DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 23

TERMINATOR 3

Claire Danes talked to ‘PageSix’ about her role in “Terminator 3″saying: “It’s all pretty top secret, but I can say in regards to kickingbutt, I’m pretty impressive. I play a veterinarian who is abducted bythe Terminator.”

Her role is expected to be recurring as Danes confirmed she is”contracted to the next ‘Terminator’ as well, so if audiences like whatthey see, I’m obliged to give it to them again!”

In related news, ‘USA Today’ have printed the first official photographof the new TX villainess (see right).

ALEXANDERThe race is on. Apparently Baz Luhrmann’s “Alexander”, to star LeonardoDiCaprio, has hit a snag. ‘Variety’ reports that ‘Fox’ have pulled outof financing the project, although ‘DreamWorks’ have now stepped in.

However, insiders say that Luhrmann’s production is not quite asadvanced as reports stated. This means the rival biopic of Alexander TheGreat (by Oliver Stone) may have an advantage.

Luhrmann’s expected start-date has now been estimated as “late 2003 atthe earliest” – with DiCaprio’s commitment to “The Aviator” a crucialfactor.

So, if Oliver Stone can get to work fast he could gazump the Aussiedirector at the box-office!

In related news, ‘Zap2it’ reports that Nicole Kidman has expressedinterest in playing Olympia – Alexander’s mother. The site says the rolewould require make-up to age Kidman as her son grows from child to manand would reunite her with Luhrmann – who directed her in “MoulinRouge!” Negotiations with the actress are expected to commence in theNew Year.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN’Coming Attractions’ talked with special-effects designer Lyle Conway,who was working on early tests for the sequel to “Spider-Man”.

Lyle Conway: confirmed Doctor Octopus will be the lead villain, saying that:“Sam [Raimi] wants to use mechanical tentacles [for Doc Ock] wheneverpossible, he wants the actors to have actual physical tentacles tointeract with. Sam wants to ‘save the CGI for Spider-Man’.”

“The puppeteers filmed some test scenes with someone wearing prototypetentacles. In the test footage, Doc Ock is standing behind a desk and hepicks up the phone, puts on a pair of glasses, pops a cigar into hismouth, lights the cigar, and dials the phone.”

“The smoke alarm on the ceiling goes off and he smashes it with one ofhis tentacles. Then he starts to sit down (without looking) and anothertentacle reaches out behind him and grabs a chair-placing it under himin the nick of time. Bear in mind that all of this happenssimultaneously. Sam was floored”.

BATMAN vs SUPERMAN’The Hollywood Reporter’ spoke to Alan Horn (President and ChiefOperating Officer of ‘Warner Brothers’), who revealed that the studio isstill keen to make “Batman Vs Superman”.

“We had a competing script [to ‘Superman’], ‘Batman Vs. Superman’. It’svery, very good, written by Akiva Goldsman, and we will do it. But Iprefer we start with ‘Superman’, the early years, and complement thatwith a Batman origins movie. And I’d like to think that each characterwill evolve so that when we have ‘Batman Vs Superman’, the meeting ofthe two will feel more organic.”

Akiva Goldsman? I thought Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”) was the guywho’d been hired to pen “Batman Vs Superman”? Strange…

GLADIATOR IIProducer Walter F. Parkes talked to ‘Latino Review’ about “Gladiator II”confirming that the film will be a sequel set “7 years later in Rome!Well remember the character Lucius? He is the last heir to MarcusAurelius, so it’s a prince reigning to happen and guess who he finds outwho his real father was…” HANNIBALScottish novelist Ross Leckie’s biography on Hannibal The Conqueror isset to be the basis for Ridley Scott’s Vin Diesel-starring movie,according to ‘The Sun’. HARRY POTTER 3’The Sun’ reports the role of Professor Dumbledore in “Harry Potter 3″will continue to be played by deceased actor Richard Harris! The tabloidexplains that various visual-effects studios are being asked to testvarious facial mapping techniques to allow stand-in Harry Robinson tophysically play the part on-set, with his face digitally replaced by aCG-rendering of Harris!

An unknown insider said: “Many hours of footage are currently beingscanned to see if the process is viable for the film. The process hasbeen used to allow extras to fill in for main characters in the past,one of the more notable uses of similar technology this year was actressKate Bosworth’s face mapped onto a surfing stunt double for scenes in’Blue Crush’.”

HULKThe official one-sheet poster to next year’s “Hulk”, starring Eric Bana,has been released. It confirms that the design for the Hulk seen in thetoy figure photographs is quite accurate. (see right) INDIANA JONES 4Steven Spielberg confirmed to ‘Zap2It’ that the screenplay for “IndianaJones 4” by Frank Darabont (“The Green Mile”) is now complete and hasbeen approved by the studio. Spielberg will definitely direct theproduction in 2004 with George Lucas as executive producer and HarrisonFord to star.

Later Spielberg told the ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ that: “It was reallyHarrison who got me into it. He was the guy that said, ‘I want to do onemore’, and he got George [Lucas] and I interested in working with himagain, so the script’s being written, I’m going to shoot it late-2004coming out July ’05 for the July 4 weekend”.

Spielberg also talked to ‘The Chicago Sun-Times’ and confirmed that SeanConnery will return as Indy’s father in a few scenes for the fourthfilm, as well as some of the female leads from the previous films. “I’dlike to get Karen Allen back for one sound-bite, and there are otherIndy girls who had smaller roles who will come back,” Spielbergconfirmed.

However, Spielberg’s wife Kate Capshaw seems quite unlikely to repriseher Willie Scott role from “The Temple of Doom” due to scripting reasons- “Maybe or maybe not. Frank Darabont, who is writing the script, calledme and said, ‘I’m not sure we can work her into the script, too’.”

KING ARTHURAccording to ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, director Antoine Fuqua (“TrainingDay”) is being lined up to a big-screen adaptation of the Arthurianlegend for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. A spring 2003 start-date is beingeyed.

The project is described as a demystified take on the tale of KingArthur and the Knights of the Round Table – basing the legends withrealistic historical facts.

LORD OF THE RINGS – THE TWO TOWERSWhile busy promoting “The Two Towers”, writer/director Peter Jackson isalready trumpeting the final third “The Return Of The King”.

He said: “We’ve got a rough cut. And I just started last week, before Icame over here; I started to do the final cutting of it which will takeme about three months.”

“And then there’s all the visual effects to do and the music andeverything else so we’re pretty busy next year. The third one is myfavourite I think of the three”.

Jackson also revealed what extra footage will be added to next year’sDVD release of “The Two Towers”. He said: “There’s some great scenes -good stuff with Merry and Pippin and Treebeard. A couple of good Gollumscenes actually that we’re going to put on the DVD that we didn’t end upusing in the film. There’ll probably be about the same amount of footageroughly as there was for the ‘Fellowship’ – about 30-35 minutes worth offootage. There’s a lot of good stuff, strong scenes”.

THE MATRIX RELOADEDHugo Weaving talked to the ‘Sunday Herald Sun’ about training andfighting for “The Matrix” sequels.

Weaving: “The Americans are very big on going as far as you can go infilms. And for ‘The Matrix’ they wanted us to do all the fights. Theydidn’t want stunt people to do them.”

“It was fairly full-on and as a result we all carried injuries.Carrie-Anne [Moss] broke her leg, Laurence [Fishburne] injured his arm,and both Keanu and I copped a lot of nicks, scrapes and facial punches.”

“So in a sense it forced me to get fit and healthy. When you’ve hit 40your body starts cracking up so it’s actually quite a good time to doit. It proved a good discipline for me.”

ROCKY VI’Empire Online’ indicates that Sylvester Stallone is nearing a finaldeal with ‘MGM’ to write, star and produce the sixth film in the “Rocky”franchise. The new movie would have a lowly $10-15 million budget, andthe storyline will revolve around “a 50-year-old Rocky Balboa who is nowat work running a youth centre, [being] lured out of retirement from thering for one last fight”. THE STEPFORD WIVESNicole Kidman is set to star in a remake of classic thriller “TheStepford Wives”, which saw a group of husbands transform their wivesinto robot slaves.

Kidman will play the role made famous by Katharine Ross in the 1975original – as an outsider who arrives in the robot-infested town. FrankOz (voice of “Star Wars” Yoda) is attached to direct.

SUPERMANAlan Horn (President and Chief Operating Officer of ‘Warner Brothers’)recently spoke with ‘The Hollywood Reporter’ about the “Superman” scriptand what the studio is trying to do with the film.

Horn said: “In many cases, the very things that the letter-writers wereobjecting to or concerned about were the very same things that we’reconcerned about. We don’t think Lex Luthor should be an alien, either.And my answer is – and it’s all over the web – we agree with you. Hewon’t be.”

“We’re planning to do the J.J. Abrams screenplay for ‘Superman’, whichis an origins story. We feel it’s fresh even though it covers groundthat was originally covered by the Dick Donner movie – that was20-some-odd years ago. We feel that this is fresh, hip, contemporary,moving, funny and loaded with action”.

WATCHMEN’Comics Continuum” spoke with screenwriter David Hayter (“X-Men”) aboutthe development of the “Watchmen” adaptation. He said that: “‘Watchmen’is moving along now. We are developing the script and awaiting the greenlight.” Great news!