Hey folks, Harry here with yet another painstakingly assembled quick and neat report from the astoundingly consistent ELSTON GUNN. This time out there is some coolness in here.. but then there's stuff like Simon West directing a film based on THE PRISONER or Demi Moore in BASIC INSTINCT 2... Oh well... can't be cool all the time...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Jeff Daniels will star as a college professor in CHASING SLEEP for director Michael Walker about a man who wakes up one night to find that his wife hasn't returned home. Over the course of several sleepless nights, he meets detectives, doctors and a student as he tries to understand his spouse's disappearance.
* Will Sasso ("MAD TV") has been cast in Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy's UNTITLED DOGUMENTARY PROJECT for Castle Rock.
* Jimmi Simpson joins Amy Heckerling's LOSER with Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari.
* Tamala Jones (THE WOOD) joins HOW TO KILL YOUR NEIGHBOR'S DOG starring Kenneth Branagh.
* Holly Hunter joins TIME CODE 2000 starring Salma Hayek for director Mike Figgis.
* Tea Leoni will star in FAMILY MAN as Nicolas Cage's love interest. Brett Ratner is directing the Universal pic.
* Robert Duvall will play a cloning scientist in Sony's THE SIXTH DAY starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and to be directed by Roger Spottiswoode.
* Antonio Banderas will star opposite Angelina Jolie in DANCING IN THE DARK for director Michael Cristofer (GIA.)
* Demi Moore may take the female lead in the BASIC INSTINCT sequel with Michael Douglas and director Paul Verhoeven possibly returning.
* Jennifer Love Hewitt will star and produce BUNNY, a spy comedy based on a Harvey comic from the 60s. She'll play a college student who goes on spy missions between classes. Stephen Sommers (THE MUMMY) is in talks to direct.
* Drew Barrymore is attached to star in ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL to be produced by Barrymore and John Malkovich's Mr. Mudd. It's based on Dan Clowes' graphic novel. Malkovich is making his directorial debut next year with THE DANCER UPSTAIRS, a police thriller based on the novel by Nicholas Shakespeare.
* Jennifer Lopez is back in talks to star in Warner Bros.' ANGEL EYES about a female cop who bonds with a man trying to cope with the death of his family.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Steve Hanft is directing THE RECYCLER on digital video about a musician who loses a keyboard he needs for a band audition and meets unusual characters along the way. Mark Ross, Megan Gallagher, Gregg Henry, Lawrence Hilton Jacobs, Ione Skye, Richie Edson and Beth Orton all star.
* Dan Minahan (I SHOT ANDY WARHOL writer) will direct his untitled script about a deadly lottery. Brooke Smith and Glenn Fitzgerald will star in the indie flick about a deadly fight between six people chosen at random by lottery and assigned a cameraman to follow them through their daily activities.
* Warner Bros. may buy Jay Lavender's script THE BEAR AND THE BULL about young men and women working at the Chicago Board of Trade where technology threatens their jobs.
* Robert De Niro will produce and may very well direct as well as costar in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MIRANDA for MGM based on a Vanity Fair article written by Bryan Burrough about a woman's nonsexual affairs with a parade of famous men.
* Allan Scott has written YANQUI about Fidel Castro donning a disguise and coming to New York City to see the World Series at Yankee Stadium. De Niro is on board to play the dictator with Richard and Lauren Shuler Donner producing.
* Mick Davis will script SMILE for Disney with Tim Allen attached to star and produce. The story follows a wealthy man whose son is unable to experience joy. The father finds a comedian to break through the boy's sadness.
* David Kukoff and Matt Roshkow sold THE PATSY to Universal and their PATHETIC OBSESSION to MGM. The former is a high concept comedy about a romance within a secret government and the latter is a college sex comedy about four students obsessed with a B-movie porn star.
* Michael Schiffer will adapt Tom Clancy's RAINBOW SIX for Paramount about John Clark, a Navy SEAL and CIA operative who sets up an anti-terrorist force which will battle a biological warfare scheme at the summer Olympics.
* Steven Spielberg may be scripting A.I. based on Kubrick's 80-page treatment.
* Simon West may direct both THE PRISONER, a feature adaptation of the cult 60s TV series and SHELLEY'S GARDEN based on the life of his grandmother--where a girl from a rich Welsh family runs away to marry a poor Welsh boy. Lloyd Fonviella is scripting THE PRISONER for Paramount.
* Martha Coolidge will direct ARCADIA for New Line about a troubled young man who meets the ghost of a former lover when he moves to another town.
* Richard Loncraine (RICHARD III) will direct NEVERWHERE for Jim Henson Pictures and Dimension Films based on the Neil Gaiman novel where a London businessman falls into a different reality where he helps a mysterious princess avenge the murder of her family.
* Rob Fox (SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER) will write SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL for Disney where a rock 'n' roll superstar witnesses a murder and becomes a target for the killer.
* Tony Scott is in talks to direct TAKING LIVES for Warner Bros. based on the novel by Michael Pye about a serial killer who assumes the identities of the people he kills. Scott may also direct TAKE DOWN for producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
* Takeshi Kitano will direct and star with Omar Epps in BROTHER about a Japanese mobster who goes to L.A. to look for his brother.
* Chris and Paul Weitz (AMERICAN PIE) will direct their comedy script I WAS MADE TO LOVE HER starring Chris Rock, who plays a comedian who is killed by a bus and sent back to Earth in an unsuitable body--a love interest later develops.
* Columbia Pictures optioned John Scott Shepherd's spec AMERICAN DREAM about a young man from the Midwest who has to come to grips with hallucinations that infect his life as the comatose president of the U.S. is trying to stay alive.
* Walter Salles (CENTRAL STATION) will direct the drama BROKEN APRIL in Brazil about a blood feud between two families.
* Myles Berkowitz (20 DATES) may direct BUT WILL YOU LOVE ME TOMORROW?, a pitch that combines romance and time travel.
* David Andrus sold his script HARRY to producer David Kirkpatrick and Original Voices about a laptop computer who feels the need to get his creator hooked up in a romance.
* Fred Schepisi will rewrite and direct I WAS AMELIA EARHART, a biopic about the famed pilot with fictional twists which Fine Line is developing.
* Bo Zenga will direct IN SEARCH OF HOLDEN CAULFIELD for Abandon Ent. The comedy follows Miles Ashton, who is expelled from college and doomed to go to military school. He tries to make the most of his final days of freedom not unlike Holden Caulfield in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.
* Anthony Jaswinski sold his WESTWARD to New Line about a woman caught in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a killer while driving a rental truck across the country.
* New Line is in final talks to pick up the script THE RONNIE DOBBS STORY based on HBO's "Mr. Show with Bob and David." David Cross and Bob Odenkirk will star in the story about a loudmouth who becomes famous after his arrests on a "COPS"-like show.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Robert De Niro has dropped out of Martin Scorsese's GANGS OF NEW YORK for personal reasons. GANGS was scheduled for an April start in Rome. De Niro will star in THE SCORE with a March start for Mandalay Pictures.
* Paramount is remaking the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy THE CADDY about a talented golfer who teaches a caddy everything he knows about the game. The caddy becomes a great golfer with an ego and wants to take on the PGA tour alone.
* Production on MOULIN ROUGE with Baz Luhrmann directing has halted for two weeks because star Nicole Kidman has fractured a rib rehearsing a dance routine for the film. Ewan McGregor also stars.
* Destination Films picked up North American dist. rights to COWBOY UP about the bull-riding circuit starring Kiefer Sutherland, Darryl Hannah, Molly Ringwald and Pete Postelthwaite. Xavier Holland directed the James Redford script.
* Talks have been dropped for Bill Murray to play Bosley in the CHARLIE'S ANGELS flick. Apparently, he wanted a little more money than they could give him.
* Disney has greenlit Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay's $145 million PEARL HARBOR--the most expensive live-action film ever greenlit. Though other films have cost more, they weren't given the go-ahead with such a high price.
De Niro was mentioned about three times this week. It may be cool to see him play Fidel Castro, but I'm surprised he dropped out of Scorsese's project. Speaking of dropping out, do you think Bill Murray made a good decision not to play Bosley in CHARLIE'S ANGELS? I can't wait to see what he decides to do next. How about Demi Moore in the BASIC INSTINCT sequel? Where did that come from? Looking forward to seeing Robert Duvall do anything--a Schwarzenegger movie seems like an odd choice, but we'll see. NEVERWHERE is getting off the ground. I'm curious about this one as well as THE RECYCLER and PATHETIC OBSESSION--the latter showing we can't get enough of those college sex romps.
Until next week...
Elston Gunn
