Holly Hunter got game. A game of tennis, that is. The Academy Award-winning actress (“The Piano”) is going to portray tennis legend Billie Jean King in the ABC television movie, tentatively titled “Battle of the Sexes,” which follows the 1972 match between King and Bobby Riggs.
King, the No. 1 women’s player at the time, handily defeated Riggs, ranked No. 100, in the highly publicized match. Riggs had boasted that the No. 100 men’s tennis player could defeat the top women’s player.
DUNCAN GOES ‘APES’: Michael Clarke Duncan, the colossal actor of “The Green Mile” fame, is in final talks to join the cast of Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes,” The Hollywood Reporter says.
SPIKE ON BOXING: The Reporter also informs us that director Spike Lee is currently working on a biopic on boxing legend Joe Louis. The project, which is expected to go into production in August or September 2001, will chronicle the boxer’s career and longtime rivalry with Max Schmeling.
STONED ON CONSPIRACY: The Los Angeles Daily News reports that the conspiracy-minded Oliver Stone is interested in making another conspiracy-minded film. This one’s about an alleged plot by Republicans to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.
POITIER AS ‘BRICKMAKER’: Entertainment Weekly Online reports that Sidney Poitier will star in the CBS movie “The Last Brickmaker in America,” about a real-life brickmaker who loses his wife and job, then finds a friend in a troubled teen.
