Father Geek herewith Elston's review of the past workweek out in tinseltown. Lots of cool news... Oh yeah, we here at Geek Headquarters in Austin are painfully aware of Director Ted Demme's passing. He was a long time supporter of this site, and a sometime spy. Harry will be posting his thoughts on this tragic event later, right now he is collecting and couping with his feelings about the loss of his friend... look for it later today... much later.
Now on to Elston's regular column...
THE WEEKLY RECAP...
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Alicia Witt will join Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant in Castle Rock's
untitled romantic comedy from writer/director Mark Lawrence. Production
begins Feb. 25 in New York for a Christmas release. The film's plot is being
kept under wraps, but is said to explore whether it is ever too late to say
"I love you." Bullock will play a very intelligent but slightly neurotic
attorney, with Grant as her rich, charming, and irresponsible client. Witt
will play a Harvard grad hired by Bullock to represent Grant when she leaves
the business.
* JJ Feild is in final talks to star in the title role of Peter Greenaway's
trilogy of films, THE TULSE LUPER SUITCASE. The first installment, THE EARLY
YEARS, starts shooting March 4. Greenaway has been writing the project for
15 years. The story revolves around 92, the atomic number of uranium on the
periodic table. There are 92 characters in the films, with 92 stories
involving 92 suitcases, each containing 92 items.
* Sandra Bullock will star in and produce BRIDESMAIDS, an original female
buddy comedy feature set at a wedding at Martha's Vineyard, for Revolution
Studios. Liz Brixius is writing the screenplay.
* Christopher Walken is in talks to star alongside Tom Hanks and Leonardo
DiCaprio in Steven Spielberg's CATCH ME IF YOU CAN for DreamWorks. Walken
will play the father of Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie based on the
true-life memoirs of Frank Abagnale Jr., the youngest man to make the FBI's
10 Most Wanted List.
* Vincent Cassel has joined the cast of SIN EATER, the 20th Century Fox
supernatural thriller, for director Brian Helgeland. Production begins next
week. Cassel will play the "sin eater," who gives people absolution outside
of the church by literally eating their sins.
* Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sigourney Weaver will lend
their vocal talents to the animated comedy pic HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER for
Vanguard Films' John H. Williams and Greenlight Media. The project is set in
the fairy tale land of Simsala and explores what happens when the balance of
good and evil is messed up. There's also an emotional love triangle among
Ella, her ideal prince and her unknown true love, who turns out to be the
palace dishwasher. Weaver plays the evil, sexy stepmother Frida.
* DMX and Jet Li will star in CRADLE TO THE GRAVE for Warner Bros., producer
Joel Silver and director Andrzej Bartkowiak (ROMEO MUST DIE, EXIT WOUNDS).
Shooting begins next month for a fall release. It's about an unlikely
pairing of a law enforcement officer and a streetwise entrepreneur who is
suspected of being involved in a diamond heist. They try to find the crook's
daughter, who's been kidnapped by a man bent on acquiring diamonds as part
of a larger plan for mass destruction.
* Rachael Leigh Cook, Melanie Griffith and Hugh Dancy will star in the
jewelry heist pic TEMPO for director Eric Styles (DREAMING OF JOSEPH LEES).
The story centers on an American who goes to Paris to work in a jewelry
shop, where she meets two people, who are planning a heist of the store.
Production begins in February in Paris and Luxembourg.
* Nicole Kidman is attached to star in Fox Searchlight's COURT AND SPARK
about Eleanor of Aquitaine, who became queen of both France and England in
the 12th century. She was the daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaine and was
in line to inherit most of southern France. However, her desire to rule was
hindered by her gender. She married King Louis VII and became queen of
France, but had an affair with Henry Plantagenet, the Duke of Normandy who
would become king of England. Eleanor had the Pope annul her marriage, and
she soon became queen of England. Alan Howard will write the script.
* Toby Stephens (ONEGIN) will play the lead villain in MGM's latest James
Bond film for director Lee Tamahori. Production will begin at the end of the
month and continue through the spring.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Warner Bros. has snatched up the horror pitch DEATHWATCH by Michael Weiss
about a group of teens who discover a haunted Web site that predicts their
future. The project is tentatively scheduled for a Halloween 2003 release.
Silver Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment and MBST Entertainment will
produce.
* Escape Artists has grabbed the thriller pitch UNTITLED HARVARD HEIST from
Stephen Susco. It's about two Harvard Law students who pull off a robbery of
the campus credit union and get away with it only to later caught up in a
web of deceit involving a new professor.
* Director Stephen Sommers will direct THE ARGONAUTS, set on the eve of
WWII, about a group of treasure hunters who think they've know the location
of the fabled sunken ship of Jason and the Argonauts The adventurers wind up
in the land of Greek mythology, battling Cyclops and a minotaur. The project
is an homage to filmmaker Ray Harryhausen. Sommers is developing a script
with writer Simon Kinberg.
* Andrew Davis (THE FUGITIVE) is developing 3 MILES DOWN, based on Clyde
Burleson's book THE JENNIFER PROJECT, about the story of a fugitive Russian
nuclear sub and a salvage mission that nearly started WWIII. Nicolas Falacci
and Cheryl Heuton are writing the script.
* Nick Cassavetes (upcoming JOHN Q) will direct New Line's thriller SOLACE,
written by Ted Griffin, about a psychic hired by the FBI to find a serial
killer in New York. Shooting is expected to begin in the spring.
* Marc Forster (MONSTER'S BALL) will direct NEVER LAND, a biopic about PETER
PAN creator James Barrie, for Miramax Films. It's based on Allan Knee's play
THE MAN WHO WAS PETER PAN which tells the story of Barrie, who was inspired
to write his popular play after bonding with his neighbors in
turn-of-the-century London.
* Chris D'Arienzo's script THE JORDEYS has been picked up out of Warner
Bros. turnaround by producer Scott Rudin and Paramount. The screenplay is a
mockumentary about the rise, fall and rise of two teenage movie stars.
Writer Ed Solomon will producer with Rudin.
* David Auburn (PROOF) will write an adaptation of Paul Watkins' thriller
THE FORGER for Miramax Films. It's about an American student who arrives in
Paris in 1939 and gets involved in a scheme to replace French masterpieces
with forgeries before the Nazis seize them.
* Danish director Bille August (PELLE THE CONQUEROR, SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW)
will cast his next film in southern California for the first time on the pic
WITHOUT APPARENT MOTIVE. The L.A. CONFIDENTIAL-esque thriller was written by
Eric Blakeney. Production begins this spring.
* Andrew Fleming is in final talks to direct Michael Douglas in TILL DEATH
DO US PART for Warner Bros./Franchise Pictures. The project is a remake of
the 1979 pic THE IN-LAWS and begins shooting in late spring. Ed Solomon
wrote the most recent draft of the screenplay.
* John Hughes will write and produce the family comedy THE GRISBEYS for
Revolution Studios about a wealthy family that loses all of its money and
must move to the other side of the tracks at Christmas.
* Ned Zeman and Daniel Bernstein will the write a script based on Zeman's
upcoming Vanity Fair article "The Millionaire Fugitive" for Revolution
Studios and Bruce Willis' Cheyenne Enterprises. The story centers on
Gilberte Najamy and her quest to solve the murder of her friend Kathie
Durst, wife of real estate scion Robert Durst. Najamy had tried to get her
friend to leave her husband and when Kathie went missing, Najamy became
convinced she had been killed by Durst. Meanwhile, Durst remains under
investigation in connection with several murders.
* Christopher Dean Johnston will write the comedy PANTS ON FIRE for Disney
and producer Rachel Pfeffer. It's about a liar so compulsive that Liars
Anonymous kicks him out of their group. However, when he becomes entangled
in a dangerous game of international espionage, his real identity is
uncertain.
* Neil LaBute will adapt and direct a feature based on his latest Off
Broadway play THE SHAPE OF THINGS, keeping the original cast in tact. Paul
Rudd, Rachel Weisz, Gretchen Mol and Frederick Weller will star in the story
of a man who becomes the raw material for a student's high-concept art
project. Shooting begins in February.
* David Berenbaum has written HAUNTED HOUSE for Disney, inspired by its
theme park attraction: Haunted Mansion (a la THE COUNTRY BEARS and PIRATES
OF THE CARIBBEAN). The script is about a father who has neglected his family
and encounters a ghost while on a job interview.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* New Line Cinema has picked up the feature rights to the 1991 wartime bio
LIEUTENTANT RAMSEY'S WAR: FROM HORSE SOLDIER TO GUERRILLA COMMANDER with
Peter Kosminsky (WHITE OLEANDER) attached to direct. Edwin Ramsey and
Stephen Rivele wrote the book about the U.S. Army lieutenant who refused to
surrender after Japan took the Philippines in 1942, where he joined the
Filipino resistance -- commanding 40,000 guerrilla fighters. The Japanese
put the leader at the top of their death list, but Ramsey rejected the
opportunity to escape and stood his ground until Gen. Douglas MacArthur
arrived in 1945.
* Radar Pictures is developing a feature adaptation of David Howarth's WWII
book WE DIE ALONE. It's the true story of allied commando Jan Baalsrud, who
infiltrated Nazi-occupied Norway and teamed with villagers from a remote
enclave to avert the Nazis.
* Universal has optioned Lian Hearn's ACROSS THE NIGHTINGALE FLOOR, the
first book in a trilogy of novels about a Japanese orphan, for producers
Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. It focuses on a 16-year-old who is the
only survivor when his village is massacred by an evil warlord.
GUNN SHOTS
(NOT from the trades)
* TromaDance 2002 is this week in Park City, Utah. Visit Their Great Site for more info.
* There is a move to get Spirit Creek's Spiderman song on the new SPIDER MAN
movie. Visit http://www.spiritcreek.net/spiderman.html
* Check out This Site for SIREN outtakes.
* SERIOUS DOG FILMS announces the completion of principal photography on
Emmy Award-winning writer Tom Sheppard's feature directorial debut, WOULD I
LIE TO YOU? The romantic comedy is loosely inspired by Oscar Wilde's THE
IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Brad Rowe and Susan Ward star.
Until next week...
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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