Father Geek has received another great week in review from Elston Gunn our regular weekly historian. I won't take up your time any more. Here's Elston...
CASTING
* Cuba Gooding Sr., father of Cuba Gooding Jr., will make his Hollywood
debut in both the action thriller GEDO and the drama CHILDREN OF THE
STRUGGLE.
* Jean Smart will play Chevy Chase's wife in SNOW DAY for director Chris
Koch and Paramount/Nickelodeon.
* Richard Grieco ("21 Jump St.") will play the lead in VITAL PARTS about
Chinese labor camps that sell body parts. Athena Massey (THE NUTTY
PROFESSOR) also stars.
* Kirsten Dunst, Julie Walters and James Fox will star in ALL FORGOTTEN, set
in the 1800s, it follows a boy who falls in love with a daughter of a
princess and finds himself caught in a love triangle. Reverge Anselmo is
writing/directing the pic based on Ivan Turgerev's FIRST LOVE and Anton
Chekov's THE PEASANT WOMAN.
* Heath Ledger (10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU) will play the son of Mel
Gibson's character in THE PATRIOT, the Revolutionary War pic directed by
Roland Emmerich and written by Robert Rodat.
* Danny Glover and Angela Bassett will co-star in BOESMAN AND LENA, a film
version of Athol Fugard's play. Shooting begins May 10 on the
anit-apartheid for director John Berry.
* Jeanne Tripplehorn (VERY BAD THINGS) will play a model in writer/director
John Duigan's suspense flick PARANOIA also starring Iain Glen, Ewen Bremner
and Kevin Whately. Jessica Alba plays the lead.
* Monica Lewinsky is in talks to star in an Italian comedy possibly produced
by Filmauro.
* Anthony Hopkins will play Tom Cruise's boss in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 for
director John Woo and Paramount.
* Tim Curry, Olivia Williams, Balthazar Getty, Forest Whitaker, Stacy
Edwards and Daniel London have wrapped shooting FOUR DOGS PLAYING POKER, an
indie thriller about four friends who lose a stolen statuette to an art
dealer. They devise a scheme where they each take out a $1 million life
insurance policy naming the others as beneficiaries--a lottery selecting a
victim and a killer follows and a bluffing game ensues. Paul Rachman
directs Shawn Thompson and Steve Roberts' script.
* Natalie Portman (upcoming STAR WARS EPISODE 1) is in final talks to play a
pregnant teen in WHERE THE HEART IS based on the novel by Billie Letts and
to be directed by Matt Williams ("Roseanne," "Home Improvement"). Shooting
begins in June in AUSTIN TEXAS on the story about a girl who is dumped by her boyfriend at a
Wal-Mart in Oklahoma. With no money or extra clothes, she makes the store
her home.
* Susan Sarandon and Howard Koch will produce QUIETUS, an 1880s-set western
in which Sarandon will star as a mother of 3 sons.
* Vinnie Jones (LOCK, STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS) joins Nicolas Cage in
GONE IN 60 SECONDS for producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
* Anthony Anderson (LIFE) will play one of Jim Carrey's black sons in ME,
MYSELF AND IRENE. He'll also play a bodyguard in ROMEO MUST DIE.
* Obba Babatunde, Hill Harper, Phylicia Rashad, Billy Dee Williams, Marla
Gibbs, Talia Shire and Rae Dawn Chong have been cast in THE VISIT, a family
drama written, produced and directed by Jordan Walker Pearlman about the
relationship between two brothers, one of which is in jail for a crime he
may not have committed.
* Famke Jenssen (GOLDENEYE) will star opposite John Hannah in the con artist
pic CIRCUS for director Rob Walker. Eddie Izzard, Peter Stormare and Tiny
Lister will also star.
* Kelsey Grammer joins Robert De Niro and Ed Burns in New Line's thriller 15
MINUTES. Shooting begins in June. Grammer will play a tabloid TV host.
* Ashton Kutcher (Kelso from "That 70s Show") will have parts in 3 Miramax
flicks: DOWN TO YOU, TEXAS RANGERS and REINDEER GAMES. Rosario Dawson (HE
GOT GAME) joins DOWN TO YOU as well, and Marco Leonardi (CINEMA PARADISIO)
grabs a role in TEXAS RANGERS.
* Newcomer Shane Edelman will play a guy in love with Clea Duvall's
character in SEE JANE RUN produced by Doug Liman (SWINERS, GO).
* Stacy Edwards (IN THE COMPANY OF MEN) will play a friend of Madonna's
character in THE NEXT BIG THING.
* Jake Lloyd (STAR WARS EPISODE 1) will star in MADISON, a father-son action
drama set in 1971. William Bindley directs the story set against hydroplane
boat racing.
* John Leguizamo is in final talks to play the villain Peoples Hernandez
opposite Samuel L. Jackson in John Singleton's remake of SHAFT.
* David Schwimmer joins Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and Kiefer Sutherland in
PICKING UP THE PIECES for director Alfonso Arau (A WALK IN THE CLOUDS).
Schwimmer will play a fallen priest.
* Shane West and Ben Foster (upcoming LIBERTY HEIGHTS), James Franco (NEVER
BEEN KISSED), Marla Sokoloff ("The Practice") and Jodi Lynn O'Keefe (SHE'S
ALL THAT) will star in I'LL BE YOU, a Cyrano de Bergerac tale set in high
school directed by David Raynr.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Antonia Bird (RAVENOUS) may direct NOEL for Fox about four interwoven
storiesa about loneliness in New York in Christmas. Bird will work with
David Holland on the script.
* Craig Moss and Steven Schoenburg have written SHORT HILLS for Original
Films and Newmarket Captial Group (SAVING RYAN'S PRIVATES) about a college
grad who wants to make a porn film.
* LeVar Burton is co-writing MASTER OF THE FAR EAST, based on the true story
of turn-of-the-century scientist Baird Spalding's journals of his travels to
the Far East. Burton may direct.
* Bronwen Hughes (FORCES OF NATURE) is in talks to direct an untitled pic
about news photographer Dan Eldon for Columbia Pictures. Jan Sandi (SHINE)
wrote the script.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Lexington Road Productions bought the rights to THE VI MURPHY STORY, a
pitch from writer/producer Ginny Cerella and director/producer Judith
Vogelsang about the true story of a journalist jailed for refusing to name
her source in a judicial corruption case.
* Castle Rock, Elizabeth Hurley and Hugh Grant bought CAESAR'S ASHES, a
pitch to be written as a flick for Grant about an insurance salesman from
London teamed up with a streetwise black sidekick to find an urn that
contains the ashes of Julius Casear.
* Universal bought the feature film rights to Mark Barrowcliffe's GOLDEN
GIRL for Imagine Entertainment. It's about two young men whose friend
commits suicide over a girl. They search for the female, find her, both
fall for her and fight for her love.
* Warner Bros. has picked up Gary Kinder's novel SHIP OF GOLD IN THE DEEP
BLUE SEA about an engineer who led a crew to recover a sunken ship from 1857
with multi-million dollar gold cargo.
REMAKE OF THE WEEK: Columbia Pictures is planning a remake of CACTUS
FLOWER, the 1969 comedy that launched Goldie Hawn's film career. Daisy
Mayer (PARTY GIRL) is attached to write and direct the new version.
There you have it. Another week down, another batch of faces and
flicks for the new millenium. Not a lot of writer/director attachments this
week, but some eclectic, diverse projects nonetheless. *** Lewinsky in an
Italian flick? Hope she doesn't blow this opportunity. What if Roberto
Benigni signed on...what a combination indeed. *** A lot of big ensemble
casts this week: ALL FORGOTTEN, FOUR DOGS PLAYING POKER, THE VISIT, I'LL BE
YOU. *** Stacy Edwards, Ashton Kutcher and Anthony Andersen are getting a
lot of work. *** How 'bout the premise to VITAL PARTS, eh? And with
Richard Grieco no less. *** PICKING UP THE PIECES is just getting more and
more interesting each time I read about it. Script anyone? Please? ***
Kelsey Grammer and Robert De Niro, the two kings of flawless delivery, in 15
MINUTES. Sounds very cool...at least as cool as Anthony Hopkins joing MI:2.
So do you think ENTRAPMENT will knock THE MATRIX out of the #1 spot?
If so, it couldn't reign for long...2 and a half weeks at least. Enjoy.
Keep those emails comin' and until next week...
Elston Gunn
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