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Elston Gunn's WEEKLY RECAP
Well, Father Geek is here posting Elston's Christmas Edition of The Weekly Recap. Best Wishes to you Mr. Gunn (and family)for the holidays, and the same to all our loyal readers... even the disloyal ones. What the heck... tis the season, right? Anyway here's everything worth a hoot and a holler that happened last week in Hollywood, so pull that plate of Christmas cookies over a little closer, top off that cup of Expresso, sit back and enjoy...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
CASTING
* Michelle Rodriguez (GIRLFIGHT) is in talks to join Milla Jovovich in
RESIDENT EVIL, based on the popular video game. Paul Anderson (SOLDIER)
will direct for Constantin Film.
* David Arquette, Ally Sheedy and Gloria Reuben are starring in the indie
pic HAPPY HERE AND NOW for writer/director Michael Almereyda and Independent
Film Channel Prods. Liane Balaban, Karl Geary, Shalom Harlow and Clarence
Williams III are also featured in the film about a 16-year old girl who
searches for her missing sister in New Orleans.
* Don Cheadle will have a cameo in RUSH HOUR 2, currently shooting for New
Line Cinema. He'll play an owner of a Chinese restaurant who has a passion
for kung fu.
Roselyn Sanchez also joins the cast as an undercover agent for the U.S.
Secret Service.
* Gerard Depardieu is in talks to star in Scandinavia's most expensive
feature film project, I AM DINA to be directed by Danish helmer Ole
Bornedal. Maria Bonnevie and Pernilla August will also star in the film..
It's about a woman who, as a child, accidentally caused the death of her
mother.
* Jack Nicholson will take a pay cut and star in ABOUT SCHMIDT for director
Alexander Payne (ELECTION) and New Line Cinema. He'll play a divorced,
retired insurance man who is losing his battle of self-deception. It's
based on the 1996 novel by Louis Begley, which has been adapted into a
screenplay by Nicholson and Jim Taylor. Shooting begins March 15 in Omaha,
Nebraska.
* Pierce Brosnan and Renny Harlin are in talks to star in and direct,
respectively, on a feature adaptation of Ray Bradbury's short story A SOUND
OF THUNDER for Franchise Pictures. It's about a game hunter who travels
back in time to hunt dinosaurs and somehow manages to...
* Guy Pearce will star in the very dark comedy BLOOD & GUTS for Alibi Films
International, producer Al Clark and writer/director Scott Roberts. It's
about three brothers and the mix of sex and greed between bad cops and
"good" criminals.
* Julia Stiles will play a U.S. National Security field officer in
Universal's THE BOURNE IDENTITY, starring Matt Damon, based on the Robert
Ludlum novel. Doug Liman (GO) directs. Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive
Owen, Brian Cox and Adewale-Agabaje also star.
* Kari Wuhrer (ANACONDA) will star opposite David Arquette in the
horror/comedy ARAC ATTACK for Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures,
Centropolis Entertainment and director Ellory Elkayem (LARGER THAN LIFE).
* Michelle Yeoh is in talks to star in the sequels of THE MATRIX, most
likely in the role Jet Li was once courted to play in the Warner
Bros./Village Roadshow pics.
* Michael Michele ("ER) joins Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Mario Van Peebles,
Jeffrey Wright and Mykelti Williamson in ALI for Sony Pictures and director
Michael Mann.
* Erinn Bartlett (THE IN CROWD), Chad Donella (FINAL DESTINATION) and
Jennifer Morrison (URBAN LEGENDS: THE FINAL CUT) will star in the romantic
comedy 100 WOMEN for writer/director Michael Davis (100 GIRLS, EIGHT DAYS A
WEEK).
* Bruce Campbell joins SERVICING SARAH as Elizabeth Hurley's husband for
director Reginald Hudlin, BIJOU for Frank Darabont as a handsome movie star,
and has also been added to the cast of SPIDER MAN for director Sam Raimi,
where he'll play a ring announcer. has been added to the cast of Mandalay
Pictures' "Servicing Sarah" for director Reginald Hudlin. In other SPIDER
MAN news, Cliff Robertson (Uncle Ben), Rosemary Harris (Aunt May) and J.K.
Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson) round out the cast of the Columbia Pictures pic
which stars Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe and James Franco.
Shooting begins next month.
* Anthony Hopkins is in talks to star opposite Chris Rock in BLACK SHEEP for
Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Hopkins would play a CIA agent who
mentors Rock's character, a man whose brother was killed by the enemy and he
is brought in to finish the mission.
* Mike Myers will put in a cameon on the comedy VIEW FROM THE TOP, Miramax's
Gwyneth Paltrow-starrer about a woman's journey to become a flight
attendant. Bruno Barreto will direct.
* Ellen Burstyn is in talks to star in DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA
SISTERHOOD, based on the novel by Rebecca Wells, for Warner Bros. and
director Callie Khouri. It's about the relationship between a mother and
her neurotic playwright daughter, who learns about her mother through mom's
three lifelong friends. Shooting begins in the spring.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Peter Antonijevic (SAVIOR) will direct IN GOD WE TRUST for Emmett/Furla
Films and Nittolo Entertainment, about a group of con men who discover that
their score from an off-track betting heist is more than they can handle.
Willie Dreyfus scripted.
* Rupert Wainwright (STIGMATA) will direct the action-thriller THE
APPRENTICE for the Canton Co. and Senator Entertainment. Ray Wright penned
the screenplay about a troubled young man recruited by the CIA. He later
discovers that his mentor in the agency is the guy who is responsible for
the death of his family.
* Norwegian director Lars Berg will direct the children's picture BROKEN
GLASS this spring. It's based on the Harald Rosenlow Eeg novel about a
12-year-old boy who doesn't know his older brother is dying from cancer,
while he spends his time pursuing girls.
* Music video director Joseph Kahn will direct DMX in THE CROW: LAZARUS for
Edward R. Pressman Film Corps. James Gibson wrote about a hard-living rap
artist killed in a drive-by shooting who comes back to seek revenge on the
biker gang who murdered him.
* Adam Shankman (THE WEDDING PLANNER) is in final talks to direct A WALK TO
REMEMBER for Warner Bros. and Gaylord Films, based on the Nicholas Sparks
1999 novel. It's set in the 1950s and follows two teens, a rich boy and a
minister's daughter, and their falling in love during the town's annual
Christmas pageant. Karen Janszen adapted the novel into a screenplay.
Production is expected to begin in March.
* Pedro Almodovar (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER) will next direct LA MALA EDUCACION
(THE BAD EDUCATION), a Spanish-language film based on his school memories --
setting it in the 60s in a school run by priests.
* Alex Proyas will direct GARAGE DAYS for Fox Searchlight, Film Finance
Corp. and Mystery Clock Cinema. It's a contemporary dramatic comedy about a
garage band. Shooting will begin in the spring in Australia. Proyas wrote
the script with Dave Warner and Michael Udesky.
For script news, check out my weekly script report at
ScreenwritersUtopia.com
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Miramax seems to have the edge in a race against MGM/Zoetrope on who gets
to put out the first Frida Kahlo biopic. The former studio just sealed a
deal with Julie Taymor to direct a pic starring Salma Hayek and possibly
Antonio Banderas, Geoffrey Rush, Alfred Molina, Ashley Judd and a cameo by
Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller. The latter studio is apparently still
looking for a few million dollars to finance the pic as well as deal with
scheduling conflicts with its star Jennifer Lopez, who would have to
complete her other pic ENOUGH in time to star in the biopic before the
impending strikes. Luis Valdez is directing that Frida Kahlo pic.
* Producer Jon Kilik (DEAD MAN WALKING) will produce a biopic on Leonard
Peltier, the jailed Native American activist who President Clinton is
considering a clemency grant. Chris Eyre (SMOKE SIGNALS) is attached to
direct the pic entitled IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE, based on the book by
Peter Matthiessen for Overseas Film Group.
* Mindfire Entertainment has optioned the rights to the video game series
DEAD OR ALIVE for a series of films. The first film, DEAD OR ALIVE:
HARDCORE--THE MOVIE, will start production early next year for a release in
late 2001. The game follows the world's greatest fighters who battle one
another in a dead-or-alive tournament.
Bruce Campbell is a busy man. Kudos to him. And how about the Anthony
Hopkins/Chris Rock team-up? Stranger things have happened, I suppose. The
casts to ALI and VIEW FROM THE TOP are pretty impressive, don't you think?
Here's hoping to a couple of good pics there. Other than that, I'm looking
forward to hearing more about Michelle Yeoh in THE MATRIX sequels and Jack
Nicholson in ABOUT SCHMIDT. How's about you?
Happy Holidays to you and yours; Eat lots, stay warm. See you next week...unless there
isn't any news, in which case I'll see you in 2001. Take care.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
isn't any news, in which case I'll see you in 2001. Take care.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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TAKEN FOR GRANTED... Not even a full year out of NYU film school and director Eric Nabors has already lined up his third feature, titled PAUL SCHRADER for Leonard Schrader Films. The film, from a screenplay by Leonard Schrader, will be the third in what Nabors likes to call his Schnook Quadology. "I just finished shooting my Joe Esterhas biopic BEING A SCHNOOK IN AMERICA," Nabors explained,"and I'm in pre-production on THE DENNIS CURSE about beloved cartoonist Hank Ketchum. I'd intended to film my own screenplay BUBBA after that but Oliver Stone is doing his own Clinton film and killed my project. So after PAUL SCHRADER, the last schnook film will be one that Todd Van Dorn is writing for me called OLIVER STONE." In PAUL SCHRADER, the coked-crazed suicidal/homocidal screenwriter of TAXI DRIVER will be sitting in a hot tub, holding a loaded gun, and narrating his story to his frightened shrink, summoned to calm him down. We'll see young Paul as a chubby, lisping film critic, cheating on his wife only to lose her and the woman he was cheating with, and descend into a porn obsession. Saved by an ulcer, he writes TAXI DRIVER. During the filming, he has sex with a drug addicted, teen prostitute who gets a cameo as Jodi Foster's friend in the movie. Now Hollywood gentry, Paul still can't get noted tramp Margot Kidder to have sex with him, but does start carrying guns and acting tough after meeting John Milius. When a female screenwriter shows Paul her ANNIE OAKLEY script, Paul stick a .38 in her face and says,"Guns, it needs more guns. Put more guns in it!" Around this time, Paul starts getting his brother Leonard to write scripts for him, but continues hogging most of the credit while treating Leonard like an employee. Richard Pryor calls Paul "a pussy" during the filming of BLUE COLLAR. A drunken George C. Scott makes Paul promise to give up directing after HARD CORE. A nude James Caan throws Paul out of Vegas hotel room when Paul has a hissy over losing a small football bet. Finally engaged to a woman, Paul has sex with Natassia Kinski when she stars in CAT PEOPLE. His fiancee dumps him, causing Paul to stalk Kinski in Europe where she tells him that the only reason she had sex with him was that she always fucks her directors and in his case, it was hard to do. That brings us back to the hot tub, the shrink, the gun and the pile of cocaine. Bobcat Goldthwaite is in talks for the part of Paul and Rob Lowe is in talks for the part of Leonard...SEQUEL NEWS: In addition to KING CONAN, John Milius is writing a sequel to his masterwork APOCALYPSE NOW for Francis Ford Coppola. The new film, RAGNAROK COMES, finds Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) retired from the military and living in a condominium. When the president of the Homeowner's Association, played by Kathy Bates, goes insane and starts making up her own rules and fining everyone, operating outside the bounds of common decency, Willard is sent on a mission up the green belt to "terminate with extreme predjudice."...Tom Cruise will star in BIG IN JAPAN. Cruise will play the meglomaniacal star of a worldwide hit T.V. show THE GYM POLICE. He must be conned into believing that his vanity CD is a hit somewhere in the world. His manager, Chris Tucker, comes up with an elaborate con, convincing Tom he has a hit single and is on a concert tour of Japan...See you at the library...
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...Because after reading Buzz's recap i laughed so hard i pissed myself. Yeah i know, i've been meaning to get some depends. Now i'm off to EBAY to find that Tom Cruise cd. DKM makin like Christopher and Walkin'.
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Read the entries for Anthony Hopkins in "Black Sheep" and then Rupert Wainright's "Apprentice". Is Hopkins going to play the mentor in both pictures? I can't wait to see Chris Rock get a round between the eyes.
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Except for GLADIATOR, CHICKEN RUN and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM this has been the absolute WORST year for movies that I have ever seen in my life. No joke, no exaggeration either. Here's hoping that 2001 will be 1000x better--it can't hardly be worse!
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Dec 23, 2000 3:48:44 PM CST
Has anyone else seen Harry's big ol mug in this weeks Sports Ill
by bathroom monkey
So I'm reading my new Sports Illustrated today, and I turn over to page 52 and 53, and who's staring back at me?!?! HARRY F'n KNOWLES that's who!! I don't know if it's in other magazines, but the print ad for Earthlink.com with 3 huge Harry heads and the words AINT IT COOL is great. Isn't there something beautiful about the fact that an overweight film geek gets his picture in Sports Illustrated of all places? The little explaination of how you started AICN is great over on the side of the ad too. Wow Harry, you made it into SI, you's da shiznit!!
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Dec 23, 2000 4:09:26 PM CST
Is this "Black Sheep" movie a comedy? And couldn't they have tho
by docsisx
And so it goes and so it goes the Hollywood title recycler is at it again.
Happy Holidays everyone! -
Dec 23, 2000 4:39:15 PM CST
Poor Kari Wuhrer, first she gets eaten by a giant snake now she'
by bari umenema
But she is a hot little number, a real cutie pie. Kari & Bari sitting in a tree, f-u-c-k-i-n-g, first comes lust, then comes love, come on babe, give me a rub. Seriously Kari honey let me be your agent I'll get you much better parts where you don't get eaten up but eaten out, what do you say? Give me a ring so I don't have to sing...
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I love the way these actors are always "in talks" for parts. It's not exactly the middle east, is it?
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Well, this is the first Gwyneth Paltrow movie I'm looking forward to. Actually, apart from 'Talented Mr. Ripley', but then she really wasn't the star of that one anyway. I also agree the cast of 'A View From the Top' is great.
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Dec 23, 2000 8:43:26 PM CST
How is it that ALI's cast has got some of the great middleweight
by lostoptimist
Seriously...Michael Michele, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Mario Van Peebles, Jeffrey Wright and Mykelti Williamson? Where is Delroy Lindo, Keith David, Ving Rhames, Nia Long and James Earl Jones (among others)? The cast screams b-movie, espeically with Van Peebles and Foxx in there.
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Do tha humpty hump, do tha humpty hump, all the ladies! Do tha humpty hump watch me do the humpty hump. I've been drinking.
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Ladies and gentlemen, it's official! Buzz Maverick has just won the Oscar for BEST AICN TALK BACK POST! Kudos to you, Buzz! You are one demented genius. The scariest thing is almost all of his post about Paul Schraser is totally true - except the Bobcat (Citizens On Patrol) Goldthwaite part.
I also contemplate that Nastassja Kinski quote a lot after reading it in Peter Biskind's awesome reference "EASY RIDERS AND RAGING BULLS." I hope it still applies if I ever work with her!
Is Paul Schrader's seminal "Hard Core" even available on video?!
Please Buzz, do one on Don Simpson soon!
Merry Christmas everyone!
My Xmas wish is a sequel to Tony Scott's "The Last Boy Scout!" May Joe Hallenbeck grace the screens of the cinema soon! -
five-tone here, and let's keep it quick - i've got turkey to gnaw*****nicholson seems to be grasping the notion that he's no longer a leading man in the conventional sense. shit, jimmy caan has known for some time that he's a character actor now (bottle rocket, the way of the gun, the yards) and he's been delivering primo work as a result. working with payne is a good move: with any luck, it'll remind us why some many people put jack on a pedestal (he needs it after his long-winded, boring-as-all-fuck speeches at recent awards ceremonies). about payne: he's undoubtedly talented but there's something about his films...i dunno...he's sorta didactic, dontcha think? i admired 'election' but i don't know if i liked it all that much. i can't stop thinking about it, though - guess that means he's talented, eh? your thoughts?*****'sound of thunder' sounds kinda pants. pierce, renny...c'mon. it's been done, and done well. if we must have big-screen bradbury, let's have 'something wicked this way comes' (directed by david lynch! would that rule or what!) or 'fahrenheit 451' (directed by sam mendes - i just get the feeling mendes would know how to pull it off perfectly). oh, and renny? GET AWAY FROM ELIE SAMAHA AND FRANCHISE PICTURES! THEY ARE THE FUCKING KISS OF FUCKING DEATH! no, really*****maybe i'm just an old fart, but julia stiles is too fucking young to be a CIA field agent in 'the bourne identity'. or is this a cunning ruse to make matt damon look old enough to play a worldly superspy? i'm on to you, doug liman!*****'arac attack'? i thought this was a goddamn april fool's day joke!*****re. anthony hopkins' involvement in the upcoming chris rock fiasco 'black sheep': upon his arrival at an LA resturant recently, hopkins was warmly greeted by michael caine and gene hackman. caine was heard to say "welcome to the club" to hopkins*****any major dude will tell you, and five-tone will continue to do so later. he's got turkey to eat right now. merry christmas, one and all.
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Well, no other project concerns me more than this action epic set to be directed by Michael Mann and possibly starring George Clooney and Bruce Willis. As I am a big fan of historical subjects, I ve now finished reading the novel this movie is based on. I must say: It's actually a gripping piece of literature. The script is said to be very intensive (especially when it comes to the action sequences) although it fails in some matters of character development.
However: I am sure this is the movie to top GLADIATOR (maybe this year's top movie because it succeeds in walking the thin line between pure, F/X heavy action and higher demands of cinema such as political backgroungs/dialogue...)
I can only hope the producers recognize the B/O capacities of historical actioners and grant the 140-180 Mio. $ this movie would cost.
If there anybody out there with any bit of information about GATES, please e-mail me (Andrew13@aol.com)! -
Dec 25, 2000 5:29:29 PM CST
5tone's 2cents (special 'bah, humbug' edition CONTINUED)...
by tommy5tone
damn, that turkey was nice. now back to it*****'divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood' = 'how to make an american quilt 2001'. i won't be seeing it this time either*****'the apprentice' has a cool-sounding premise, but wainwright's direction of 'stigmata' was too damn busy for my liking*****does nicholas sparks ever write anything but these cheesebag love stories?*****alex proyas is a damn fine director but it's a shame he's got dave warner working on the script for 'garage days'. warner wrote the script for the aussie horror movie 'cut' and that was probably the foulest piece of shit to hit cinema screens in 2000*****any major dude will tell you, now five-tone has too. happy holidays, everyone!
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Worst year for movies? Maybe so. But apparently you haven't seen Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"; not only the best movie of the year, but possibly one of the 100 best movies ever made. 50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong!
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