Well Euro-AICN's report this Monday is a jammed-packed orgy of big name news. Father Geek really enjoys posting columns like this one. Glad to hear that news from Spain about THE OTHERS, Harry and I will be there for 8 days in August visiting some film sets and if we're lucky maybe we can check out that one as well. And what about that Lucas quote? He doesn't know what he's filming? That doesn't build alot of confidence... And leave it to the French to come up with a film title like... BAISE - MOI... even the Mitchell Brothers weren't that bold in their San Francisco hayday.

Make sure and check out the Euro-archives by clicking that "More AICN" box over there on the left... lots of Cool Stuff you may have missed is hidden away down in our Geek Headquarters' basement here in Austin, but now to the current report from our Paris offices...

EURO AICN 17

by Edgard & Darth Bond

Hello people around the world !! Edgard here...

As I am writing these lines, I can only hear "happy" noises... it's celebration time here in Paris as the French team just won against Italy (and I took the opportunity to say that I feel sorry for the Italian team as they were only 30 seconds of the victory when... well shit happened). Anyway as I hope to go out and celebrate a bit (even though I am not French, there's always a good reason to party), I will go quickly... First I want to thank Muad'Dib, Ozymandias, Ethan, William Wallace, Tom Ripley, Ray, French and all the others who keep helping us with the Euro News... Thanks so much for "feeding" us with your stories... So here're a bunch of news on THE OTHERS, Bjork, US remakes, 007, JP3, and many other things...

SPAIN

* Tom Ripley sent us this report on THE OTHERS : With the recent visit (on Tuesday the 27th) of Tom Cruise in Spain, for the promo-campaign in Europe for M-I:2, new details of next Cruise/Wagner production, "The Others", a terror film directed by Alejandro Amenabar and starring Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston , Elaine Cassidy and Fionnula Flanagan have been known. Filming has been delayed agian, till the end of July, arguing Nic's need for a rest after wrap of the long fiming of Baz Luhrman's "Moulin Rouge" in Australia. As a result, about 1M $ extra from the original budget should be paid for technicals and actors in order to balance their lost money due to their not possible participation in another scheduled projects. Howevwe , this time has made Kidman able to make his aprovals on the dressings and wigs she will carry in the movie. All shoots in decorations will be made in Madrid, and all exts are set in El Palacio de Hornillos, a house palace by-the-sea in Santander. In a few days, maybe I'll be ready to send an scan of this locations, which seems very accurate to show a Victorian House isolated in an foggy island near the english coasts, where the story takes place. Besides, secret will be the most associated word to the filming, which by this side it's been already known as the new "Eyes Wide Shut". No reports or visits will be allowed in the set, and the cast and crew will only attend one press conference befor the start of shooting. The famous acting couple will come to Spain with their two sons, staying in Madrid and Santillana del Mar (Santander). During the time Kidman is acting, Cruise will take his role of executive producer supervising Amenabar's film details and facilities. During the M-I:2 press junket held in Madrid, Cruise declared: "I trust Alejandro as a talented director. My mission here will be only see how can I help the movie".

Tom Ripley

P.S: Along the press junket Cruise was asked about the terrible mistakes about the scenes of M-I:2 located in Spain, which were really shot in Australia, which involve a situation where local saints are supposedly burnt. In a fact, this a confusion between two popular feasts in Spain, the Holy Week where figures of saints are going in parade through cities all around the country, and Fallas in Valecia, which involve the burnt of paper figures and statues, but not religious ones. These scenes were assesed by supposes specialists in spaniard culture, but they failed. Tom only could answer this, using his sense of humour with a smile in the face: "Ummm.., we failed,....Right!"

ITALY

* Some news from the Locarno Festival (source : Screendaily) : "Balkanic Inventory" will open the Locarno International Film Festival’s Filmmakers Of The Present sidebar, festival director Marco Mueller announced. Directed by Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, the film is a fictional account of recent events in the Balkans. It is also the first title to emerge from the Biennale Pictures banner, a film support body launched by Venice International Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera. The Filmmakers Of The Present section showcases innovative cinema. In a preliminary press conference, Mueller also announced that Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi thriller The Hollow Man, starring Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue, will add some Hollywood ballast to proceedings. Verhoeven is to be honoured with the Pardo prize for his career. As previously announced, Locarno’s 53rd edition, which runs August 2-12, will also feature a retrospective of Soviet cinema from 1926-1968. Mueller, along with festival president Giuseppe Buffi, promised that the festival will feature a strong Italian presence this year. But Mueller declined to reveal any titles until the July 13 press conference in Milan, when the festival’s slate will be disclosed.

DENMARK

* The soundtrack of DANCER IN THE DARK will be released in September under the title "Selmasongs", from the name of the character played by Bjork. Changes will be made from the film as Thom Yorke (singer from Radiohead) will replace Peter Stormare's voice in the song "I've Seen It All". Meanwhile Bjork is working on her new album, with the working title of "Domestica".

FRANCE

* American director Brett Ratner (RUSH HOUR) will direct for New Line (and producer Arthur Sarkissian) a remake of French classic polar LE CERCLE ROUGE (The Red Circle) from director Jean-Pierre Melville. Ratner will direct this after the sequel of the Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker smash hit. No casting has been announced yet (the French film had Bourvil, Yves Montand, Alain Delon and Gian Maria Volonté). Funnily the American distributor Rialto Pictures is planning to re-release a restored version of "Le Cercle Rouge" in the States in 2001, which will be presented by John Woo a huge Melville fan.

* New scandal in France, after last year's ROMANCE, it's BAISE-MOI (literally it means Fuck Me) who is in the spotlight of censors. The story ? Think about a trash, violent and almost porn "Thelma & Louise". Here's the story from Screendaily : Controversial French title Baise-moi (Fuck Me) racked up 5,634 admissions from only 64 screens on its opening day in its home territory (June 28), despite the fact that France was playing Portugal that night in the semi-finals of the Euro 2000 soccer tournament. French exhibitor UGC - whose CEO, Guy Verrechia, received the exhibitor of the year award at the Cinema Expo conference in Amsterdam last night - may come to regret refusing to screen the film. The Gaumont and MK2 circuits both agreed to carry it. However, Baise-moi may have to face a lawsuit aimed at changing its rating, following a complaint by Promouvoir, an association promoting "judeo-christian and family values". Virginie Despentes’ extremely violent and graphic rendering of her best-selling novel, co-directed with porn actress Coralie Trinh Thi and featuring two former porn stars, Karen Bach and Raffaela Anderson, in the lead roles, has been given a PG-16 rating. For all the media attention, marketing the film as an auteur title rather than a porn flick was no easy matter. Producer and distributor Pan Europeenne – which made extensive use of the internet prior to the launch – also designed a very tame poster, which features only the faces of the two actresses. But even the title had to be removed from posters which appeared on the back of buses in the main French cities.

Check the website at : http://www.baisemoilesite.com/

UK

* From Screendaily : Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd is being lined up to star as Benjamin Disraeli in the provisionally titled Dizzy, a feature dramatising the life of the brilliant British prime minister being produced by Mark Shivas and Ecosse Films. Gruffudd would play Disraeli at 28 years old in the film, which revolves around his affair with an older married woman. Gruffudd’s feature credits include the upcoming 102 Dalmatians and Very Annie Mary, along with Wilde and Titanic, plus high-profile UK TV work such as Warriors and Hornblower. "

SCOTLAND

* From William Wallace : Hot on the heels of the news that Ed Harris and Amy Madigan will be starring in an adaptation of "So I am Glad," A. L. Kennedy's novel about Cyrano de Bergerac in contemporary Glasgow, comes word that another of the cult Scottish author's works may be heading for the screen. English actress Kristin Scott Thomas has optioned the rights to Kennedy's "Original Bliss," with the intention of starring in the story of an abused Glaswegian housewife who seeks help from a cybernetics expert. Actor Robert Carlyle's 4Way Pictures have bought the rights to the true story of a young couple who were arrested in Thailand for drug possession and sent to the infamous Bangkok Hilton. Fearing that they would not face a fair trial, the couple escaped from the authorities and trekked for 400 miles through the jungle to Kuala Lumpur. The film is expected to be directed by Antonia Bird and Carlyle may take the lead.

THE OZYMANDIAS CORNER

* From ShowbizIreland.com: Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone, who is a regular visitor to Ireland and also set to film here later this year has adopted and baby boy. After several attempts to have their own children, the 42-year-old sex symbol and her husband, Phil Bronstein, adopted a baby boy last month. They've named their new son Roan Joseph Bronstein. Stone is will more then likely bring the child to Ireland with her later this year when she heads to Grangegorman area of Dublin. The actress is being lined up to play one of the lead roles in a remake of the Orson Welles classic The Magnificent Ambersons. Parts of Grangegorman are being transformed into turn-of-the-century Indianapolis for the 14-week shoot. Sets are already being built for the two-part mini-series on the site where Neil Jordan's Michael Collins was made. With further names yet to be confirmed, more Hollywood stars are expected to throng the capital when shooting begins in July. Production manager John Phelan, a Dubliner who has worked alongside Jodie Foster and Bruce Willis, is delighted that the movie is being made here. Orson Welles began his career at 17 in The Gate Theatre so it is appropriate that his original script is restored and a wrong is righted in the city. There will be roles too for Irish actors. (Thank you also to Ray for sending us this story)

* Also from ShowbizIreland : I know there's been a lot of speculation floating around with regard to the new Bond flick - location, plot etc. Dublin has been mentioned on AICN before and it now looks like those particular rumours might have been right... : New Bond to be shot in Ireland... Irish born James Bond star PIERCE BROSNAN has confirmed to ShowBiz Ireland that he would love if the next James Bond movie to be part made in the land of his birth. Speaking to ShowBiz Ireland Brosnan's agent confirmed that the actor would love 007 to hit the streets of Dublin. The actor has not worked in Ireland for three years. ShowBiz Ireland can tell you that the main scriptwriter for the last two Bond movies was spotted in Dublin by ShowBiz Ireland sources who claim that the gent in question has stayed twice in the past in U2's Clarence Hotel when the last two Bond's were premiered in Ireland. He confirmed that he was in town to scout locations for the twentieth Bond movie. Rumours floating around are that a possible plot of a 'cuddly' IRA allying itself to its former enemies, the British security forces. A fully decommissioned IRA would help M16 rescue the British Prime Minister from the clutches of dissident republicans as a climax to the new 007 spectacular. According to leaking reports M and the Sinn Fein leader would shake hands after a job well done, in the latest move to 'modernise' the adventures of the world's most famous spy. The positive portrayal of the IRA would be a surefire hit with the American audiences, many whom sympathize with the cause of a united Ireland. This would boost the film's already enormous box-office potential. The film will be released in 2002 when the two governments expect the IRA to have placed all its weapons fully beyond use. In a scenario, it's believed that Bond will battle against subversives bent on wrecking the fragile peace process.

* From the BBC: The makers of a string of movie hits are planning to turn the dramatic story of the miners' buy-out of Tower Colliery into a film. The creators of Notting Hill and Bean are delving into the true tale behind Wales' last surviving deep mine. Oscar-winner Colin Welland - who took an Academy Award for Chariots of Fire - has scripted the film, based on the story of the pit in Hirwaun, near Aberdare. Working Title Films, which created Notting Hill, is teaming up with David P Kelly Productions to make the £6m film about the miners who fought the closure of their pit and won. In 1994 the last miners at the colliery - the last deep pit in what was once the mining heartland of Wales - pooled their life-savings and bought the colliery as moves were made to shut the mine. With the odds stacked against them, the workers and their union leader Tyrone O'Sullivan formed Tebo (Tower Employees Buy-Out) to take on the running of a colliery they were told was uneconomical. And they went on to further confound their critics when they began to make a profit. The film, directed by Welsh-born Marc Evans, will chronicle the struggle, although no casting decisions have yet been made. Shooting is expected to begin in spring next year.

* From: Popcorn : Director John Hughes is in negotiations to helm a modern take on his 1985 teen movie 'The Breakfast Club'. There's no news yet on exactly how the $25million remake would be updated but for any non-'80s kids out there, the original starred brat packers Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall and Ally Sheedy as a bunch of high school students who find they've more in common than they first realised when they spend their Saturday in detention. Perhaps Hughes could persuade them to return as teachers. Meanwhile, Hughes has also signed a deal to write, direct and produce an unnamed romantic comedy described as a "modern day Cinderella story that's set in Chicago" (Hughes' city of choice for most of his films). A major female star is rumoured to already be on board for the project, which has been slated for a Christmas 2001 release for Columbia Pictures.

* This'll be of interest if you're a Tarantino fan..... From Empire Online: Tim Roth has confirmed rumours that he's stepping on to Kenneth Branagh's turf with a film of Shakespeare's King Lear in the works. In an interview to be found in the August issue of Empire (out on sale 1 July 2000) Roth answers questions sent in by readers of the magazine, one of which concerned the Lear adaptation. 'Harold is doing the adaptation for me,' Roth told Empire, 'And I've spoken to some actors who I really admire - all unofficially of course. So hopefully we can go into pre-production towards the end of next year. I felt that as we'd already dealt with one kind of family (The War Zone), we could make some really interesting comparisons. But although I'm not afraid of the project as such, it is very, very scary in theory, and essentially a terrifying prospect.' In response to another readers' question about linking up with Tarantino again, Roth had this to say; 'The last time I saw him, he did talk to me about doing another film. I'm not going to say what it is, but he's such great fun that, yes I'd love to work with him again. Make of that what you will...'.

Mail me at MY BRAND NEW ADDRESS: ozymandias@dublin.com

VARIOUS (AND SOMETIMES WEIRD) NEWS FROM MUAD'DIB

* Shatner to direct comedy movie : William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek, is to boldly go somewhere he's never been before - into the director's chair for a dark comedy. Shatner is to use the experience of losing his wife last year to direct and produce Shiva Club, a dark comedy set during a Jewish mourning period. The movie's about a group of stand-up comics who decide to audition for an influential comedian by showing up at his house while he mourns his wife during the Jewish Shiva ritual. Shiva is a week-long mourning period some Jewish people observe after the death of a family member and includes the family staying within the house while friends and family visit to pay their respects. Shatner said the idea for the film came to him while he mourned his wife who died in a drowning incident. "Grief can be funny," Shatner told the Hollywood Reporter.

* From BBC : Paltrow to star in latest Newell movie - Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow is to star in a new comedy - How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days - from the director of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mike Newell. Based on a bestselling book by Jeannie Long and Michele Alexander, the film is billed as a sardonic look at the pitfalls of a new relationship. Scheduled for a November start, it will be Newell's first directing project since Pushing Tin, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton.

* Also from BBC : Stars 'lining up to play Howard Hughes' - The actress-turned-writer widow of reclusive tycoon Howard Hughes says she is frantically fending off calls from Hollywood stars wanting to play him. Terry Moore, who was married to Hughes from 1949 to 1956, is writing a script about Hughes's life and says it is being produced by Alan Ladd Jr. She told the New York Post George Clooney, John Cusack, Nicolas Cage and John Travolta are among the actors who she says are interested in playing Hughes.

* From Empire : German newspaper Die Welt reported that production on Steven Spielberg's latest directorial project, A.I, has been put back until August. The film, which stars Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment, was due to begin shooting in the States in July. The newspaper gives the reason for the delay as being Spielberg's incredibly busy schedule, which includes producing both the TV series Band Of Brothers, which is currently shooting in England, and the third installment of Jurassic Park. He's also linked with a number of other projects, including Minority Report and Memoirs of a Geisha.

* Also from Empire : J.K Rowling, the author of The Harry Potter series, has told of her feelings about the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. In an interview with The Times, Rowling said that director Christopher Columbus and Warner Bros are, "giving me a huge amount of influence." And, although no cast members have been officially announced, she's confident that, "It will be filmed in Britain, with an all-British cast." Rowling also denied that she had a fight with Steven Spielberg, who was initially attached to direct. She said only that, "There were things he said that I didn't agree with, there were things he said that I did agree with. Let's just put it this way: I am very happy with the director we've got." She was also honest about the inevitable Harry Potter merchandise. "Name me a children's film that doesn't have it," she asked, continuing, "That's a given. That is how the film company makes its money." Warner Bros confirmed this view in a recent Billboard article, where a spokesman spoke of creating "a longtime franchise for Harry," and said the film's soundtrack would, "be music for the child in us all".

* From Ananova : Oscar-winning Ben Affleck is the hot tip to take over the prize role of Jack Ryan for the £50 million movie version of the new Tom Clancy thriller The Sum of All Fears. The hunt has been on for a new face to replace Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin who filled the shoes of the daredevil Pentagon agent. Insiders at Paramount studios who have already spent £10 million developing the story and putting director Phillip Noyce at the helm say they want a younger man for the job. Ford was 52 when he last played Ryan in Clear and Present Danger while Affleck, who collected an Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting with his buddy Matt Damon, is just 27. The source said: "They are hoping to get somebody, and Affleck fits the bill completely, who will stick with the part for at least two and maybe three movies, making some of Clancy's earlier Ryan capers."

Paramount is said to be considering ordering up drafts of The Cardinal of the Kremlin and another Ryan adventure, The Bear and the Dragon, which is due out in the autumn. There is even talk of teen actress Thora Birch who played Kevin Spacey's daughter in American Beauty playing Ryan's young wife in the new series of films.

Much as I like Affleck (he's very good in Chasing Amy) isn't he a little young to be playing this type of role. Anyway that's my opinion and one that might not be agreed with by AICN readers.

Muad'dib signing off for the night

THE REQUEST CORNER

* Does anyone know where and how to get a good print of SONG OF THE SOUTH here in Europe on VHS or DVD ??

THE STAR WARS FACT OF THE WEEK

* From French : I don't know if your gonna get this or not, but... I may have read between the lines here!!! George Lucas said about the shooting of Episode II, and I quote: "It's hard for me to remember if I'm shooting Episode I, the special Edition, the DVD, or Episode II." woah!!!! Didn't he just say, he was shooting new stuff for the DVD!!! I'll let you be the judge of that.

French from Paris wishing you well...

P.S: This quote was found in the "spirits were high..." about June 27th on the official site , if you want to check it out: Just Click Here right now.

Thanks to everyone... That's it for this week... Don't forget to send all your news to euroaicn@yahoo.com !!