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
* 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.
Until next week...have a good Memorial Day weekend.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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