September 14, 2004
Somebody Explain Johnny Knoxville. Wait. No, Don't.
Cinematic rock-bottom (see #8)
Another batch of movie round-up news from Mr. Elston Gunn.
(1) Dakota Fanning will play Tom Cruise's daughter in Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS. His biological daughter? A stretch indeed! To be serious: I don't know how they can improve upon the original. Sure, you can see the wires guiding the streetlamp-on-top-of-a-manta-ray Martian spaceships, but big deal. Spoiler Alert: the bacteria did it!
(2) Nicky Hilton joins her sister, Paris, in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S PLEDGE THIS, starring Simon Rex, Alexis Thorpe, Randy Spelling, Sarai Howard, Paula Garces and Sarah Carter. I may have totally been down on this idea before, but boy was I ever wrong! (reaching for handful of sleeping pills)
(3) Eddie Murphy is starring in and likely producing an untitled comedy for DreamWorks. Murphy brought the idea, described as a BLAZING SADDLES-like Western comedy, to the studio. Wow, maybe it will be like Blazing Saddles, but with CGI ghosts, or a group of unruly children, or a fatsuit, or some dialogue from Pluto Nash outtakes. Damn. You suck, Eddie.
(4) Angie Harmon is joining Tea Leoni and Jim Carrey in Columbia Pictures' FUN WITH DICK AND JANE for director Dean Parisot. She's gonna totally get back that "Worst Actress Alive" award, cruelly ripped from her by Law and Order replacement Elisabeth Rohm.
(5) Johnny Knoxville will play Luke Duke opposite Seann William Scott's Bo Duke in THE DUKES OF HAZZARD for director Jay Chandrasekhar (BROKEN LIZARD'S CLUB DREAD) and Warner Bros./Village Roadshow. Jessica Simpson has screen tested for the role of Daisy Duke, but no deal is in place yet. It's like the perfect storm of sub-moronic crapulence.
(6) Kevin Smith is set to direct his own screenplay of THE PASSION OF THE CLERKS, a sequel to 1994's CLERKS, for Miramax and his View Askew Films. The sequel was written for the stars of the original film, Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson. Smith also will make an appearance with longtime sidekick Jason Mewes. My hatred for Kevin Smith is like a truck, Berserker. Would you like some making suck, Berserker?
(7) Andrzej Bartkowiak (CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE) is replacing Enda McCallion in the director's chair on the video game adaptation DOOM. If there's a stupider idea, I'd like to hear it.
(8) Dean Georgaris will script the thriller AREA 51, based on the popular arcade game, for Paramount Pictures and producer Christine Peters. That would do it.
(9) Richard Linklater will direct THE BAD NEWS BEARS for Paramount. Billy Bob Thornton is set to star in the remake of the 1976 Walter Matthau feature about a group of Little League misfits who are transformed into a winning team. More on this from Pete, including rampant speculation in the comments section concerning which barely-teen starlet will get Tatum O'Neal's role. The FBI has been alerted.
(10) Jim Sheridan has signed on to direct IKIRU, the DreamWorks remake of the 1952 Akira Kurosawa film that is being developed as a potential starring vehicle for Tom Hanks. The updated drama has been scripted by author Richard Price. We're going to have to closely monitor the Ambivalence-o-Meter on this one. Classic original, great director, decent leading man, hit-and-miss writer. Stay tuned...
fuggit, "ghost in the shell 2" has hit the theatres. don't waste your beautiful mind on the above.
Posted by: paperpusher at September 14, 2004 03:08 PMI feel sorry for Richard Price. Clockers was a great novel, but I laughed out loud when I heard it be hittin' the screen as a Spike Lee joint. Did you hear the one about the blonde actress so dumb she slept with the screenwriter?
Coming soon, Spike Lee's Presumed Innocent Because He Was Innocent and So Were All the Main Characters: Dumb Bitch Fell and Hit Her Head, But a Black Man Got Charged and Convicted Anyway -- adapted from a book by Scott Turow and a screenplay also by Scott Turow. Two thumbs up!
Posted by: Mike D. at September 14, 2004 03:47 PM