Week in Review: Screenwriters on the move...
June 25th, 2003
**HOT** Mark Romanek (ONE HOUR PHOTO) will direct and Eric Roth will adapt A COLD CASE, starring Tom Hanks, for Universal Pictures. The fact-based drama concerns Gotham District Attorney's chief investigator Andy Rosenzweig. Before he retires, he vows to solve the 27-year-old murder of a friend, even though the case couldn't be colder. It is a crime that has haunted him his entire career.
* Menno Meyjes (MAX) is in talks to direct the Universal/Imagine crime thriller INSIDE MAN about a tense hostage situation at a bank where a tough cop must match wits with a clever bank robber who sets out to pull off the perfect bank robbery.
* David Ranes will script two projects for Whitelight Entertainment: adapting Larry Barkdull's novel THE MOURNING DOVE and an untitled action-adventure project. The novel is a coming-of-age drama about a young boy who struggles to overcome the tragic loss of his parents through the help of his belligerent but well-meaning grandfather, his clever neighborhood friends and a reformed street-wise criminal.
* Brett Ratner is in negotiations to direct John Travolta in MGM's BE COOL, the sequel to GET SHORTY for Jersey Films.
* Elizabeth Hunter (THE FIGHTING TEMPTATIONS) will write the animated pic LAFIYA for Disney. The plot is being kept under wraps, with the only known details being that it's set in Africa and centers on a young female lead character.
* Matthew Vaughn (SNATCH producer) will direct with an adaptation of J.J. Connolly's London crime novel LAYER CAKE. Daniel Craig will play a savvy drug dealer who wants to quit while he's ahead. However, when his final score spins out of control, he finds out there are powerful forces with no intention of letting him go straight. Michael Gambon, Colm Meaney, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Flemyng and Sienna Miller will co-star. Production starts June 30.
* Charles Dance has written and will direct Maggie Smith, Judie Dench, Angelica Huston and Michael Gambon in LADIES IN LAVENDER, an adaptation of an early 20th-century short story by little-known writer William J. Locke, about two unmarried sisters in 1930s Cornwall whose lives and emotions are stirred up when they find a half-drowned young man washed up on a beach.
* Argentine director Lucrecia Martel (THE SWAMP) will direct LA NINA SANTA (THE HOLY GIRL) for Lita Stantic Prods. It's a coming-of-age story about a zealous girl on a mission to save the soul of a 60-year-old man.
* Craig Moss and Steve Schoenburg are in talks with Emmett/Furla Films to write the script NATIONAL LAMPOON'S BACK TO COLLEGE about two young successful bachelors who realize there are a few things that they've missed out on, especially when it comes to their college experiences. So they decide to pose as regular guys and enroll in college classes, armed with the wealth and intelligence they have gathered in their adult lives.
* New Line picked up the action/comedy pitch RIDE ALONG from writer Greg Coolidge about a risk-averse second-grade teacher who plans on marrying the girl of his dreams but first must accompany her brother -- a tough, bad-ass cop -- on a ride-along from hell.
* Writer/director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith (aka Hammer & Tongs) will work with writer Karey Kirkpatrick (CHICKEN RUN) on a feature adaptation of Douglas Adams' HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY for Spyglass Entertainment. Kirkpatrick did a polish on a script written by the author.
* Joshua Stern will write PAPER DRAGON, a family action/adventure about a boy and his ancient Chinese warrior pal, for producer Mimi Polk Gitlin.
* Juan Calvo will direct Paz Vega and Santi Millan in TAM-TAM from his own script for Columbia Films Producciones Espanolas. Production starts Aug. 4. It's about the arranged love affair and then supposed marriage between two contestants in a dating TV reality show.
* Hype Williams will direct the psychological thriller CAPTIVITY, written by Larry Cohen (PHONE BOOTH), for Fox Searchlight and Urban Entertainment. It's about two strangers who are kidnapped and manipulated by an unseen sociopath.
* Disney picked up an untitled comedy pitch by writer Dan Mazer ("Da Ali G Show") that Jack Black will star in and produce. It's a broad contemporary comedy about an ordinary man who hits hard times and is forced to sell something dear to him.
* Ronald Harwood (THE PIANIST) will adapt the Thomas Hauser novel MARK TWAIN REMEMBERS for DreamWorks. James Franco is attached to play the young author Samuel Clemens as he sets off from Missouri and meets up with a slave boxer and his master/promoter. Clemens becomes determined to free the slave, but when his scheme is successful, the slave's ex-master tries to win him back by rigging a bare-knuckle brawl against a larger, more experienced opponent. Harwood will also adapt Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, which Kennedy/Marshall will produce for Universal Pictures. The book recounts the life of the one-time editor-in-chief of French magazine Elle, who, after a 1995 stroke left him completely paralyzed, wrote his memoirs by blinking his left eye in an alphabet code.
* Bull's Eye Entertainment snapped up Brian Horiuchi's screenplay THE GLASS GUN about a man plunged into a mystery in which he must discover who is responsible for killing the friends he cares most about.
* James Mangold will direct Columbia Pictures' remake of its 1957 Western 3:10 TO YUMA with Cathy Konrad producing. Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (2 FAST 2 FURIOUS) will write the script.
* Beeban Kidron (TO WONG FOO, THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAR) will direct BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON for Working Title Films. The follow-up will star Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. Shooting is expected to begin in November. Andrew Davies and Helen Fielding adapted from Fielding's own follow-up to her first Bridget Jones book. In it, Bridget discovers that life with Mark Darcy isn't quite as perfect as she dreamed.
* Fox 2000 purchased the Sean McGinly comedy script MULLIGAN about a portly football lover who tries to become a field goal kicker for the Washington Redskins. FilmColony will produce.
* Freestyle Pictures has optioned Valerie Frankel's comic novel THE ACCIDENTAL VIRGIN for Heather Graham to topline and produce. Nicole Eastman is penning the adaptation of the story of a young woman who hasn't had a lover in almost a year and becomes terrified that she's at risk of being "revirginized." She goes on a quest to get a man in her bed but discovers she's not as easy as she thinks.
* David Duchovny will direct HOUSE OF D from his own script for Ovation Entertainment and Bob Yari Prods. The indie pic is a drama about a man coming to terms with his past and present friendships. Duchovny will also star with his wife Tea Leoni, Robin Williams and Tyler Hoechlin.
* Christian Papierniak and Deena Berezin have set up their script THE INTERN at Mosaic Media Group, based on an idea by Nina Sadowsky. It's described as a comedy in the vein of WORKING GIRL.
* Ian Corson is writing the supernatural thriller SECOND COMING, loosely based on an original story idea by James Woods about a recently paroled thief who finds himself entrusted with guarding a boy believed to be a clone of Jesus Christ, for Castle Rock Pictures..
* Project Greenlight finalist Joe Otting will direct fellow finalist Robert Lynn's script PRISONER for Splendid Pictures. The story centers on a Hollywood director who, while scouting locations for his next film, is taken hostage in an abandoned prison.
* New Line has picked up an untitled Charles Dickens project from writer Samantha Silva with her husband, Michael Hoffman, attached to direct. The project puts a romantic dramedy about the events and inspiration surrounding Dickens as he writes A CHRISTMAS CAROL. As he struggles to write the book, he falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a ghost.
* Swedish helmer/scribe Anders Nilsson will direct Jakob Eklund, Irina Bjorklund, Marie Richardson and Nicholas Farrell in THIRD WAVE, the final episode in a popular cop thriller trilogy.
(Source: Reuters/Hollywood Reporter)
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