Kit Bowen's Weekly Role Call, July 9
By Kit Bowen, Hollywood.com Staff
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Friday, July 09, 2004
Denzel Washington |
Washington sets sights on Sammy Davis project
Since making his directing debut on Antwone Fisher, Denzel Washington has been looking for a follow-up to squeeze in between acting jobs--and a biopic about Sammy Davis Jr. has definitely caught his eye. Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have optioned screen rights to Wil Haygood's book In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.. The book traces Davis' career back to age 4, when he began singing and dancing with his father on the vaudeville circuit, to his shattering race barriers in Las Vegas and dating white actresses including Kim Novak, to his years as a Rat Packer rubbing elbows with everyone from Frank Sinatra to President Kennedy to Martin Luther King Jr. But wait! In Black and White isn't the only Davis project in the works. Producer David Permut has been working with the singer's widow, Altovise Davis, on a film based on his memoir Yes I Can, with Eddie Griffin attached to star. Hmmm, I wonder whom Denzel will cast? Jamie Foxx might be a good choice.
Monty Python heads to Broadway
Now, this sounds like a fun show. David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry and Hank Azaria will star in next year's Broadway-bound musical production of Monty Python's Spamalot, to be directed by Oscar and Tony Award winner Mike Nichols. Billed as a musical "lovingly ripped off from the motion picture, Monty Python and the Holy Grail," the 1975 comedy directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, it's the tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and their quest for the Holy Grail. Can't you just see the chorus line of dancing divas and knights, flatulent Frenchmen, killer rabbits and one legless knight? The show is scheduled to have a world premiere engagement in Chicago from Dec. 21, 2004, to Jan. 16, 2005, before beginning Broadway previews on Feb. 7.
Eastwood, Spielberg wave flags together
Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg are teaming up to bring the story of the WWII Battle of Iwo Jima to the big screen--an adaptation of the book Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima by James Bradley--with Eastwood on board to direct. [To the sound of beating drums]…The battle, which took place in winter 1945, was a turning point in the Pacific theater, where in one month, 22,000 Japanese and 26,000 Americans died. Iwo Jima also produced one of World War II's most enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point. One of the six was Navy corpsman John Bradley, whose son, James, discovered his father's heroism, after Bradley died in 1994, and decided to write the book. Oh good, another gut-wrenching, tear-producing Saving Private Ryan-like war film to look forward to. Can't wait.
Speaking of Saving Private Ryan…
No, Tom Hanks' Ryan character isn't coming back from the dead to do a sequel, but the actor is joining forces with DreamWorks to bring the life story of Dean Reed to the big screen. Who is Dean Reed, you may ask? He was an American singer, actor and filmmaker whose 15-year career in East Germany was halted by his mysterious death in 1986. The film would follow Reed's career, as a popular actor in South America in the 1960s, who was then deported from Argentina for his political views. Ending up in communist East Germany in 1971, he met his first German wife, and decided to stay. He starred in major productions by Eastern Germany's DEFA alongside Armin Mueller-Stahl; Rolf Hoppe; and Renate Blume, whom he married in 1981. Then, in 1986, he was found dead in a lake outside Berlin, and the circumstances of his death were never clarified. To be honest, doesn't sound all that enthralling--but hey, with Hanks involved, you never know.
Banderas helms Spanish Road
Antonio Banderas is getting back to his roots. He'll step behind the camera for a second time to direct The Englishmen's Road, a Spanish-language project he expects to start shooting in 2006. The film is a coming-of-age story about a group of young boys during their last summer of childhood. Banderas previously directed Crazy in Alabama, a 1999 film starring his wife, Melanie Griffith. Don't think she'll be in the next one.
The enigmatic John Malkovich
John Malkovich has signed to play the title role in Klimt, a film about Austrian artist Gustav Klimt whose opulent, erotically charged paintings came to epitomize the art nouveau style of the late 19th and early 20th century. The project unites Malkovich with Chilean director Raoul Ruiz, with whom he previously teamed on a 1999 adaptation of Marcel Proust's autobiographical novel Time Regained and the 2001 romantic drama Savage Souls. German actors Veronica Ferres, Otto Sander and France's Laetitia Casta will also star in Klimt. This could do for Malkovich what Pollock did for Ed Harris--and we do so love those tortured artists.
Until next week...
Photo(s) by Ken Kwok- © 2004- Hollywood.com, Inc- All Rights Reserved