Oscar winner Michael Caine has joined an all-star British cast in “Last Orders,” with Australian Fred Schepisi set to direct, Daily Variety reports. The $12 million picture, an adaptation of Graham Swift’s Booker Prize-winning novel, is about a group of old friends who gather to fulfill a dying wish of one of their gang — to carry his ashes from London to the sea.
Caine will be joined by Helen Mirren, Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and David Hemmings.
Caine won the Best Supporting Oscar this year for “The Cider House Rules” and is a previous winner for “Hannah and Her Sisters.”
CASTING HARRY: Despite assurances from officials close to the production that the film’s Harry Potter will be British, USA Today reports today that at least one American actor, 10-year-old Liam Aiken (“Stepmom”), is being considered for the title role in the upcoming “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
TO THE BIG SCREEN: ’N Sync’s concert Tuesday at Detroit’s Pontiac Silverdome will hit cineplexes as a giant-screen film, “’N Sync: Bigger Than Live,” MTV.com reports. The film is scheduled for an October release.
Salma Hayek HAYEK SPREADS HER WINGS: Salma Hayek will executive produce and star in Showtime’s “In the Time of Butterflies,” the online edition of Entertaiment Weekly reports. The pay-TV movie, about the bloody reign of leader Leonidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, is budgeted at $10 million.
“Butterflies,” based on a novel by Julia Alvarez, will be helmed by Spain’s Mariano Barroso. He’ll begin shooting the film in Mexico in mid-September.
