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This
Week In Film Oct.
7, 2002 Specs,
Pitches, and Other Deals Maverick
Films has acquired Sean Jacques' thriller spec Darkhorse.
The story concerns an ex-con who gets sucked into a dangerous game that
involves outrunning the LAPD. Maverick;
Dan Rosenfeld, who has a first-look deal with Maverick and Paul Kewley's
Accelerator Films, will produce the film. Paramount
Pictures is in negotiations to pick up feature film rights to Bad Guy, an
independently published comic book, which Barry Josephson and screenwriter David
Hayter will produce. The comic's
creators, Jason Harris and Zack Morrissette, will write the screenplay.
Bad Guy is set in a world in which those who wish to be superheroes can
interview at the Oden Co., which then puts candidates through various genetic,
physical and mental tests. Oden
then decides on the appropriate superpower, costume and city in which the chosen
ones will be based to fight crime. When
the superheroes get bored on the job and begin abusing their powers-- using them
for evil rather than good-- a mortal named John takes it upon himself to fight
the villains via contract killings. The duo are repped by Kaplan/Perrone
Entertainment and attorney Ken Richman and Jason Hendler.
Hayter is repped by WMA. NBC
has made a seven-figure pilot commitment for a one-hour comedy-drama from Sex
and the City creator Darren Star and scribe Jeff Rake. The David Nevins-led Imagine Television is producing the
project intended for fall 2003—via the shingle's overall deal with 20th
Century Fox Television. The project
brings Star, Rake, and Nevins together again: The trio had worked together on
the Star/Rake drama The Street, developed while Nevins was at Fox Broadcasting.
Rake will write the pilot and exec produce with Star, Nevins and
Imagine's Brian Grazer. NBC's deal
for the project includes a premium license fee and a significant penalty if the
pilot is not produced. The show is inspired by the real-life story of Samantha
Daniels, a Gotham matrimonial lawyer who doubles as a high-class matchmaker.
The show will focus on the character's role as both a matchmaker and a
lawyer who handles everything from divorce to adoption cases and on the lawyer's
own personal life as well as her relationship with her father, providing a
family aspect to the hour. Both
Star and Rake are repped by WMA; Rake is also repped by Anonymous. Porchlight
Entertainment has picked up remaining worldwide sales rights to Random Harvest's
period drama War Bride, starring Anna Friel, Molly Parker, and Brenda
Fricker. The rights have already
been sold in Japan, South Korea, Israel, Poland and Canada, where the film was
nominated for seven Genie Awards and won two in 2001.
The Anglo-Canadian film will be released in the U.K. through independent
distributor Miracle Communications Nov. 29.
Directed by veteran U.S. helmer Lyndon Chubbuck (Baywatch, The Right
Temptation, Kiss Toledo Goodbye) from a script by Angela Workman, Bride is the
story of an English girl who marries a Canadian WWII soldier and is sent to his
hometown in northern Alberta to live with his inhospitable family for the
duration of the war. Douglas
Berquist and Alistair MacLean-Clark produced the film, which will be introduced
to buyers at Mipcom and Mifed as the re-titled Love and War. Sean
Jacques is writing the sequel to the 1969 classic, Easy Rider, for producer
Lauren Lloyd (Freddy Got Fingered). The
sequel, Easy Rider A.D., begins with Wyatt “Captain America” Earp
alive but in prison, falsely accused of the murder of George Hanson. A new
character is determined to prove Hanson’s innocence and the pair then sets out
“in search of America” once more. Paramount
picked up the action/comedy script Three Gun Blues from writer Josh Olson
for Valhalla Motion Pictures to produce. It's about a young man who is
transferred to a new police department and works with three seasoned officers.
He becomes the fourth member of the group as they bring down corruption in the
city. Dimension
has purchased Jeff Davis's thriller script Retribution for Kevin
Williamson's Outerbanks Entertainment to produce.
Retribution is the tale of a young woman playing a game of cat and mouse
with the man who brutally murdered her first lover.
The project was brought to Williamson (Scream, Dawson's Creek) by
Outerbanks production VP Jennifer Breslow and creative executive Sarah Kucserka.
Davis was repped in the deal by KMZ Rosenman's Christopher J. Tricarico,
Zide/Perry Entertainment's Zack Tann and Robert Sobhani and attorney Victoria
Wisdom. Fox
2000 has picked up the script The Conspirator from writer Gary Horn, with
studio-based Gil Netter on board to produce.
The project is described as being in the same vein as the 1975 Sydney
Pollack-directed Three Days of the Condor. At Fox 2000, headed by Elizabeth
Gabler, the project is being overseen by Carla Hacken and creative executive
Rodney Ferrell. Netter produced the
upcoming "Phone Booth" for Fox 2000. John
Logan will write a sequel to Gladiator for DreamWorks and Universal.
Logan was part of the original Gladiator's Oscar-nominated writing team,
along with David Franzoni and William Nicholson. The film reportedly picks up 15
years after the end of the first installment, which saw the demise of several
characters, including Russell Crowe’s Maximus. Lined up to produce are
Franzoni, Red Wagon's Doug Wick and DreamWorks co-topper Walter Parkes. Independent
film company Evolving Pictures Entertainment has picked up an untitled romantic
comedy screenplay from writer Harris
Goldberg in a deal worth mid-six figures.
Goldberg, best known for writing such screenplays as Deuce Bigalow: Male
Gigolo and Master of Disguise, is also attached to direct.
Goldberg's untitled screenplay for Evolving is about a teenager who heads
to Mexico during spring break looking for excitement.
While he's having fun videotaping the craziness around him, he
accidentally finds himself caught up in an adventure in similar to Ronin and
ends up making a fortune selling his videos. PEOPLE
ON THE MOVE Luis
Guzman has inked a joint talent holding deal with 20th Century Fox Television
and Fox Broadcasting Co. to star in a 20th TV series project for Fox.
The veteran character actor and frequent collaborator with directors
Steven Soderbergh and Paul Thomas Anderson is meeting with writers to discuss
ideas for a show targeted for fall, 2003. Guzman's
credits include Soderbergh's Traffic, The Limey and Out of Sight and Anderson's
Magnolia, Boogie Nights and Punch-Drunk Love.
Guzman also co-starred in HBO’s prison drama Oz and Fox's comedy House
of Buggin'. He is repped by the
Gersh Agency and manager Michael Bregman and attorney Jason Sloane. Actress-playwright
Charlayne Woodard (Ain't Misbehavin) has signed with Don Buchwald &
Associates for representation. Woodard's
latest play, the one-person In Real Life, bows in New York at the Manhattan
Theater Club in October. The
production recently completed a sold-out run at the Mark Taper Forum. ICM
is adding two agents to its TV lit department: Alan Rautbort and Mike Rizzo.
Rautbort and Rizzo will work together as a team, reporting to ICM TV lit topper
Matt Solo. The duo most recently
had been agents at CAA. Genesis
Literary Agency has signed writer Paul Pender for representation.
Pender most recently scripted and co-produced the forthcoming UA film
Evelyn, starring Pierce Brosnan, Aidan Quinn, and Julianna Margulies.
He continues to be managed by Kathryn James. CAA
has signed TV scribe-producer Chuck Tatham, co-executive producer of the NBC
series It's Not About Me. Tatham, managed by Handprint Entertainment, is also
developing a sitcom at CBS. Writer
Caryn Lucas has signed with Marathon Entertainment for management.
Lucas, who co-wrote Miss Congeniality and was executive producer of CBS
sitcom The Nanny, is repped by the William Morris Agency. Writer-director
Eric Eason picked up the Open Palm Award for best feature debut for his New
York-set indie project Manito as the Independent Feature Project's IFP Market
kicked off with the 12th annual Gotham Awards.
In the Gothams’ only competitive awards section, Eason beat out such
contenders as Ethan Hawke (Chelsea Walls), Fisher Stevens (Just a Kiss) and
Bertha Bay-Sa Pan (Face). Phoenix
Pictures has joined with Benderspink to co-produce Bragi Schut's script The
Last Voyage of the Demeter, with Benderspink attached to executive produce.
Demeter expands upon the captain's log chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula,
in which crewmembers of the boat transporting Dracula are mysteriously killed
one by one. Phoenix VP Brad Fischer
brought the script into the company and will oversee its development. The
newly resurrected Massachusetts Film Bureau, which shut down in July for budget
constraints, is back in business. Local
business, film, and tourism leaders have collaborated to bring the office back
as a private agency. Community
leaders have tapped former director Robin Dawson as the new executive director
of the bureau. A fundraiser was
held Oct. 4 to fund the office for the next year.
The Four Seasons in Boston donated a reception, followed by a screening
of Moonlight Mile—which partly filmed around Massachusetts—and a Q&A
with director Brad Silberling and actors Susan Sarandon, Ellen Pompeo and Lenny
Clark. Todd
Solondz has signed with International Creative Management for representation in
all areas. The writer-director is
the creator of such films as 1995's Welcome to the Dollhouse—which won the
Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival —and 1998's controversial
Happiness. Solondz had not
previously been with a talent agency, but was managed by Industry Entertainment
principal Nick Wechsler. When Wechsler recently switched from manager to
full-time producer, however, Solondz chose to sign with ICM. He continues to be repped by attorney Walter Teller Disney
has begun negotiations with Billy Bob Thornton to play the role of Davy Crockett
in the film The Alamo. The
period drama will begin shooting in January under the direction of John Lee
Hancock, with a budget of $75 million or so and the studio hopes to have it in
theaters for the 2003 holidays. Hancock
was hired in late July to replace Ron Howard, who had left the project earlier
that month after a difference of opinion over budget and rating.
Howard wanted to make a gritty picture that could have gotten an R rating
and would have cost $125 million or more. The
Texas-born Hancock, whose scripts include Midnight in the Garden of Good and
Evil and A Perfect World, went right into rewrite mode on Steve Gaghan's rewrite
of a John Sayles script. OBITUARIES
Jan
de Hartog, author of the Broadway hit and Tony winner The Fourposter, as well as
other plays and novels that became films, died Sunday, Sept. 22, in Houston,
where he had lived for many years. He
was 88. Besides The Fourposter,
other works made into films include: The Spiral Road (with Rock Hudson), The
Inspector (filmed as Lisa), Stella (The Key with Sophia Loren and William
Holden) and The Little Ark. He was born in Haarlem,
Noord-Holland, the Netherlands on April 22, 1914, and as a boy ran off to
the sea and pursued the life of a sailor, but along the way began to write. His
novels (including some under the pen name F.R. Eckmar) included detective
stories; his bestseller Holland's Glory, was see by the Nazis as catering to the
Dutch resistance, which he had joined, and pursued de Hartog. In the 1930s he
became involved with the theater at the Amsterdam Municipal Theater, acting and
writing a play. He wrote The
Fourposter while in hiding, and The Escape, about his exodus to England. He
switched to English for novel The Lost Sea and followed with The Distant Shore,
A Sailor's Life, The Captain, The Children, The Peaceable Kingdom and his last
novel, The Outer Buoy (1994). Jan
de Hartog’s first U.S. play, This Time Tomorrow, opened on Broadway in 1947,
followed by Skipper Next to God, starring John Garfield, and then The Fourposter,
which won the 1951 Tony for best new play and originally starred Jessica Tandy
and Hume Cronyn and directed by Jose Ferrer.
The play later became the film starring Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer,
and still later the Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical I Do! I Do!, starring Mary
Martin and Robert Preston. He also wrote nonfiction, such as The Hospital
(1964), exposing the horrible medical conditions in the Houston hospital where
he volunteered. The book produced
so much controversy in Houston, that deHartog and his wife Marjorie left the
city. His wife Marjorie and six
children survive him. Diane M. Baylin spent eight years as managing editor of a magazine for screenwriters. She is available for editing, proofreading, grammar check of screenplays and manuscripts and script formatting. She may be reached at baylin1@mindspring.com to inquire about services or just to say hello if you’re a writer for or a subscriber of said screenwriter magazine.
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