Ewan McGregor, fresh off singing and dancing through Moulin Rouge, is going back to his roots. He’ll star in the Scottish feature Young Adam with Tilda Swinton (The Beach) about a drifter who finds work on a barge traveling between Glasgow and Edinburgh only to discover a floating female corpse. Production is to start at the end of August. McGregor is a busy boy. He’s just finished Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, about U.S. soldiers embroiled in a Somalia conflict, and we all know he’ll soon return as the dashing Obi Wan Kenobi in the next Star Wars films. But that’s good–we like Ewan.
Got to love the “Turtles”
Well, at least director John Woo loves the Turtles. The action director who brought us such films as Mission Impossible 2, Face/Off and the upcoming WWII flick Windtalkers with Nicolas Cage, has decided that we must have another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film. He has said that the franchise, which spawned an entire line of toys and games, was “one of the greatest action-adventure properties ever.” Sure. However, this time around he’ll develop the film as a computer-animated feature, returning those shell-backed heroes to “their darker, edgier comic book roots,” co-creator Peter Laird told Variety. What, no pizza-lovin’ cute cuddly turtles? Where’s the fun in that?
Speaking of comic books …
The Marvel comic Ghost Rider is coming the big screen, with–hey, whatta know?–Nicolas Cage in early negotiations to star. But John Woo has nothing to do with this. Instead, Steve Norrington will bring Ghost Rider to life for Dimension Films. Norrington is in familiar territory, having directed a hit adaptation of another comic book, Blade in 1998. Ghost Rider centers on a motorcycle stuntman named Johnny Blaze, who sells his soul to a dark force to save the life of his lady love. However, when things go horribly wrong with the pact, Blaze is turned into a fiery, demon-like entity, who then wreaks havoc on the bad guys. Somebody has to.
The whole comic-book thing is really taking off lately. We’ve got Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man coming out next year. X-Men director Bryan Singer is putting together a sequel to last year’s hit. And then there’s director Ang Lee‘s hope and desire to give us The Incredible Hulk, with the Hulk being computer-animated, for Universal Pictures. So, comic book fans, have fun!
Keitel is back in town
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen the talented Harvey Keitel do something worthwhile. We certainly don’t count last year’s abysmal Little Nicky. He’s going to star and produce the dark comedy Murder Trust, which is based on a true story about a group of working-class barflies who scheme to kill people and collect on the insurance money. However, their first victim (Keitel) won’t quite die, sort of a Rasputin reincarnated. So, they have to come up with different ways to off him. Let’s hope they have the good sense to cast other talented people around Keitel, so the film won’t fall on its face. He deserves that.
Jackson performs “Good Deed”
Samuel L. Jackson, one of the hardest working actors out there, has signed up to star in the dark thriller No Good Deed for director Bob Rafelson. Based on Dashiell Hammet’s short story, House on Turk Street, the film centers on a San Francisco policeman (Jackson) who is about to take an overdue vacation, but stumbles upon an international ring of bond thieves. They are led by the beautiful Milla Jovovich (The Claim) and the not so beautiful but equally hard-working Stellan Skarsgard (Good Will Hunting). Don’t you just hate when that happens? Try to go on vacation and boom!–international bond thieves get in the way. Damn it.
Come on back, Hannibal
Anthony Hopkins knows how to stick with a good thing. Looks like he’s in negotiations to reprise his role as the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Universal Pictures’ Red Dragon. Based on Thomas Harris’ 1981 best-selling thriller, the first in the Lecter series, the story centers on FBI agent Will Graham (you mean no Clarice?), an almost victim of Lecter’s, who is brought out of retirement to find a serial killer called the Red Dragon. To do this, Graham appeals to a jailed Lecter to help him. Hopkins had said that he’d be Lecter again in Red Dragon if the script was good-and things shaped up when Ted Tally, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Silence of the Lambs, wrote the Red Dragon adaptation.
Now, all this may sound vaguely familiar. That’s cause director Michael Mann already made a film made based on the book in 1986. The film, Manhunter, starred William L. Petersen as Graham and the very eerie British actor Brian Cox as Lecter. Some believe Cox‘s performance was even better than Hopkins. But don’t tell Anthony that. It might give him a complex.
The life and death of an Irish reporter
The lovely Cate Blanchett, currently filming The Shipping News, is in early negotiations to play the real-life slain Irish journalist Veronica Guerin. The film, tentatively titled Chasing the Dragon: The Veronica Guerin Story, has been given a greenlight by Walt Disney and will be directed by Joel Schumacher and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The very drug dealers Guerin frequently wrote about gunned down her in 1996. It struck a chord in the United States, and many articles were written about it. And with Bruckheimer and Schumacher attached, expect the film to have at least one really good explosion. Production is slated to start next spring in Dublin.
Doherty: So easily replaced
So, it looks like Shannen Doherty really won’t be missed-at all, in fact-when she doesn’t return to The WB’s Charmed this fall season. That’s right. Doherty‘s sunny, happy personality, one that just bubbled over and sparkled everyone’s day, will be replaced by Rose McGowan‘s sultry and edgy one. McGowan, of Jawbreaker, Ready to Rumble and the smash hit Scream, will be a long, lost sibling the remaining Halliwell sisters (Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs) didn’t know they had. Because you must remember the premise of Charmed–only the power of three can stop all the nasty demons and goblins in the world. Now, how will they write off Doherty‘s character from the show? Maybe she’ll be sucked into hell for eternity, if creator Aaron Spelling has anything to do with it.
“Triple” threat
The actor, director and producer team behind Universal Pictures’ high-octane thriller The Fast and the Furious may join forces once again for Revolution Studios’ Triple X. Director Rob Cohen and producer Neal Moritz are set to bring to screen the urban thriller about a tough extreme sports player who is enlisted by the government to infiltrate a crime ring. Vin Diesel, now starring in The Fast and the Furious, is considering starring as the main character in Triple X, a character described as a cross between James Bond-like hero and a rock star like Limp Bizkit’s lead singer Fred Durst. You understand that I’m not making this stuff up. We should take a moment to try and visualize it. Sure, maybe Diesel could pull something like that off.
And on the Broadway scene
Several television and film actors are making their way to Broadway because, face it, that’s where all the hardcore actors truly wish to go. First there’s Kristen Johnston, the funny gal and Emmy-winning actress from the now-defunct NBC series 3rd Rock From the Sun. She will do a revival of Clare Boothe’s The Women, which has already had many reincarnations, as two movies and many Broadway runs. Then there’s Steve Martin returning to the stage to do an adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s 1911 dark comedy The Underpants, about the decline of a bourgeois family. OK, the title alone is funny—but with Martin attached? Forget about it. Finally, Valerie Harper–remember the TV series Rhoda?–is replacing Linda Lavin–remember the TV series Alice?–in the current Broadway production of The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. Wow. It’s the return of the ’70s sitcom heroines.
