Elston Gunn's WEEKLY SCRIPT REPORT (Major Sales, Events, and other News!)
October 6th, 2000
* Mike Myers is developing a comedy with DreamWorks inspired by Isaac Mizrahi's three-part comic book THE ADVENTURES OF SANDEE THE SUPERMODEL as a possible starring vehicle for himself. The book follows the events of a blonde beauty who is "discovered" in a coffee shop by a famous designer.
* Sam North will write THE SEASON for Pathe Pictures based on an idea by Aasaf Ainapore, who is attached to direct. The pic will follow an American reporter who poses as a waitress during London's season of sporting and social events during the 1920s. She falls in love with an aristocrat, which leads to an incompatible marriage.
* Steven Gary Banks and Claudia Grazioso have written COEDS, picked up by Warner Bros. and Gaylord Films, for Jorge Saralegui to porduce. It centers on a college football quarterback who needs to win the homecoming game as well as the most popular girl in school, who is running for the Harvest Queen. The two meet up with a mad science professor, end up exhibiting qualities of the opposite sex, and then must search for an antidote before the big game.
* Arnold Kopelson Prods. purchased RED HOLLOW by Byron Willinger and Phillip de Blasi. It's a contemporary thriller set in a haunted prison "where only the innocent survive."
* Matt Johnson will write EIGHT BALL for Fox 2000 about two young couples who take a yacht out for an exotic vacation and get caught up with a charming drifter who turns out to be a deadly contemporary pirate.
* Tom Mantke has written and Cullen Blaine will direct the animated feature SLUSHY THE SNOWMAN for Rhino Films, created by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (ED WOOD, MAN ON THE MOON wirters), who will also produce. It's about a simple-minded snowman who wants to show kids the true meaning of Christmas during a time when businessman are quietly developing Christmas II to take place in July. However, the snowman is quickly co-opted by a liquor company. The pic is now in production and is targeted for release Christmas
2001.
* Video director Paul Hunter will direct the thriller OLD CITY about a cop who is chasing a serial killer across time and space. Jon Cohen wrote the script. Jan De Bont will produce.
* Robert Kuhn (THE CURE, MICKEY BLUE EYES) has written the action thriller RULE NUMBER THREE Fox 2000/Zucker-Netter Prods. It's about a firearms tycoon who tries to bully a lethal assassin who seems like an average Joe.
* Anthony and Joe Russo (PIECES) will write an untitled house-of-horrors thriller for Berg/Saccani Entertainment and producers Jon Berg and Damien Saccani. The pic is expected to spoof reality television and is targeted for a Halloween 2001 release.
* Marti Knoxon (JUST A LITTLE HARMLESS SEX) will write an untitled romantic comedy for Universal Pictures. The story is said to be similar to MY FAIR LADY, but with a modern twist.
* Steve Miner (HALLOWEEN H2O) will produce and possibly direct THE AFTER KILLER for Columbia Pictures. Markus Redmond and Ivy Williams wrote the script about a group of med students who, after they let a patient die, are hunted down by a mysterious killer.
* Peter Wortmann and Bob Conte will write PARK AVENUE GHOST for Dimension Films as a possible starring vehicle for both Rupert Everett and LL Cool J. It's about a young man who is visited by a pompous ghost.
* Ken Young's and Dennis LeFevre's spy thriller script THE ALCHEMIST will be produced by Alcon Entertainment. It follows an ex-CIA agent who is sent to investigate terrorist activities perepetrated by high-ranking U.S. officers.
* Lisa Loomer (GIRL, INTERRUPTED) will adapt C.C. Medina's novel A LITTLE LOVE for Alcon Entertainment about four Hispanic women who deal with several issues involving life and love.
* Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE) will adapt Nathaneil Philbrick's bestseller IN THE HEART OF THE SEA: THE TRAGEDY OF THE WHALESHIP ESSEX for Barry Levinson's Baltimore/Spring Creek and Intermedia Films. It's about the true story of a ship in 1820 that was capsized by a whale in the Pacific. Twenty men escaped in whaling boats and headed upwind to South America to avoid cannibals they thought inhabited a nearby island. However, eight men were rescued and had survived as a result of resorting to their own cannibalism. The ship's disaster inspired Melville's MOBY DICK.
* Cynthia Mort ("Roseanne") is writing LET IT RIDE for Valhalla Prods., based on the pitch by Mort and Melanie Mayron ("thirtysomething") which is based on the true story of two women who start a pool to bet on a football game each week of the season and then gamble millions on the last game.
* Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert ("Strangers With Candy" creators) and David Pasquesi are writing the comedy script TRIFECTA to Artisan Entertainment for Dinello to direct. The three writers will act with "Candy" star Amy Sedaris in the project which follows two hapless brothers who join forces with a psychotic conspiracy theorist and the three resort to a disatrous life of petty crime.
* Lions Gate Films bought Karen Craig's supernatural thriller screenplay INTO THE ABYSS about a grad student who is studying criminal profiling. When a series of killings occur on campus, the student strangely becomes the focus of the investigation.
* Michael Hamilton-Wright (DANGEROUS ATTRACTION) will write the mystery-thriller RUNNING OUT OF TIME, based on his pitch purchased by Hyde Park Entertainment, about a young man who works for an Internet company who starts receiving emails from himself in the future, warning of doom. When he is accused of a murder he didn't commit, his emails become is only hope.
* Travis Wright and John Glenn will rework Jules Verne's JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH for Fox 2000. The new version will have a group of scientists setting out on a journey that leads to horror and will lead to a mission to discover the origins of vampire mythology.
* Pete Dexter (MICHAEL) has written a contemporary adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER to star Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Love-Hewitt with Baldwin directing for Cutting Edge Entertainment and El Dorado Pictures. The film will follow a down-and-out writer who sells his soul to the devil for fame and wealth. Bill Condon and Nancy Cassaro have rewritten the script. Hopkins will play Webster while Baldwin will take the role of Jabez Stone. Hewitt dons the devil role. Production begins Jan. 15 in New York.
* Lamar Damon and Robert Lee King have written SLAP HER, SHE'S FRENCH with Alan Ball having rewritten it. Piper Perabo (COYOTE UGLY) and Jane McGregor (``Live Through This'') are in talks to star in the comedy to be directed by Evan Dunsky (THE ALARMIST). Shooting will begin in November in Dallas. It's about a foreign exchange student who comes to a Texas high school, befriends a fellow classmate and takes over her life.
* Adam Sandler is eyeing a comedy written by his partner Tim Herlihy for a picture likely to be shared by both New Line Cinema and Columbia Pictures. The former owns Sandler's next film, while the latter owns the script. The pic is said to be an homage to Frank Capra's MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN.
* Paul Anderson (MORTAL KOMBAT) will direct the horror pic RESIDENT EVIL from his own script, based on the popular video game, for Constantin Film AG. Production is targeted to begin in January in London.
* Stuart Alexander is writing an untitled thriller for Michael Bay, as a possible directing vehicle for the helmer, about high-powered attorney whose wife has been kidnapped and the ransom for her release is his suicide. Bay is also developing the dark comedy GORY DETAILS. Both projects will unlikely go into production until after the impending SAG strike next year.
* Larry Konner and Mark Rosenthal (MIGHTY JOE YOUNG) will tweak the Bill Broyles script for PLANET OF THE APES. The two also wrote THE PRISONER for director Simon West as well as the AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS script for
Fox.
* Ricky Blitt wrote RINGER about a couple of guys who attempt to fix the Special Olympics to pay off their debt. Barry Blaustein (BEYOND THE MAT) will direct the pic for 20th Century Fox and producers Peter and Bobby
Farrelly.
* Warner Bros. picked up SHORT HILLS written by Craig Moss and Steve Schoenburg, about a couple of guys who try to fund their college education by producing a porno flick while their folks are out of town.
* Jay Wolpert will write an original script for Disney based on the ride the Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as adapting the Fred Rochlin book THE OLD MAN IN THE BASEBALL CAP. The latter project is set during World War II and follows a young man shot down over Yugoslavia and the female freedom fighter who helps him to safety.
* Vincent Ngo will write THE BOOK OF OWEN for Universal/Gone Fishin Prods. about a guy who finds a book that contains the story of his life, one year for every chapter. It is a week before his 36th birthday and the book only has 35 chapters, so he tries to write his own destiny. The pic will use flashbacks telling what happened early in his life to make him who he is.
* Valerie Breiman (LOVE & SEX) will develop and possibly direct the romantic comedy CRAZY for Universal/Imagine Entertainment about a guy with a history of mental illness who falls for a movie star's girl. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel are writing the script.
* Writer Michael McGruther (TIGERLAND co-scribe) is working with Jay Russell (MY DOG SKIP) on GHOST TOWN, a coming-of-age story for Russell to direct. It centers on a boy whose father goes to jail for murder and the raising of the boy from there. And though the boy is the father's link to the outside world, he learns he must leave town to live his own life.
* Philip Railsback (THE STARS FELL ON HENRIETTA) will write THE WINDSHIELD WIPER MAN for Beacon Pictures based on the life of Robert Kearns, who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. He took the invention to Ford Motor Company while serving as a consultant for them. After he was let go, Ford continued to manufacture vehicles with his invention. He sued the company and a decade later won the case, using his family who trained themselves to act as attorneys after his own lawyers ditched him. The New Yorker article "A Flash of Genius" by John Seabrook will also serve as a basis for the film.
It was a busy week for script sales and activity. THE WINDSHIELD WIPER MAN sounds like an interesting script, as does SLUSHY THE SNOWMAN, RUNNING OUT OF TIME, RINGER, CRAZY and GHOST TOWN. THE BOOK OF OWEN is my pick of the week. I fell in love with the concept when I read it, I hope it will be
done well. Now I'm curious who'll they will get to star and direct.
-- Elston Gunn
(Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety)
* Sam North will write THE SEASON for Pathe Pictures based on an idea by Aasaf Ainapore, who is attached to direct. The pic will follow an American reporter who poses as a waitress during London's season of sporting and social events during the 1920s. She falls in love with an aristocrat, which leads to an incompatible marriage.
* Steven Gary Banks and Claudia Grazioso have written COEDS, picked up by Warner Bros. and Gaylord Films, for Jorge Saralegui to porduce. It centers on a college football quarterback who needs to win the homecoming game as well as the most popular girl in school, who is running for the Harvest Queen. The two meet up with a mad science professor, end up exhibiting qualities of the opposite sex, and then must search for an antidote before the big game.
* Arnold Kopelson Prods. purchased RED HOLLOW by Byron Willinger and Phillip de Blasi. It's a contemporary thriller set in a haunted prison "where only the innocent survive."
* Matt Johnson will write EIGHT BALL for Fox 2000 about two young couples who take a yacht out for an exotic vacation and get caught up with a charming drifter who turns out to be a deadly contemporary pirate.
* Tom Mantke has written and Cullen Blaine will direct the animated feature SLUSHY THE SNOWMAN for Rhino Films, created by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (ED WOOD, MAN ON THE MOON wirters), who will also produce. It's about a simple-minded snowman who wants to show kids the true meaning of Christmas during a time when businessman are quietly developing Christmas II to take place in July. However, the snowman is quickly co-opted by a liquor company. The pic is now in production and is targeted for release Christmas
2001.
* Video director Paul Hunter will direct the thriller OLD CITY about a cop who is chasing a serial killer across time and space. Jon Cohen wrote the script. Jan De Bont will produce.
* Robert Kuhn (THE CURE, MICKEY BLUE EYES) has written the action thriller RULE NUMBER THREE Fox 2000/Zucker-Netter Prods. It's about a firearms tycoon who tries to bully a lethal assassin who seems like an average Joe.
* Anthony and Joe Russo (PIECES) will write an untitled house-of-horrors thriller for Berg/Saccani Entertainment and producers Jon Berg and Damien Saccani. The pic is expected to spoof reality television and is targeted for a Halloween 2001 release.
* Marti Knoxon (JUST A LITTLE HARMLESS SEX) will write an untitled romantic comedy for Universal Pictures. The story is said to be similar to MY FAIR LADY, but with a modern twist.
* Steve Miner (HALLOWEEN H2O) will produce and possibly direct THE AFTER KILLER for Columbia Pictures. Markus Redmond and Ivy Williams wrote the script about a group of med students who, after they let a patient die, are hunted down by a mysterious killer.
* Peter Wortmann and Bob Conte will write PARK AVENUE GHOST for Dimension Films as a possible starring vehicle for both Rupert Everett and LL Cool J. It's about a young man who is visited by a pompous ghost.
* Ken Young's and Dennis LeFevre's spy thriller script THE ALCHEMIST will be produced by Alcon Entertainment. It follows an ex-CIA agent who is sent to investigate terrorist activities perepetrated by high-ranking U.S. officers.
* Lisa Loomer (GIRL, INTERRUPTED) will adapt C.C. Medina's novel A LITTLE LOVE for Alcon Entertainment about four Hispanic women who deal with several issues involving life and love.
* Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE) will adapt Nathaneil Philbrick's bestseller IN THE HEART OF THE SEA: THE TRAGEDY OF THE WHALESHIP ESSEX for Barry Levinson's Baltimore/Spring Creek and Intermedia Films. It's about the true story of a ship in 1820 that was capsized by a whale in the Pacific. Twenty men escaped in whaling boats and headed upwind to South America to avoid cannibals they thought inhabited a nearby island. However, eight men were rescued and had survived as a result of resorting to their own cannibalism. The ship's disaster inspired Melville's MOBY DICK.
* Cynthia Mort ("Roseanne") is writing LET IT RIDE for Valhalla Prods., based on the pitch by Mort and Melanie Mayron ("thirtysomething") which is based on the true story of two women who start a pool to bet on a football game each week of the season and then gamble millions on the last game.
* Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert ("Strangers With Candy" creators) and David Pasquesi are writing the comedy script TRIFECTA to Artisan Entertainment for Dinello to direct. The three writers will act with "Candy" star Amy Sedaris in the project which follows two hapless brothers who join forces with a psychotic conspiracy theorist and the three resort to a disatrous life of petty crime.
* Lions Gate Films bought Karen Craig's supernatural thriller screenplay INTO THE ABYSS about a grad student who is studying criminal profiling. When a series of killings occur on campus, the student strangely becomes the focus of the investigation.
* Michael Hamilton-Wright (DANGEROUS ATTRACTION) will write the mystery-thriller RUNNING OUT OF TIME, based on his pitch purchased by Hyde Park Entertainment, about a young man who works for an Internet company who starts receiving emails from himself in the future, warning of doom. When he is accused of a murder he didn't commit, his emails become is only hope.
* Travis Wright and John Glenn will rework Jules Verne's JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH for Fox 2000. The new version will have a group of scientists setting out on a journey that leads to horror and will lead to a mission to discover the origins of vampire mythology.
* Pete Dexter (MICHAEL) has written a contemporary adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER to star Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Love-Hewitt with Baldwin directing for Cutting Edge Entertainment and El Dorado Pictures. The film will follow a down-and-out writer who sells his soul to the devil for fame and wealth. Bill Condon and Nancy Cassaro have rewritten the script. Hopkins will play Webster while Baldwin will take the role of Jabez Stone. Hewitt dons the devil role. Production begins Jan. 15 in New York.
* Lamar Damon and Robert Lee King have written SLAP HER, SHE'S FRENCH with Alan Ball having rewritten it. Piper Perabo (COYOTE UGLY) and Jane McGregor (``Live Through This'') are in talks to star in the comedy to be directed by Evan Dunsky (THE ALARMIST). Shooting will begin in November in Dallas. It's about a foreign exchange student who comes to a Texas high school, befriends a fellow classmate and takes over her life.
* Adam Sandler is eyeing a comedy written by his partner Tim Herlihy for a picture likely to be shared by both New Line Cinema and Columbia Pictures. The former owns Sandler's next film, while the latter owns the script. The pic is said to be an homage to Frank Capra's MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN.
* Paul Anderson (MORTAL KOMBAT) will direct the horror pic RESIDENT EVIL from his own script, based on the popular video game, for Constantin Film AG. Production is targeted to begin in January in London.
* Stuart Alexander is writing an untitled thriller for Michael Bay, as a possible directing vehicle for the helmer, about high-powered attorney whose wife has been kidnapped and the ransom for her release is his suicide. Bay is also developing the dark comedy GORY DETAILS. Both projects will unlikely go into production until after the impending SAG strike next year.
* Larry Konner and Mark Rosenthal (MIGHTY JOE YOUNG) will tweak the Bill Broyles script for PLANET OF THE APES. The two also wrote THE PRISONER for director Simon West as well as the AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS script for
Fox.
* Ricky Blitt wrote RINGER about a couple of guys who attempt to fix the Special Olympics to pay off their debt. Barry Blaustein (BEYOND THE MAT) will direct the pic for 20th Century Fox and producers Peter and Bobby
Farrelly.
* Warner Bros. picked up SHORT HILLS written by Craig Moss and Steve Schoenburg, about a couple of guys who try to fund their college education by producing a porno flick while their folks are out of town.
* Jay Wolpert will write an original script for Disney based on the ride the Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as adapting the Fred Rochlin book THE OLD MAN IN THE BASEBALL CAP. The latter project is set during World War II and follows a young man shot down over Yugoslavia and the female freedom fighter who helps him to safety.
* Vincent Ngo will write THE BOOK OF OWEN for Universal/Gone Fishin Prods. about a guy who finds a book that contains the story of his life, one year for every chapter. It is a week before his 36th birthday and the book only has 35 chapters, so he tries to write his own destiny. The pic will use flashbacks telling what happened early in his life to make him who he is.
* Valerie Breiman (LOVE & SEX) will develop and possibly direct the romantic comedy CRAZY for Universal/Imagine Entertainment about a guy with a history of mental illness who falls for a movie star's girl. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel are writing the script.
* Writer Michael McGruther (TIGERLAND co-scribe) is working with Jay Russell (MY DOG SKIP) on GHOST TOWN, a coming-of-age story for Russell to direct. It centers on a boy whose father goes to jail for murder and the raising of the boy from there. And though the boy is the father's link to the outside world, he learns he must leave town to live his own life.
* Philip Railsback (THE STARS FELL ON HENRIETTA) will write THE WINDSHIELD WIPER MAN for Beacon Pictures based on the life of Robert Kearns, who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. He took the invention to Ford Motor Company while serving as a consultant for them. After he was let go, Ford continued to manufacture vehicles with his invention. He sued the company and a decade later won the case, using his family who trained themselves to act as attorneys after his own lawyers ditched him. The New Yorker article "A Flash of Genius" by John Seabrook will also serve as a basis for the film.
It was a busy week for script sales and activity. THE WINDSHIELD WIPER MAN sounds like an interesting script, as does SLUSHY THE SNOWMAN, RUNNING OUT OF TIME, RINGER, CRAZY and GHOST TOWN. THE BOOK OF OWEN is my pick of the week. I fell in love with the concept when I read it, I hope it will be
done well. Now I'm curious who'll they will get to star and direct.
-- Elston Gunn
(Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety)
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