Hey there, Father Geek here with another of Elston's fact heavy reviews of the showbiz week that has just passed. I especially welcome the news concerning John McTiernan's SMOKE AND MIRRORS a project I've been following for quite some time now.
However, Elston left out two HUGE stories that impact the world cinema industries... 1st, the detention of our Africa-AICN editor Dr. SOTHA in the South of France following the Cannes Film Festival, Click Here for more on that breaking news; and even more impactful, the return of the man with the baseball bat, Joe Hallenbeck, to the editoral pages of AICN. Just Click Here Now to bare witness to his historic return to form. Only Harry wrote more reviews on these pages back in 1996 and early 97 than Joe. Run "Hallenbeck" thru the Keyword Search Box on the left of our front page to view many of those gems. However, beware. Joe is a man of strong opinions and an unbridled tongue that has been known to offend many.
Now, on to Elston's main report...
VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
Now, on to Elston's main report...
VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
CASTING
* Mel Gibson is in official talks to star in M. Night Shyamalan's SIGNS for Disney. The project centers around the appearance of strange crop circles at a farm in Pennsylvania.
* Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk will star in the indie pic ENTER FLEEING for writer/director Rebecca Miller (ANGELA). The project is based on PERSONAL VELOCITY, Miller's forthcoming book of short stories and centers on three women's attempts to leave the men who hinder their personal freedom.
* Bonnie Hunt will play the female lead in STOLEN SUMMER for director Pete Jones, Miramax and Project Greenlight about an Irish Catholic family whose son defies them to help a dying Jewish friend get into heaven. Aidan Quinn, Max Weinberg, Kevin Pollak and Brian Dennehy also star. Shooting begins this month in Chicago.
* Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones will star in the period drama SMOKE AND MIRRORS for John McTiernan, who is in talks to direct. The project is based on the true story of 19th century illusionist Jean Robert Houdin, who was sent by the French government to Algeria to investigate a sorcerer who was trying to tridder an anti-colonial revolution. Along for the ride with the magician, was a young female sidekick.
* Tim Allen is in negotiations to star in the comedy STARCHILD for director Peter Segal (NUTTY PROFESSOR 2: THE KLUMPS). Dan O'Dowd wrote the script about a socially challenged CIA agent who must avoid an interplanetary war on Earth by sending a friendly alien back to his home planet.
* Magali Amadei will co-star with Christopher Wiehl and Jennifer Gareis in the romantic comedy THE GROOMSMEN for director Lawrence Gay.
* Joseph Lawrence (URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT) will star in PANDORA'S BOX, currently shooting in Atlanta.
* Mel Rodriguez (upcoming DEUCES WILD) is in talks for roles in both PANIC ROOM for Columiba as well as the Warner Bros. pic SHOWTIME, starring Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro.
* Queen Latifah is in talks to star in and executive produce IN THE HOUZE a Disney/Hyde Park Entertainment comedy about a guy who develops an internet relationship with a woman in jail. However, when she gets out, she turns his life upside-down.
* Devon Gummersall, Gina Phillips, Katharine Towne, Dylan Bruno, John Savage, Steve Van Wormer and Johnny Whitworth will star in the indie pic THE ANARCHIST for director Jordan Susman. It's a dramatic comedy about a band of young anarchists who face danger when a seductive troublemaker joins the group.
* Ben Affleck is in talks to star in SURVIVING CHRISTMAS about a guy who must spend Christmas alone and heads back to his childhood home to cheer himself up, trying to persuade the family who now lives there to take him in. Betty Thomas and Jenno Topping will produce for Columbia Pictures and Tall Trees Prods.
* Martin Henderson, Piper Perabo, Joe Pantoliano and Andrew Keegan will star in the indie feature A PIECE OF MY HEART for director Matt Cooper, based on his stage play, and his company the Vault. It's about two college grads in the Midwest who move to L.A., where their love is tested for the first time.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Chris Koch (SNOW DAY) will direct the comedy A GUY THING for MGM and producer David Ladd. It's about a man who thinks he has cheated on his fiancee when he wakes up with a woman in his bed the morning after his bachelor party. Wackiness follows when he tries to cover up the supposed affair while getting ready for the wedding.
* Michael Nickles will helm THE LAST LANE from his own script for Cineville and Edward Burns and Aaron Lubin, who will produce through their Marlboro Road Gang company. Burns is also attached to play a supporting role in the pic which chronicles the lives of several islanders as a devastating hurricane threatens to destroy the town one summer.
* Henry Jaglom will direct the indie pic SHOPPING from a script he penned with his wife Victoria Foyt, who will also star. This is the third pic in Jaglom's "women trilogy" which includes 1990's EATING and 1994's BABYFEVER. Lee Grant, Pamela Bellwood, Cynthia Sikes, Marcia Strassman and Robert Romanus also star.
* Bob Balaban will produce and possibly direct for USA Films a feature based on CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, the 1998 Tony Horwitz book about Civil War buffs and their battlefield re-enactments. Balaban is also producing KISS THE BRIDE about a young Midwestern couple who are getting married and find themselves on a game show; as well as DANIEL MARTIN based on the John Fowles novel about a playwright in his mid-50's who has become a Hollywood writer but realizes happiness is to be found in marrying the person with whom he was truly in love.
* Writer/director Aki Kaurismski will direct IRTOLAINEN (VAGRANT), a sequel to his 1996 pic DRIFTING CLOUDS. Kati Outinen, Sakari Kuosmanen, Markku Peltola and Esko Nikkari will return to star.
* Mimi Hare and Clare Naylor's romantic comedy spec ACCIDENTAL HUSBAND was purchased by 2K Media/Original Voices Prods. as a starring vehicle for Uma Thurman will will also produce. The story centers on an engaged female psychologist who finds out she is already married while registering for a license. When she finds her alleged husband, she falls for him only to discover that things are not what they seem.
* Christopher Scott Cherot is directing G, a hip-hop contemporary take on THE GREAT GATSBY, for producer Andrew Lauren. Richard T. Jones and Blair Underwood star in the dramatic film about a rap mogul who built his vast business to win back the woman of his dreams.
* Cary Bickley and Yuri Zeltser will rewrite the thriller DEMOLITION ANGEL for Columbia Pictures and Laurence Mark Prods. The project is an adaptation of the Robert Crais novel and center on a female bomb squad officer who uncovers a conspiracy after her parnter/lover is killed in a bombing.
* Italian rock star Luciano Ligabue (RADIOFRECCIA) will return to directing with FROM ZERO TO TEN. Production begins this summer.
* Lasse Hallstrom is in talks to direct Leonardo DiCaprio in CATCH ME IF YOU CAN for DreamWorks. Shooting is planned for a March start. The pic tells the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. a teen impostor who made the FBI's 10 most wanted list in the mid '60s. By the time he was apprehended, he wrote $6 million in bad checks in all 50 states and 26 foreign countries.
* Eriq La Salle will direct CRAZY AS HELL, based on the Jeremy Leven novel SATAN. Leven has written a script with a rewrite by La Salle, who will co-star with Michael Beach, Ronny Cox, Steven Weber and Tix Texada. The story follows a psychiatrist who agrees to film a documentary about psychiatry and mental illness. Early in the production, a patient who claims to be the devil becomes the focus of the film.
* Artists Production Group and StudioCanal have together bought THE GOOD SAMARITAN, a pitch from Matthew Cirulnick that follows a married couple who buys a yacht to sail around the world and who get entangled with contemporary pirates after they rescue a dying man from the South China Sea.
* Miramax Films grabbed Matt Burch's script THE UPGRADE with Chris Moore, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck attached to produce. It's about two jewelry store security guards who get caught up in a scandal by the store's owner who wants his shop burglarized for insurance money. Burch was one of the 10 finalists in Project Greenlight and produced a three-minute clip based on his script that appears at http://www.projectgreenlight.com.
* Peter Osterlund and Amy Baker's romantic comedy script DATING NICK MCBRIDE was picked up by producer Mark Canton. It's about a young woman who must fill in for her identical twin, who is a popular TV personality, to interview the world's most eligible bachelor.
* Columbia Pictures grabbed the romantic comedy script THE LAST FIRST KISS by Kevin Bisch for Overbrook Entertainment to produce. It's about a New York man who has a secret identity moonlighting as a dating doctor who specializes in prepping and planning dates for lovesick men. However, when he falls for a tabloid journalist, his romantic outlook is challenged and his secret is threatened to be revealed.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Nanni Moretti's film LA STANZA DEL FIGLIO (THE SON'S ROOM) took the top prize, the Palme d'Or, at the 54th Cannes International Film Festival. THE PIANO TEACHER, directed by Austria's Michael Haneke, won the Grand Prix, plus best actress for Isabelle Huppert and best actor for Benoit Magimel. The best director award split between Joel Coen (THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE) and David Lynch (MULLHOLLAND DRIVE).
* Alec Baldwin has apparently refused to take part in post-production on his directorial debut THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER until conflicts with the film's financier have been resolved. Prinicipal photography on the pic wrapped March 13.
* Director Reginald Hudlin, who has dropped out of the Jackie Chan supernatural thriller HIGHBINDERS due to creative differences and doubts about the film's financing, has been replaced with Gordon Chan (FIST OF LEGEND), while Sammo Hung will take on the role of action director. The story is about an immigration officer who is killed but returns from the dead with superpowers. The film is the most expensive project in Hong Kong cinema history.
* DreamWorks Pictures will sell half its stake in THE ROAD TO PERDITION to Twentieth Century Fox due most likely to the project's big budget and to help release Steven Spielberg out of a film commitment to Fox (the studio was given the option on a future pic from the director during the MINORITY REPORT deal). Sam Mendes directs Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law in PERDITION.
* Dimension Films and RKO Pictures will co-produce a remake of the 1941 Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller SUSPICION from a draft by Michael Browning (SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS). It's based on Francis Iles novel BEFORE THE FACT and tells the story of a reserved young woman who marries a man that she later suspects is trying to kill her for her money.
* Propaganda Films has purchased the feature rights to HELTER SKELTER, the 1975 book by former L.A. District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi that chronicles the Manson Family murders as well as Bugliosi's prosecution of Charles Manson. The book was adapted into a CBS TV movie in 1976 and centered on Manson's trial, whereas the new feature will focus specifically on the actual investigation of the murders.
