Rock Thinks He Loves His Wife
Chris Rock co-wrote and is set to star in I Think I Love My Wife, a remake of the French film Chloe in the Afternoon. Charles Stone, who directed 2002’s Drumline, is in final negotiations to direct. The film is adapted from Eric Rohmer’s 1972 film, which depicted the life of a happily married office worker in Paris who daydreams about other women until he encounters the mistress of an old friend who tries to seduce him. The new Wife is set in present-day New York and gives a modern look at relationships from Rock’s particularly acerbic and bitingly witty point of view. In other words, it’ll be Rock’s standup done in feature film mode. This isn’t anything new for the comedian. He’s already poking fun at his childhood with his TV hit Everybody Hates Chris on UPN.
Vin Diesel Gets Behind the Wheel…Again
No, the tough guy isn’t making The Fast and the Furious 4 (don’t you wish he were, though), but he is part of one of the biggest partnerships to date between a videogame publisher and a studio. Variety reports MTV Films and Paramount are developing Midway Games’ The Wheelman as a feature film, with Diesel signed on to star in and produce. Wheelman is an action-adventure title about an expert driver who comes out of retirement to protect a woman from his past. Paramount and MTV Films bought the rights from Midway, which is already well into development on the game for next generation, at a budget of $15 million–the high end for videogames. Game and movie are being targeted for a late 2007 release. “It was a very coordinated effort,” MTV Films exec VP David Gale told Variety. Diesel and producing partner Samantha Vincent “had the foresight and idea of making a cinematic game and a movie that could be synergistically developed.” Diesel’s pretty smart. He is one of the most active Hollywood actors in the game biz with his Tigon Studios game production company, having put out the The Chronicles of Riddick videogame to great success, even though the movie tanked at the box office. The movie Wheelman doesn’t sound like its going to be much better, but I bet the videogame will kick ass!
Barrymore and Lange Tend Gardens
This is a fascinating little subject I never knew anything about. Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange will star in Grey Gardens, a fact-based drama about two eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy who made headlines 30 years ago when the health department threatened to raid their flea- and raccoon-infested East Hampton, N.Y., estate. Commercials director Michael Sucsy wrote the script and will make his feature directing debut on the project this summer. According to Variety, Barrymore will play Edith “Little Edie” Beale, Jackie Kennedy’s socialite first cousin, who was once the toast of the town, as a debutante, model and aspiring actress until her ailing and abandoned mother called her home to their East Hamptons manse in 1952. From then on, the pair lived together alone, holed up in the house as it went to seed around them. Lange will play her mother, Big Edie Bouvier Beale. The Edies were also the subjects of a 1976 docu Grey Gardens (the name of the dilapidated mansion they lived in), which made a cult figure out of Little Edie. Years after their deaths, the Edies have inspired Web sites devoted to them as well as a new off-Broadway musical. The film will span 40 years and will include characters Jackie O as well as Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, who bought the crumbling mansion from Little Edie after her mother’s death. “You couldn’t capture the eccentric nature of those women better than the documentary did, but it left me with so many questions of what led them there,” Sucsy told Variety. Me too!
Finally, a Bond Girl!
Was this whole finding-the-next-Bond-girl hullabaloo getting on your nerves? Seems like every A-list actress, from Charlize Theron to Naomi Watts, was being touted for the role of Vesper Lynd in the highly anticipated 007 adventure thriller, Casino Royale. But, as anyone could have predicted, those actresses aren’t going to pigeonhole themselves as a “Bond” girl, not at this point in their careers. No, you’ve got to find a relative newcomer–and it looks like lovely French actress Eva Green (The Dreamers, Kingdom of Heaven) is it. She’ll do just fine. Also cast is renowned Danish-born actor Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, Bond’s nemesis in the film and Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter. Don’t know much about Mads (what a name, huh?) but adding a wonderfully quirky indie player like Wright (Syriana) to the mix should certainly add a different flavor to the Bond formula.
Affleck Gets Behind the Camera
Another one bites the dust. After last week’s news that Ben Affleck and his pal Matt Damon were going to star in a movie together, Affleck is now joining the ranks of actors-turned-directors by making his directorial debut adapting Mystic River writer Dennis Lehane’s Gone Baby Gone into a movie.Affleck is also casting baby brother Casey Affleck as one of two Boston private-eyes who risk everything to investigate a missing child in a territory of broken families, bitter cops and whacked out ex-cons. Big Ben admits the low-budget project, which will start shooting this summer, is already terrifying him. He says, “The budget is excruciatingly tight, I am regularly abused and I expect to be fired sometime before we shoot.” Aw, how modest of him.
Playing Cops and Drug Dealers
Director Ridley Scott is in talks to helm American Gangster, with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe on board to star. The film focuses on the real life of drug-kingpin-turned-informant, Frank Lucas, who grew up in segregated North Carolina where he watched as his cousin was shot by the Klan for looking at a white girl. He eventually made his way to Harlem where he became a heroin kingpin by traveling to Asia’s Golden Triangle to make connections, shipping heroin back to the US in the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam. Lucas was also shadowed by lawman, Richie Roberts, who finally helped bring the kingpin to justice. The two then worked together to expose the crooked cops and foreign nationals who made importing heroin so easy. My goodness, that some story. But I’m just wondering when Washington is going to break out and do something completely different. A comedy, perhaps?
Billy Bob’s New Gig
Now here’s a guy who likes to do a variety of things. Billy Bob Thornton is putting on his multi-hyphenate hat for his new project, Floyd Collins, a drama he will star in and direct. Set in 1925, the drama centers on the true-life story of cave explorer Floyd Collins’ entrapment in a Kentucky cavern and the ensuing 13-day news frenzy. The story marked one of the first large-scale media spectacles, provoking hourly radio bulletins and garnering nationwide newspaper headlines. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the project is described as being particularly relevant today because it echoes modern-day mining accidents and 24-hour news cycles. I suppose that’s true. Still not too excited about the movie, though.
Christie, Dukakis Get Away
Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis and Michael Murphy have joined the cast of Canadian actress Sarah Polley‘s (Dawn of the Dead) feature film directorial debut, Away From Her. Adapted by Polley from an Alice Munro short story, Away portrays Christie as the forgetful, elderly wife of a philanderer in a nursing home who turns her affections to another resident, played by Murphy. That sounds like a nice little film for the older set.
Until next week…
