Hey folks, Harry here with the latest Weekly Recap from the astoundingly fantastic... the amazingly consistent... the mightiest of the mighty.... that's right.... ELSTON GUNN!!! So stand back... take a gander and away you gooooooo......

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Tommy Flanagan (BRAVEHEART) will star in STRICTLY SINATRA for
writer/director Peter Capaldi about a singer who's in trouble when a
gangster's girlfriend falls for him.

* Annabeth Gish will star in MORNING for director Amy Canaan Mann about an
urban ad exec who must return to his small town in the south after a
childhood friend dies. Keiran Mulroney also stars.

* Jack Nicholson will be directed by Sean Penn in THE PLEDGE, a 1950s-era
crime drama based on the novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt.

* Janine Turner and Andy Richter join Robert Altman's DR T AND THE WOMEN.

* Rutger Hauer will star with Pam Grier in SLOW BURN for Rodney Gibbons as
well as a sequel to THE HITCHER for director Bob Harmon.

* Thora Birch and Leelee Sobieski are in talks to star in GHOST WORLD for
director Terry Zwigoff (CRUMB) based on a comic novella by David Clowes
where two high school graduates, an eavesdropper and a scientist who has
grown fond of the microbes in his petri dish.

* Sean Patrick Thomas will star in SAVE THE LAST DANCE about an interracial
romance between a Midwestern innocent and an inner-city youth with a rough
past. Julia Stiles also stars.

* Thomas Sadoski joins LOSER with Jason Biggs, Greg Kinnear and Mena Suvari.

* Jonathan Pryce joins UNCONDITIONAL LOVE as a nightclub singer. Rupert
Everett and Kathy Bates also star.

* Salma Hayek will star in TIME CODE 2000 for director Mike Figgis. The
film will be shot on digital camera and will use improvisational techniques.

* Patricia Arquette joins three pics: LITTLE NICKY with Adam Sandler; IN
THE BOOM BOOM ROOM for director Barbara Kopple based on David Rabe's play
with Ellen Barkin, Jon Lovitz, James Caan and Tom Waits starring; and HUMAN
NATURE for director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman (BEING JOHN
MALKOVICH) about a woman with too much body hair who falls in love with the
man with the world's smallest penis who is in love with a seemingly perfect
French woman. All three have designs on a young man who was raised
believing he was an ape.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Jordan Brady will direct the romantic comedy WAKIN' UP IN RENO with Billy
Bob Thornton in talks to star. The flick is a road comedy about two white
trash couples from Arkansas who take a vacation in Reno, Nevada to see a
monster truck show.

* Artisan Entertainment picked up Michael Cordell's spec WHITE WEDDING about
a young man who poses as a white supremacist to win over a young woman.

* Interlight Pictures picked up RUBICON by Kevin Elders about a seven-hour
nuclear crisis handled by the president of the U.S. and his female secretary
of defense.

* Jonathan Demme may direct a remake of CHARADE for Will Smith to star about
the search for missing gold.

* Mike Newell (PUSHING TIN) is in talks to helm SHANGHAI about a spy and
some romance on the eve of WWII. Hossein Amini (THE WINGS OF THE DOVE)
scripted.

* Michael Hoffman will direct LOONEY RADIO about an underachiever who
stumbles on an effective form of therapy when he begins a radio program
comprising mental patients and it becomes a hit. Todd Graff wrote the
script based on a true story.

* Ross LaManna (RUSH HOUR) will write the feature adaptation of HOGAN'S
HEROES for Destination Films.

* Jon Lucas and Scott Moore have written LOVE TRUCK for Warner Bros-based
Jerry Weintraub Prods. about a young exec who has to find a suitable mate
for his boss's daughter (who can't get a date) in order for him to climb up
the corporate ladder. The desperate junior exec ends up falling in love
with her himself.

* David Chase ("The Sopranos") will write and direct FEMALE SUSPECTS for
Columbia Pictures about a female criminal sociologist who becomes involved
with a New Jersey family of thieves and petty criminals. She finds herself
a reluctant participant into several of their crimes.

* Peter Hyams is in final talks to direct THE CORE for Paramount about a
group of "terranauts" hired to fix a potentially planet-crushing flaw in the
earth's core, caused by chemical waste.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Sony Pictures bought the pitch EXTINCTION from Laura Harckom and Chris
Leone about a computer virus that threatens the survival of intelligent
robots. A rebel robot genetically creates a human to help save robot-kind.

* New Line optioned the novel MUCHO MOJO by Joe R. Lansdale about a straight
white man and a gay black man who are best friends, but have a way of
upsetting the locals in their small town. They discover skeletons in an old
house and try to track down why they are there.

* Columbia Pictures bought the screen rights to the Japanese comic book
ASTRO BOY for a hopeful summer 2001 flick to be produced by Don Murphy and
Jim Henson Pictures. The story is about a robot built by a grieving
scientist to replace his deceased son.

* Producer Andy Meyer picked up the rights to the comic mystery novel THE
NAKED DETECTIVE about a guy who sets up a phony agency in Key West as a tax
dodge. A blonde visits him in the bathtub and he finds himself dragged into
a caper involving the island's gambling kingpin.

* Miramax Films optioned the screen rights to Thomas Wheeler's upcoming
manuscript THE ARCANUM about a 1920s group of occult investigators comprised
of some of the most famous personalities of the time including Arthur Conan
Doyle, Harry Houdini, H.P. Lovecraft and Marie Laveau who battle mysterious
evils in New York City, including a serial killer of angels.

* DreamWorks bought the screen rights to the Marc Levy novel IF ONLY IT WERE
TRUE with Steven Spielberg producing and possibly directing. Ron Bass will
adapt the story which is a romantic tale with supernatural elements. A San
Francisco man takes an apartment and finds he has a roommate: the spirit of
the previous occupant who is in a coma. When he finds out that she's due to
be pulled off life support, he kidnaps the body. She makes a miraculous
recovery and awakens, but has no memory of him, so they must begin their
relationship anew.

* Jodie Foster's Egg Pictures may acquire the rights to INVESTIGATION based
on the 1970 Italian film THE INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION
about a powerful police chief who commits murder out of Freudian
shortcomings. David Mamet and Paul Schrader are writing separate drafts for
Paramount. Jodie Foster may or may not star.

* Steve Chase has dropped out of directing SPECIAL about a guy who pretends
to be handicapped in order to win an autographed football for the son of his
girlfriend. Luke Wilson is in talks to star.

* 20th Century Fox will remake the film TENDER IS THE NIGHT based on the F.
Scott Fitzgerald novel about the psychological disintegration of a young,
wealthy American couple on the French Riviera in '20s.

Patricia Arquette is mighty busy. HUMAN NATURE sounds pretty wild.
Lots of options of novels and manuscripts. Which sounds the coolest to you?
IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE looks like it might be something big. I'm pretty
curious to see WAKIN' UP IN RENO. Anyone read the script? If so, let us
know what you think. Have a good weekend.

Happy Halloween...Great Pumpkins and such.

Until next week...

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com