Hey folks, Harry here with another of Elston's wonderful WEEKLY RECAPS that keep you from having to sort through all the stories from Variety and Hollywood Reporter and just get the raw data. Of course... all good geeks check them two as the sun rises.... right? Well, I'll let Elston tell you about UGLY AS SHIT!

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Brad Renfro and Dominique Swain will star in HAPPY CAMPERS for New Line and director Daniel Waters (HEATHERS writer) about college freshmen who spend a summer as camp counselors and spice up the camp's daily monotonous activities. Shooting will begin this fall in North Carolina.

* Loren Dean (MUMFORD) join's Warner Bros.' SPACE COWBOYS for director Clint Eastwood. He'll play a young astronaut in the pic.

* Famke Janssen joins X-MEN, playing Jean Grey, a mutant gifted with telekinesis and telepathy.

* Bridget Fonda is in talks to star in the indie pic DELIVERING MILO for director Nick Castle (MR. WRONG), IMMI Pictures and executive producer Wim Wenders. Albert Finney is also in talks to star in the story of a young boy in heaven waiting to be born, but when he refuses to live on Earth, an angel shows him the value of life. Shooting begins this week.

* Paul Reiser joins ONE NIGHT AT MCCOOL'S with Liv Tyler and Michael Douglas.

* William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker will star in David Mamet's STATE AND MAINE for Fine Line Features about what happens when a movie goes on location in a small town. Shooting begins next month.

* Jennifer Connelly joins POLLACK starring Ed Harris about the life of artist Jackson Pollack.

* Katharine Towne (upcoming TOWN AND COUNTRY) joins Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer in WHAT LIES BENEATH.

* Carmine Giovinazzo (FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME) will star with John Ritter in the indie thriller TERROR TRACT about a real estate agent who can't sell three of his listings due to their murderous history.

* Aidan Quinn and Janet McTeer will star in SONGCATCHER for director Maggie Greenwald about a music scholar who heads deep into Appalachia at the turn of the century and discovers several folk songs and possible love in a mountain man.

* Rachel Griffiths, Alan Rickman, Josh Hartnett, Rachel Leigh Cook and Bill Nighy will star in the black comedy NEVER BETTER written by Simon Beaufoy (THE FULL MONTY) and to be directed by Paddy Breathnach (I WENT DOWN) about two competing beauty salons. Natasha Richardson is in talks to join the pic as well.

* Helen Hunt will star opposite Richard Gere in Robert Altman's DR. T AND THE WOMEN.

* Mike Myers is getting $20m to star in SPROCKETS for Universal and Imagine Entertainment. Based on the "Saturday Night Live" skit, Myers will play the German talk show host Dieter who travels to the U.S. to rescue his kidnapped monkey.

* Natasha Henstridge joins Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck in BOUNCE for director Don Roos.

* Catherine McCormack signed to star in THE WEIGHT OF WATER also starring Sean Penn and Sarah Polley for director Kathryn Bigelow.

* Dean Norris is now among the cast of New Line's THE CELL starring Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn.

* Dana Ashbrook ("Twin Peaks") joins the cast of THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH from writer-director-producer JFK Ford. He'll play a burned out exec. who falls in love with a care free woman only to discover she's terminally ill.

* Jennifer Love Hewitt is in talks to star in Columbia Pictures' GIRL IN THE CURL which may start shooting in the spring. The story is a romantic comedy-drama about a girl who falls in love with surfing while dealing with the death of her brother.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Sande Zeig will direct THE GIRL about a painter who is having an affair with a Paris nightclub singer. Agatha De La Boulaye, Claire Keim and Cyril Lecomte will star.

* Jersey Films and Columbia Pictures will produce the Richard LaGravenese (FISHER KING, LIVING OUT LOUD) script PEPPERMINT LOUNGE about a Gotham nightclub in the late 50s and early 60s.

* Rob Bowman (THE X-FILES) will direct Fox's RIPTIDE based on a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child about a surgeon who joins a professional treasure hunter on an adventure to a deadly water pit which is believed to be the home of a $2 billion pirate treasure.

* Adam Davis sold his script JUST FRIENDS to New Line. It's a romantic comedy about a guy who is constantly and unjustly rejected by women because they believe their relationship with him is purely platonic.

* Screenwriter Christopher Fink will direct MOVING AUGUST about a young photographer who falls in love with the woman who is moving in his apartment as he is moving out. Eddie McClintock, Sarah Wynter, Alexandra Adi, Brenda Bakke, Todd Tesen, Josh Holloway and Gavin Perry star.

* Screenwriter Karen Leigh Hopkins (STEPMOM) will direct A WOMAN'S A HELLUVA THING, a politically incorrect comedy about a publisher trying to get together with a past love after the death of his mother.

* Laeta Kalogridis will adapt THE FOUNTAIN SOCIETY for director Wes Craven and Jack Rapke's/Robert Zemeckis' Image Movers. Kalogridis recently did a script polish on SCREAM 3.

* Mark Rydell will direct SURVIVORS, a period drama to star Alfred Molina, Sean Penn and Diane Lane based on a script by Peter Ulian about a gangster who falls in love and hires a screenwriter to write comic material for him. The writer subsequently falls in love with the same girl and the gangster isn't laughing.

* Antoine Fuqua (THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS) replaces Stephen Surjik as the director of BAIT starring Kris Kristofferson and Jamie Foxx.

* Image Movers has picked up Mike Binder's script THURSDAY NIGHT about a couple who give themselves a night off from their marriage. Binder has also written (and plans to direct) a project for Tim Allen, who'll co-produce with Binder, about a successful motivational speaker who is a dark personality with a crumbling life once he steps offstage. Binger has also joined THE CONTENDER with Gary Oldman, Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Christian Slater.

* Neil Tolkin sold his pitch and will script AREA 99 for Disney, a buddy cop action movie featuring ground-breaking special effects.

* Robert Wolfe's script ZERO 6 was picked up by Sony. It's a high tech thriller set aboard a space station.

* Touchstone Pictures bought Dennis Osborne's comedy BOOMERANG about a woman who moves back home with her parents, turning their lives upside down.

* Steven Brill (in the cast of BIG DADDY and THE WEDDING SINGER) will direct Adam Sandler in LITTLE NICKY about a father whose son is reluctant to take over the family business because the father is Satan. Shooting is scheduled for an October start.

* Adam Rifkin (DETROIT ROCK CITY) may direct ROCK STARS DON'T TAKE FINALS which he wrote with Steve Bing about two premed students who are swept away by the world's greatest rock star on the night before final exams.

* Thomas Vinterberg (THE CELEBRATION) will direct THE THIRD LIE based on Agota Kristof's trilogy of novels THE NOTEBOOK, THE PROOF and THE THIRD LIE about identical twins who are reunited after being separated their whole lives.

* David D. Stern (upcoming ALL THE RAGE) is directing the Imax film MICHAEL JORDAN TO THE MAX about the life of Michael Jordan.

* Dustin Lee Abraham will script HOW HIGH for Universal and Jersey Shore Films based on an idea by Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man and Redman who are also attached to star. The story follows to guys who smoke some pot that makes them so intelligent they get into Harvard. When they run out of the drug, they have to get through on their wits.

* Brent Forrester ("The Simpsons") will write GAZILLIONAIRE for New Line as a possible directing vehicle for Mike Judge. It's about a wealthy guy who tries to solve his problems with money.

* Andrew Lowery and Andrew Miller (BOYS AND GIRLS) will write a remake of the British TV movie DANCING QUEEN for Miramax about a husband-to-be who ends up stranded on his wedding day after meeting a stripper at his bachelor party.

* Michael Frost Beckner will write the espionage thriller THE THIRD FATE for Columbia about an ex-field officer and a mysterious female spy who join forces to uncover a 30-year-old conspiracy.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Columbia Pictures will develop ALIEN TOY BOX for Devlin and Emmerich's Centropolis Entertainment based on a pitch by Steve Elkins about a lonely boy who finds a toy box in his yard that belongs to a young alien who left it behind on a vacation to Earth.

* MGM picked up the North American rights to THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER starring Cameron Diaz, Glenn Close, Calista Flockhart, Kathy Bates (and/or Baker?), Holly Hunter and Gregory Hines. Directed by Rodrigo Garcia, the film tells five loosely related stories about some women's lives.

* Disney has optioned Meg Cabot's THE PRINCESS DIARIES to develop for Whitney Houston's Brownhouse Productions as a family flick. The story follows a rebellious 16-year-old who discovers she is a princess and reluctantly takes "princess lessons" from her grandmother.

* MGM is getting Francis Ford Coppola to re-cut the film SUPERNOVA, the sci-fi flick starring James Spader, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lou Diamond Phillips, Angela Basset and Robert Forster. Walter Hill directed through principal photography.

* DreamWorks picked up Leif Ueland's memoir ACCIDENTAL PLAYBOY: FROM VIRGIN TO NEAR PORN STAR as a directing vehicle for Brian Robbins (VARSITY BLUES). Ueland, a photographer, was in therapy to improve his sexual skills when he was asked by Playboy to join a bus in search of the "Playmate of the Millennium."

* First Run picked up domestic rights to Michael Apted's 42 UP, the latest in a series of documentaries chronicling the lives of 14 British children (it began with 1964's 7 UP). The film is expected to be released in November.

* Warner Bros. purchased the Philip Stark pitch UGLY AS SHIT for Jamie Foxx to star as the ugliest man in the world who finds a cure for his disorder, but is unfaithful to the woman he loves and who loved him while he was ugly.

So, whaddya think? Famke Janssen as Jean Grey? Coppola editing SUPERNOVA? Mike Myers getting lots of dough for SPROCKETS? How about the title UGLY AS SHIT? Interesting week, folks. There are a lot of intriguing titles out there...plots too. THE THIRD FATE, THE THIRD LIE, ROCK STARS DON'T TAKE FINALS, ALIEN TOY BOX, A WOMAN'S A HELLUVA THING, THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER, GAZILLIONAIRE--the list goes on. "Mad About You" stars Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt join two separate films--both with Liv Tyler in the cast. Coincidence? Yeah.

Until next week...

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com