Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Father Geek and Harry and everyone in Austin are all at the QT Cinco festivities tonight, and I don't care that I'm just hanging out in LA. I don't care at all. Nope. Not one little bit. I didn't even wanna be there. I coulda gone. You betcha. I just chose not to. And... and... AND DAMN THEM ALL FOR HAVING FUN WITHOUT ME!! At least I can take heart in the fact that Elston Gunn is also at home, on the job, turning in another kick-ass Weekly Recap. He knows what I'm talking about! Fun? Tarantino? Spaghetti westerns? WHO NEEDS 'EM!?!?
TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CASTING
* Colin Farrell will join Al Pacino in the suspense thriller THE FARM for
director Jamie Foley and Spyglass Entertainment. It's about a young CIA
agent and his complex relationshipp with a mentor who double-crosses him.
Shooting begins this November.
* Wyclef Jean will star in the Cess Silvera's gangster drama SHOTTAS about
two Jamaican thugs who get together and take on Miami. Ky-Mani Marley,
Spragga Benz, Paul Campbell and Louie Rankin also star, with a cameo by
boxer Lennox Lewis. Jean will also provide the picture's soundtrack.
* Italian actress Monica Bellucci (MALENA) will star as the female lead
opposite Bruce Willis in the drama MAN OF WAR for Revolution Studios. Alex
Lasker and Pat Cirillo wrote the script about a special forces unit that is
sent to a Africa to retrieve a doctor doing humanitarian work in a small
village before a civil war reaches her. The woman refuses to go with them
unless the 40 villagers get to leave as well.
* Halle Berry is in talks to join Ben Affleck in GIGLI for writer/director
Martin Brest. It's about a hit man who is assigned to kidnap a district
attorney's simpleton younger brother out of a home for the mentally
challenged. In the process he gets together with a gun-toting female sent
to supervise him. Justin Bartha will also star. Shooting begins in early
November.
* Kip Pardue (DRIVEN), Jessica Biel and Thomas Ian Nicholas are in final
talks to join James Van Der Beek and Shannyn Sossamon in THE RULES OF
ATTRACTION for writer/director Roger Avary. The pic is based on the 1988
novel by Bret Easton Ellis and is set in the height of the 1980s Reagan era
at a small liberal arts college in New England. The story centers on three
students as they try to sort through a romantic triangle and other travails
of the postmodern undergrad.
* Edward Norton and Emily Watson are in talks to star in Universal's RED
DRAGON for director Brett Ratner and producers Dino and Martha De
Laurentiis. Anthony Hopkins is back as the psychiatrist-turned-cannibal
Hannibal Lecter for the pic, based on Thomas Harris' 1981 best-selling
crime-thriller novel. Ted Tally adapted the screenplay.
* Michael Douglas is developing and planning to co-star in a film adaptation
of Arthur Miller's play THE RIDE DOWN MOUNT MORGAN. Milos Forman may
develop and direct the project.
* Laura Linney is in advanced talks to star opposite Kevin Spacey in the
capital punishment drama THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE for Universal and director
Alan Parker. Shooting begins this fall.
DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS
* Universal Pictures has grabbed an untitled adventure pitch from Owen A.
Gottlieb and Stephen Susco, based on the real-life exploits of a CIA
candidate/international investigative firms employee who, since she was 12,
has devoted her life to becoming a superhero. Gottlieb and Susco learned of
this woman in a profile on National Public Radio that they have optioned.
* Miramax Films has purchased MY BABY'S MAMA, a comedy written by Eddie
Griffin and Damon "Coke" Daniels, as a starring vehicle for Griffin, John
Leguizamo, LL Cool J and Lil' Kim. The comedy focuses on African-American
fathers who must come to terms with taking responsibility for their
children.
* Jeff Davis sold his thriller INDELIBLE to Palomar Pictures for music video
helmer Howard Greenhalgh to direct. It's about a couple's attempt to
apprehend the man who killed their only child.
* Rob Moreland will write the bigscreen adaptation of the German TV series
"SimsalaGrimm," a parody of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, for producer
John Williams and Greenlight Media.
* Martin Campbell (THE MASK OF ZORRO) is now set to direct Angelina Jolie in
BEYOND BORDERS for Mandalay Pictures. The story centers on a decade-long
romance between an international relief worker and a socialite. The movie
looks to be finally getting off the ground for a Dec. 15 production start
date.
* Damien O'Donnell (EAST IS EAST) will direct HEARTLANDS for Miramax about a
lovesick man who tries to steal back his wife from another guy. Michael
Sheen (upcoming FOUR FEATHERS) will star. Shooting begins next month.
* Nigel Cole (SAVING GRACE) will direct ROMANTIC COMEDY for MGM and Bob
Cooper's Landscape Entertainment. The pic is a spoof on romantic comedies
and centers on a guy who schemes to win the love of a woman by borrowing
from the plots of various films in the genre. Lance Khazei wrote the script
with a rewrite by Jeff Lowell.
* Taylor Hackford is developing and will direct the biopic UNCHAIN MY HEART:
THE RAY CHARLES STORY for Crusader Entertainment. Jimmy White has written
the script.
* Writer Gina Wendkos is working on a script for a sequel to Disney's THE
PRINCESS DIARIES.
* Rob Schmidt (CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN SUBURBIA) is in final talks to direct
the horror/thriller WRONG TURN for Newmarket Capital Group, Summit
Entertainment and Stan Winston Prods. Alan McElroy (SPAWN) wrote the script
about six people trapped in the middle of a West Virginia wilderness who are
hunted by cannibalistic mountain men grossly disfigured through generations
of in-breeding. Cameraman Matthew Libatique (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) is
shooting the pic.
* Universal Pictures has acquired an untitled adventure comedy pitch from
writer Dan Schneider (upcoming PAY OR PLAY aka BIG FAT LIAR) for
Tollin/Robbins Prods. to produce. The pitch tells the story of a group of
disenfranchised kids who save the world from an alien invasion.
* Writer-director Gavin O'Connor (TUMBLEWEEDS) is attached to direct PRIDE
AND GLORY for Intermedia Films about the professional and personal lives of
members of the NYPD.
* Panoptic Pictures has grabbed the Nicholl Fellowship-winning script
AKEELAH AND THE BEE, written by Doug Atchison, about an 11-year-old girl
from South Central Los Angeles who overcomes the pressures of her
environment to compete in the National Spelling Bee.
* Chris Kattan and "Saturday Night Live" writer Scott Wainio are working on
an untitled comedy for Paramount about a guy whose wife is driving him nuts.
When he finds out she's doing this on purpose, he pretends to be mentally
insane as a way of beating her at her own game. The pic is being developed
as a starring vehicle for Kattan.
* Sean Hood (HALLOWEEN: HOMECOMING) is currently writing CURSED for
Dimension and producer Kevin Williamson as well as CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE for
director Andrzej Sekula about eight strangers who wake up in a cube-shaped
room not knowing how they got there or how to get out. They must unlock the
secrets of the hypercube which takes place in the fourth dimension where our
laws of physics don't apply.
* Agatha Dominik and Robin Lister have written THE DEATH OF CONRAD-SHEPPERD,
picked up by DreamWorks from Paramount, about betrayal and revenge set in
part against the Cold War.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS
* Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures have optioned the feature and TV
rights to ECTO-KID, a short story based on the comic book property owned by
writer and director Clive Barker. The Razorline/Marvel comic book series,
co-written by Larry Wachowski, centers on Dex Mungo, the love child of a
psychic woman and the ghost of a murdered man. Dex can see the living with
one eye and ghosts with his other eye. Barker will produce the film with
Don Murphy (FROM HELL).
* Disney Co. has acquired the rights to BIG DADDY DANGER, the upcoming DC
comic book created and written by Adam Pollina. The story centers on a
father who's a wrestler by day and secret agent by night.
* Harold Ramis has exited the director's chair of the action comedy RULE
NUMBER THREE due to either creative differences (according to Ramis' camp)
or scheduling conflicts (according to Fox). The pic is about a cocky
firearms dealer who bullies someone he thinks is a regular guy, but is
really an assassin.
* Disney has picked up the rights to MY GUY, Sarah Weeks' children's novel,
about two rival classmates who try to sabotage their parents' engagement,
for Storyline Entertainment to produce.
* Quentin Tarantino has finished his KILL BILL script and will wait until
January to begin preproduction when Uma Thurman has her baby, as opposed to
recasting her part. Production on that film begins next May or June. In
the meantime, he will finish his script GLORIOUS BASTARDS, a World War II
"guys on a mission" movie.
* Playboy Enterprises Inc. and Threshold Entertainment (MORTAL KOMBAT) are
joining forces to make mainstream feature films that will take the Playboy
brand into a new arena. First up are two broad comedies entitled A NIGHT AT
THE PLAYBOY MANSION and PLAYMATE OF THE YEAR. The former follows two guys
trying to sneak into a party at the famed mansion.
*See anything interesting? Any projects you want to hear more about?
Talk Back.
Until next week...
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
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