Mario de Espana, a long time agent of Geek Headquarters working for us in the south of Europe has surfaced once again. This time with reports of classical projects underway in Italy by none other than Spielberg, Coppola, and Sir Anthony Hopkins. Wow! Three different classic Roman films, one right after another. Et Tu Spielberg! Et Tu Coppola! Et Tu Anthony!

Hail Harry the Highest of Geeks:

Congrats for your great site, I really love it and a year ago I contributed with the first "Sphere" pics and other bits here and there. Got some news for you, nothing great but some interesting bits. Use them as you want but if you decide to post them please use your own words, my english is not very good as you can see.

It's good enough, Mario, we'll keep your words.

1.- Info taken from "El Mundo" (trad. The World), the second most important newspaper of Spain. Two weeks ago there was an article about some projects that will take place in the classic Italian studios: Cinecittà (Rome) where films such "Quo Vadis" "Ben Hur", "Espartacus" or the more recent "Daylight" (a Sly action movie) were shot. "El Mundo" reports that "Titus" is being filmed there, right now (directed by Julie Teimor; starring sir Anthony Hopkins). This is the story of Titus Androconicus, a general of the old Roman army, and it´s based upon a William Shakespeare´s text.

The article continues with more projects set in the same historical moments. Steven Spielberg is developing a new project (very likely to start moving next year after "Memoires of a geisha"). The film will be about Tarquinius, the seventh king of Rome, who rose to the throne after killing his own father in law Servius Tullius. Spielberg wants to reconstruct the eternal city as it was at the etruschan ages (Rome VI century before Christ)

The article finishes saying that Coppola is also developing a movie set in the classic Roman empire. He wants to do a parallelism between two falling empires (the Roman one and the US empire nowadays). Francis Ford C. has done a lot of research and the movie will show a simbolic relation through the time line between: Collatino and Caligula (then), and two wall street brokers (in these days). [Harry this rumour is not new over here, I´ve been hearing about this project for a long time (since Bram Stoker´s Dracula)].

2.- The last new comes from a Spanish movie magazine "Imagenes de Actualidad" (a very reliable source). They mention Jan Kounen (responsable of the german movie "Dobermann"(1996-1997) I think) as a possible director for Alien 5. They also say that Jean Claude Dreyfus (??) has contacted Sigourney Weaver to have a role in A5. The point of connection between JCD and SW is Dominique Pinon (Alien: Ressurection).

Hope you like this info. Keep on with your wonderful job.

A friend: Mario de Espana