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Elston Gunn's WEEKLY RECAP
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.
Until next week...have a good Memorial Day weekend.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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i can't wait to go back to sleep
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M. Night's movie seems interestin. Wish I knew more about it.
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With this strike...it seems nothing interesting is in the works besides M. Night's movie...man...Hollywood is starting to suck....but whats new?
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C'mon. . .remaking a Hitchcock film is like repainting the Mona Lisa. Some things should NOT be done!
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now the great gatsby as G. what next? a streetcar named D?
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May 26, 2001 12:28:22 PM CDT
Click HERE for the inside scoop on the big sequel to Pearl Harbo
by regis travolta
PEARL HIROSHIMA is being rushed into production for a Christmas release. It will focus on a pair of Japanese soldiers in love with a geisha girl. Little do they know that in just 48 hours their little city on the bay of the sea of japan will be destroyed by the atomic bomb. State of the art special effects will be used to recreate the bomb blast and award-winning make-up by Stan Winston will be used to duplicate the ghastly effects of radiation burns on the survivors. Lucy Liu is set to play the geisha girl and two unknown men in Japan will be chosen by lottery to play the doomed soldiers. Producer is Jerry Shmuckheimer, Director is Michael Gay with Disney CEO Michael Eisner taking executive producer credit. Said Eisner, "We think 'Pearl Hiroshima' will be hugely popular at Tokyo Disneyland as a theme attraction and we plan on spinning it off as a sit-com for ABC to star Margaret Cho as a mutant survivor of the atomic blast." Look for it in a theater near you on Christmas Day! And, said Eisner, "If it does as well as we think, next summer we'll have the third part of the trilogy, 'Pearl Nagasaki' in theaters to compete against the next Star Wars movie. I can't wait to see the expression on George Lucas's fat face when he learns about this! That guy needs some neck liposuction or something."
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A couple corrections to Elston's report. He spoke of the new indy film, "A Piece of My Heart" and said that it was about college girls who move to LA etc. In actuality, "A Piece of My Heart" is a China Beach like story of young women nurses in the Vietnam war. The stage play is higly minimalistic, I only hope that the film keeps the same stylization. I hope this clears things up. Thanks.
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Just a question...isn't The Road to Perdition just a period drama? Why is the budget so huge that the studio has to split the costs with another studio? Surely not just because of Tom Hanks's salary?
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Road To Perdition is more than just a period drama, but between Hanks, Newman, Law, the rest of the fairly well known cast, and Sam Mendes, not to mention Speilberg's producing credit, star salaries on the project probably run in the neighborhood of 40 mil, and that's before a single frame is shot (and the script is written).*** A hip-hop Great Gatsby. Hello Apocalypse! And lets add another spin to F Scott's rotation, courtesy of the talkbacker who referred to him as J Scott.
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That was one funny posting! Oh, and as for hip-hop literary adaptations, how's this? "Oliver Twist" becomes "O.T.: Tha Original Gangsta"!
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May 26, 2001 3:30:42 PM CDT
What's with this hip hop remake crap? First Carmen, now they're
by axelfoley
I've been out of high school for two years now. We did The Great Gatsby my junior year and let me tell you, if they butcher this story......wow. What the fuck? -
Personally, I can't wait for the gangsta version of Great Expectations: The Notorious P.I.P.!
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Miramax is jumping in on the "rapping the classics" bandwagon. Recently it was announced that Ice Cube has signed on to star in an adaptation of George Eliot's most famous work. He'll play a reclusive pimp whose life is changed when he finds himself the guardian of a three year old child in the new movie SILAS MOTHERFUCKA. Chris Columbus is in talks to direct.
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Hot on the heels that Sisqo has signed to play Pip in the WB's gangsta version of Great Expectations, joining a cast that already includes Queen Latifa as Miss Havisham and Beyonce Knowles as Estella, Disney has announced they have purchased a number of Kipling books, with the hopes they can be updated with an "urban sensibility". Rumor has it that the updated (L'il)Kim will be vying for compitition with the Richard Price scripted RIKI TIKI HOMIE for first on the production slate.
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Dammit I'm a doctor, not a satirist!
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TAKEN, JUST TAKEN,OKAY?...In an effort to stem the rolling brown-outs here in the movie state, California Gov. Gray Davis attempted to use the MK-Ultra National Guard to whack a few power company owners so they'd get the message and turn their plants over to the state. He failed when one guard member, known only as Moosey X, made the connection between Gray Davis and grey aliens (even though they spell their names differently, good thing spelling isn't Moosey's strong suit) and unmasked him as the bug-eyed, butt-probing cattle mutilator he really is. All of the guard had to have their memories wiped and extra deep probes...Lovebirds Jack Nicholson and Lara Flynn Boyle will team for a remake of THE LONG LONG TRAILER, originally starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Roseanne and Tom Arnold toyed with a remake back in the '90s. Producer Jake Gittes said,"This will be better because Lara is sexier than Roseanne, and Jack doesn't have as thick an accent as Desi."...With nothing whatsoever to lose in Hollywood, Elaine May (ISHTAR) and Michael Cimino (HEAVEN'S GATE) have teamed to make a female oriented action picture to compete with TOMB RAIDER this summer. THE PRODUCORS will use real Hollywood personalities as characters. It starts when the late Don Simpson calls every meglomaniac producer in Hollywood together one night for a big meeting in Griffith Park to call them "suckahs" and weld them into an army to take over the world. Lawrence Bender (Skeet Ulrich) shoots Simpson (Jack Black) and shouts, "Don and Jane did it!" The other producers jump Don Murphy (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who has stopped to look at Simpson's corpse, and Jane Hamsher (Gwyneth Paltrow) flees to safety. The trouble is, she has to make it from Hollywood to Santa Monica with every producer in Hollywood out to kill her. Memorable fights include her battle with The Baseball Fatboys (Scott Rudin and Joel Silver) and her bathroom battle with Jon Peters (Josh Brolin) and Barbara Streisand (Minnie Driver). On the Santa Monica Pier, Jane faces off against Bender, who says he wasted Simpson because "I like doing things like that." Fortunately, Jerry Bruckheimer has shown up to hear the whole thing. Jane turns Bender over to him. He says she's good. She says she's the best...See you in the library.
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...you never go wrong...I think Minnie and Gwynnie would be funny in a movie together, but my original idea for that film is called "The Drop Kick Sandwich" and it's filmed ENTIRELY on VHS, and uhhh there's not too much dialogue. heheheh. Maybe I'll pitch this idea to them on THE PRODUCORS, interrupting them while they talk about which Good Will Hunter dumped them harder. That is all. and "it is time for stormy weather"-The Pixies.
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1. OF MICE AND MEN remade as OF HOODRATS AND PIMPS, starring Eminem as Lenny and Vanilla Ice as George.
2. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN remade as G TREK II: THE WRATH OF SUGE, starring Dr. Dre as Kirk, Tupac as Spock, and Suge as Khan.
3. PINOCCHIO remade as P. WOODY, starring any one of the Cash Money Millionaires (they're as wooden as it gets).
4. 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA remade as 20,000 Gs UNDER THE HOE.
5. A CHRISTMAS CAROL remade as A GANGSTA BITCH CHRISTMAS CAROL, with the Notorious BIG, Eazy-E, and Big Pun as the three ghosts.
6. JANE EYRE remade as J-EY, starring Jennifer Lopez and Puff Daddy.
7. DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE remade as DR. HOMEY & MR. HOOD, starring Mystikal and DMX, respectively.
8. FRANKENSTEIN remade as GANGSTASTEIN, with Dre as the doctor and Snoop Doggy Dogg as his less-than-intimidating creation.
We're talkin' box office gold, baby!
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This ceased to be funny about 7 scrolls down the screen ago....somewhere near the beginning of the tb actually. Or was it in fact the beginning.
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