New Films in Production

[a.khan]

I hear Annie Lebovitz wants this to be her directorial debut with Miley Cyrus playing Emmanuelle. It's in 3D and there'll be songs.

[geoffcowgill]

What Else Emmanuelle? will be the first theatrical release in the series since Emmanuelle IV came out in 1984 and is scheduled to begin shooting at various exotic locations in September.

With any luck, Milan and Minsk will be among them.

[tavernier]

Let the casting begin!

Jamie Lynn Spears or Miley Cyrus would bring in the Nickelodeon element, as well as the raincoat brigade.

[Barmy]

Next up: a G-rated 3-D remake of Salo directed by Lars von Trier, starring Christopher Walken, Clay Aiken and Tina Yothers.

[domino harvey]

No more ridiculous than Will Smith attempting to translate the untranslatable

[colinr0380]

No more ridiculous than Will Smith attempting to translate the untranslatable

I don't know, the basic culture clash thing isn't untranslatable. I could see it being the basis for another Doc Hollywood/To Wong Foo type film!

[miless]

Ron Howard attempting to translate Caché or Sydney Pollack doing the same for The Lives of Others are indicators that Hollywood is willing to try anything. The two films I've mentioned seem more untranslatable (seeming as they are both tied to specific historical contexts that can in no way be successfully translated to American), but I digress, Hollywood will always find a way to fuck everything up.

[domino harvey]

another Doc Hollywood

Now there's a pull-quote

Mark Ruffalo and Amy Adams are attached to star in writer-director Noah Baumbach’s next feature, Greenburg, for producer Scott Rudin.

Plot details are under wraps for the film, which is said to be a relationship comedy-drama. UTA is shopping the project in Cannes and financing is currently being assembled. While no timetable is set for principal photography, Rudin is aiming to shoot later this year.

Rudin produced Margot at the Wedding, Baumbach’s 2007 follow-up to his breakthrough drama The Squid and the Whale.

Adams is now shooting another Rudin project, Columbia’s Julie and Julia, and is set to wrap Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian by this fall. Ruffalo is filming Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island for Paramount.

Noah Baumbach and Amy Adams: Two of my favorite things together like a cinematic Reese's

[Awesome Welles]

It's probably already been reported but Christian Bale has signed up to star in a new Terminator Trilogy and the same production company has acquired the entire estate of Philip K. Dick. Read about it here.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I hear Annie Lebovitz wants this to be her directorial debut with Miley Cyrus playing Emmanuelle. It's in 3D and there'll be songs.

For that Terminator film with Bale, the producers have McG signed on as director. Another emoticon will suffice. #-o

[toiletduck!]

Terminator? Bale? McG?

I don't really know how to say this with class, but I'm fucking excited!

-Toilet Dcuk

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro answer questions from the fanboys about The Hobbit films.

[Antoine Doinel]

Miranda July gets Satisfaction.

[Matt]

Miranda July gets Satisfaction.

Damn. The only way I'd sit through another Miranda July film was if it were, in fact, a remake of the Justine Bateman epic from 1988. I'd have to see how July could make it worse. To give her credit, though, she is a triple threat. Her art and her writing are equally as terrible as her filmmaking.

[jesus the mexican boi]

vitriol and venom

Ouch!
John Hawkes rulez!!!
))< >((

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Oh dear Lord...

Guy Ritchie To Reinvent Sherlock

According to the trades, Guy Ritchie has come aboard to direct Warner Bros.' "Sherlock Holmes" for Lionel Wigram and Dan Lin.

Ritchie's also working on a rewrite/polish of Tony Peckham's script, based on Wigram's upcoming comicbook "Sherlock Holmes." Studio's eying a 2010 release.

The logline remains under wraps, but execs at Warners are aiming to reinvent Holmes and sidekick Dr. John H. Watson. Wigram's noted that the new Holmes would be more adventuresome and take advantage of his skills as a boxer and swordsman.

Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Holmes, written in the late 19th century, emphasized the detective's intellectual brilliance and power of deductive reasoning. The pipe-smoking character has been portrayed in more than 200 film and TV shows.

[domino harvey]

Robin Williams to star in Mamet-scripted political bio

[flyonthewall2983]

Wasn't Russell Crowe attached to this at some point?

[Antoine Doinel]

Oh dear Lord...

Guy Ritchie To Reinvent Sherlock

According to the trades, Guy Ritchie has come aboard to direct Warner Bros.' "Sherlock Holmes" for Lionel Wigram and Dan Lin.

Ritchie's also working on a rewrite/polish of Tony Peckham's script, based on Wigram's upcoming comicbook "Sherlock Holmes." Studio's eying a 2010 release.

The logline remains under wraps, but execs at Warners are aiming to reinvent Holmes and sidekick Dr. John H. Watson. Wigram's noted that the new Holmes would be more adventuresome and take advantage of his skills as a boxer and swordsman.

Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Holmes, written in the late 19th century, emphasized the detective's intellectual brilliance and power of deductive reasoning. The pipe-smoking character has been portrayed in more than 200 film and TV shows.

Let's just hope he doesn't cast Jason Statham as Sherlock.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Let's just hope he doesn't cast Jason Statham as Sherlock.

And Vinnie Jones as Moriarty? *shudder*

[moviscop]

I'm still in shock after reading this

[exte]

George Lucas is doing a new film called Red Tails:

Tuskegee Airmen to be subject of George Lucas film

By DESIREE HUNTER, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 33 minutes ago

The black airmen whose lives will be the basis of a George Lucas movie know the picture will highlight their record of successfully escorting thousands of U.S. bombers in World War II.

They also feel it should tell of the trials they encountered stateside, like seeing German prisoners of war being treated better and afforded rights that were withheld from black American citizens.

Now that "Red Tails" is in preproduction, some of the airmen say they are excited their story is coming to the big screen but torn over how much it should devote to each of their two historic fights — against Adolf Hitler abroad and Jim Crow at home.

Lt. Col. Eldridge F. Williams, 91, wants the film to recount the discrimination they had to overcome in their own country. Williams, who served in the military from August 1941 to November 1963, said a white doctor's false diagnosis of an eye condition kept him from achieving his dream of being a pilot, though he became a navigator.

"I think the story that has not been told is stories like mine in which the home battle that was waged ... shall we say, helped open the door so that the unit could enter combat and demonstrate its capabilities and be successful," he said.

Col. Herbert Carter, who also was with the airmen in the '40s, said the racism the men encountered should definitely be mentioned but not dwelled upon in the Lucas film.

"So many want the movies to focus in that sense and that's bitter history that has been thoroughly emphasized and publicized," the 88-year-old said in an interview.

He said the real story is how they blew apart the notion that blacks could not fly planes in war.

Producer Rick McCallum said both elements are addressed in a script by John Ridley that "balances difficult and painful issues with what is, at its heart, the story of men with a dream to fly and serve their country."

Lucas hopes to begin shooting by year's end or early 2009, McCallum said. The movie's title refers to the color of their fighter planes' tails, which were distinctive and allowed U.S. bomber crews to know they were being escorted by the aggressive Tuskegee Airmen.

"It is a story of incredible adventure and enormous courage," said the producer, who's scouting locations for "Red Tails" in Prague, Czech Republic, and Italy. "I think the story will speak to anyone who has ever wanted to succeed at something others told them was impossible."

At first called the "Tuskegee Experiment," the first aviation cadet class began with 13 students at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, about 40 miles east of Montgomery, in July 1941. Black people weren't allowed to fly in the military at the time and the "experiment" was to see whether they could pilot airplanes and handle heavy machinery.

Over the next four years, the airmen went on more than 15,000 combat trips throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa.

Nearly 1,000 pilots were trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field before its 1946 closing, after which the men from the all-black units were sent to an air base in Ohio. President Truman's 1948 order to desegregate the country's armed forces eventually led to a racially mixed military.

The men have been the subject of several documentaries and books. But a 1995 HBO movie "The Tuskegee Airmen," starring Laurence Fishburne, was the film that jump-started much of the attention the airmen have received in recent years, said Christine Biggers, a park ranger at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site.

The HBO movie "was about 50 percent Hollywood, but it gave a good overview and got the word out. People all over the world saw it and it whetted their appetite to want to know more," Biggers said.

Lucas plans for the movie to be based on the historic record that brought the Tuskegee Airmen fame, drawn from their own accounts.

Carter was one of several airmen who were invited to Lucas' Skywalker Ranch a few years ago to record their oral histories, which will be used in developing the film.

Carter tells of the constant adjustment of being respected as a soldier on base, then having that dignity snatched away once off-base, where they were "just another Negro in Alabama in the eyes of the civilian population."

But he said the real story is how they overcame an environment that said "they didn't have the ability, dexterity, physiology and psychology to operate something as complicated as aircrafts or tanks."

The black airmen's response was "train me and let me demonstrate I can," Carter said. "We said the antidote to racism was excellence and performance and that is what we did."

[Antoine Doinel]

....paging Spike Lee....

[domino harvey]

John Ridley's black, Spike Lee won't bother

[kaujot]

Kevin Spacey to star in 'Shrink'

Kevin Spacey will lead the ensemble cast of indie "Shrink," a Jonas Pate-directed drama that has just begun production in Los Angeles.

Spacey, who's coming off "21" and "Recount," plays a shrink to the stars. Saffron Burrows, Jack Huston, Griffin Dunne, Robin Williams, Pell James, Robert Loggia, Keke Palmer, Laura Ramsey, Gore Vidal, Dallas Roberts and Mark Webber play a mosaic of Hollywood characters who are his clients..

Unable to come to grips with a recent personal tragedy, the shrink is a chronic pot smoker who no longer cares about his personal appearance and has lost faith in his ability to help his patients.

Thomas Moffett wrote the script. The film is a co-production between Ignite, Ithaka and Trigger Street. Ithaka's Braxton Pope is producing with Trigger Street's Dana Brunetti.