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Dan Owen reviews
I s s u e # 7 41 6 J a n u a r y 2 0 0 4
THE RINGERWith Stuck On You doing well at the box-office, the Farrelly Brothershave another project in the pipeline besides their Three Stooges update.
The Ringer is the story of a mentally retarded man who is competing inthe Special Olympics to pay off a debt and dethrone the existingchampion. Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) will take the lead, with Brian Cox(X-Men 2) as his uncle and Katherine Heigl (right) (TV’s Roswell) as his loveinterest.
But while The Farrellys have written the movie, it will be directed byBarry Blaustein.
BATMAN 5According to Irish news website ‘Unison.ie’, Cillian Murphy (28 DaysLater) will indeed play The Scarecrow in the next Batman movie. The sitealso states that Murphy beat Viggo Mortensen (Lord Of The Rings’Aragorn) to the role.
In related news, ‘Dark Horizons’ have posted a positive review of thescreenplay to Batman 5(weblink)
HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIREDespite strong rumours, Rowan Atkinson (Johnny English) has publiclystated he has not been approached to star as Harry Potter’s nemesis LordVoldemort in Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire.
THE HITCH-HIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY’BBCi Films’ reports that Martin Freeman (Tim in TV’s The Office) is setto take the lead role of Arthur Dent in the movie version of TheHitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
Bill Nighy (Love Actually, right) has also been cast in the long-delayed movieas alien planet designer Slartibartfast.
Nighy: “I’m a big fan of the book and the people who are making it arevery cool people and I think they’re going to do a good job. It’s areally good script. It’s really, really faithful [to the book]. All thejokes are there and they’re big fat jokes. It’s wonderful.”
“And with all the technology we have now, it can not only be a bigsatisfying comedy but I figure it could be quite exciting as well.”
THE BOURNE SUPREMACYActress Julia Stiles (Save The Last Dance For Me) has a much bigger partto play in The Bourne Supremacy, after having just a small role in theoriginal movie.
Stiles: “I get to be interrogated by Joan Allen. Jason Bourne [MattDamon’s character] is still sort of tormented mentally by his experienceworking for the CIA. He’s still on the run and the CIA is tracking himdown.”
“But they think that I was in cahoots with him because I’m the only onethat survived when my boss, played by Chris Cooper, died. It’s excitingand I’m looking forward to it.”
DIE HARD 4’USA Today’ has interviewed Bruce Willis about Die Hard 4, which he isstill committed to star in. Willis: “We’re working on it. ‘Fox’ wants todo it. I want to do it. It depends on the script.”
“After the first Die Hard, I said I wasn’t going to do any more DieHard’s, and I did two more. So I don’t make predictions anymore. If theyget the script right and it seems like an interesting story…”
“It’s hard today to do. The whole Die Hard trilogy so far has been basedon some element of terrorism, and it’s difficult in today’s world to dostories that fictionally portray terrorism.”
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IIOrlando Bloom (right) has told ‘Teen Hollywood’ that he’s very happy to reprisehis Pirates Of The Caribbean role for a sequel because it will meangetting away from the British winter.
Bloom: “I can’t cope with short, cold days. In England it gets darkearly, so I prefer summer. I’ll be heading back to Caribbean to filmwith Johnny Depp soon, which is cool. I have no complaints about workingin the Caribbean! On the first film they took me out there early and Ididn’t start shooting my scenes for a while, so I felt like I was onholiday.”
KILL BILL – VOLUME II16 April 2004 is now the official U.S release date for the second KillBill instalment from Quentin Tarantino. Volume I doesn’t have a DVDrelease date yet, but it should be out before the sequel – perhapsMarch? LOGAN’S RUNIt’s been rumoured for years, but will seminal 70’s sci-fi flick Logan’sRun finally be remade? Well, rumour now has it that Matt Damon (Stuck OnYou) is interested in taking the lead role made famous by Michael Yorke. ONE STEP BEHINDPaul Verhoeven (RoboCop) has signed on to shoot a dark thriller calledOne Step Behind. The movie is based on a best-selling book by Swedishwriter Henning Mankel and revolves around the mysterious killings ofthree college girls and features dyspeptic police inspector KurtWallander, a regular in Mankel’s thrillers.
The film will re-team Verhoeven with screenwriter Gerard Soeteman – whowrote many of the director’s earlier Dutch films). The script hasalready transferred the action from Sweden to the United States.Shooting is set to begin in late-2004 or March 2005.
THE POLAR EXPRESSA photo of Tom Hanks in director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis’ The PolarExpress, an adaptation of the children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg, hasappeared in the latest issue of ‘Entertainment Weekly’.
Zemeckis is employing motion-capture technology to place Hanks insidewhat he calls a “moving painting” version of Allsburg’s award-winning1985 book.
Hanks didn’t have to wear a conductor costume on the set – just aleotard festooned with infrared-beam receptors and some 165 freckle-likereflective dots glued to his face. Zemeckis: “It’s not animation. It’sgot all the subtlety and warmth of a human performance.”
THE SECRET WINDOWScreenwriter David Koepp (The Panic Room) is adapting and directing thisStephen King novella to star Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Ving Rhames,Charles Dutton, Maria Bello and Timothy Hutton.
US TOP 10 (CINEMA)All figures are weekend box-office gross.
- 1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($14.2m) ($312.2m grossed to date)
- 2. Big Fish ($13.8m)
- 3. Cheaper by the Dozen ($11.7m)
- 4. Cold Mountain ($7.8m)
- 5. Something’s Gotta Give ($7.7m)
- 6. My Baby’s Daddy ($7.5m)
- 7. Chasing Liberty ($6.0m)
- 8. Paycheck ($5.1m)
- 9. The Last Samurai ($4.5m)
- 10. Mona Lisa Smile ($4.3m)
UK TOP 10 (CINEMA)
- 1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (£3.71m) (£48.09m grossed to date)
- 2. The Last Samurai (£2.72m)
- 3. Peter Pan (2003) (£0.98m)
- 4. Love Actually (£0.81m)
- 5. Lost In Translation (£0.79m)
- 6. Cold Mountain (£0.74m)
- 7. Stuck on You (£0.72m)
- 8. Freaky Friday (£0.52m)
- 9. Brother Bear (£0.25m)
- 10. Elf (£0.17m)
** IN THE PIPELINE **Note that these are UK release dates.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.