2005/IJKLM/KingdomOfHeaven/trailer.php
* According to Moviehole.net, Lamar Cook's DEPICTION, described as 'National
Treasure/Indiana Jones/Lara Croft meets biblical epic Da Vinci Code, has
apparently got studios slogging it out for the rights. The project tells the
tale of some college students who break a 500-year-old code to find the
greatest archeological discovery in history: an actual painting of the image
of Jesus.
* Shane Ryan's AMATEUR PORN STAR KILLER, the first feature by the multi
award-winning short filmmaking team, Alter Ego Cinema, has just been
completed. Expect a trailer online within the next month. You can watch many
of their short films for free by visiting http://www.alteregocinema.com
Until next week... Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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