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Tommy Lee Jones is set to headline the feature film version of James Lee Burke's novel "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead."

According to Production Weekly, Jones will portray Cajun detective Lt. Dave Robicheaux who is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni.

Balboni is back in his hometown and has a seemingly legitimate job as co-producer of a major Hollywood movie about the Civil War.

Added to this mess is Elrod Sykes, a somewhat psychic film actor who is pulled over for drunk driving and starts babbling about a corpse he found in the Atchafalaya Swamp.

It's not just any corpse though, it's that of a black man Dave had seen murdered 35 years before. Dave soon starts having visions and conversations with a dead Confederate general.

The role of Dave Robicheaux was previously played by Alec Baldwin in the 1994 flop "Heaven's Prisoners." The novel is being adapted by Mary Olson-Kromolowski and Jerzy Kromolowski.

French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier is helming the project which is scheduled to begin production in April, with locations around Louisiana.

Bob Hoskins is joining the cast of Rogue Pictures "Doomsday."

Screewriter-director Neil Marshall ("The Descent", "Dog Soldiers") is helming the action thriller about attempts to quarantine a lethal virus.

Hoskins will play a policeman who monitors the progress of the team, headed by Rhona Mitra, which is attempting to retrieve a cure.

The project begins filming February 9th in South Africa and the UK indicates The Hollywood Reporter.

Alexander Siddig, Adrian Lester, Sean Pertwee, Darren Morfitt, Emma Cleasby, Chris Robson, MyAnna Buring, Nora-Jane Noone, Leslie Simpson and Craig Conway also star.

Marc Rocco ("Murder in the First") will direct an adaptation of Jim Thompson noir novel "The Killer Inside Me" reports Variety.

Published in 1952, "The Killer Inside Me" concerns a deputy sheriff in a West Texas town whose kind Everyman demeanor masks his true dark self. He is slowly revealed as a psychotic killer.

Robert Weinbach wrote the script adaptation. Financing is presently being finalized for a Fall start.

Thompson has authored such books as "The Grifters," "The Getaway" and "After Dark, My Sweet."

Doing a Q&A with Moviehole in regards to his new romance/fantasy feature "The Fountain", director Darren Aronofsky spoke out about some other projects he's been attached to.

First off he confirmed that both "Lone Wolf and Cub" and "Black Flies" are still in the writing stages and so won't be ready for a while yet.

'Lone Wolf' is based on the 1970's manga comic about a former Shogun executioner turned assassin who, along with his three year old son, take revenge on those who outcast him.

'Flies' is based on Shannon Burke's coming of age book about a young man who becomes an emergency medical technician in Harlem.

Aronofsky has also been linked to an unknown project called "The Hunt" but nothing else is known about it. He added: "The Hunt is a great action film in the spirit of Predator. It is being scripted by Lucas Sussman a college roommate of mine and the project is at Universal".

Finally he confirmed that The Fountain's theatrical cut "is MY final cut. You are seeing the finished film on the screen and it will be the same on the dvd. There will not be a commentary."

http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2007/01/rotter.html

Last year it was announced that a film adaptation of James Ellroy's "White Jazz" was in the works with Joe Carnahan ("Smokin' Aces", "Narc") at the helm.

George Clooney has also been attached to star as dirty cop Dave Klein in this sequel to "L.A. Confidential".

The big question though was Guy Pearce. Pearce's 'Confidential' character of Ed Exley appears in the 'Jazz' story.

Well out doing promo rounds for "Factory Girl", Pearce told C.H.U.D. that ""It's been mentioned to me, but I haven't read the script yet."

He then added "I ultimately don't feel hugely compelled to revisit any character I've played before, really - but having said that it would depend on how it was realized, I guess."

Dominic Sena ("Swordfish", "Gone in Sixty Seconds") is set to helm the film adaptation of Antarctic mystery thriller "Whiteout" reports Production Weekly.

Kate Beckinsale is in negotiations to star in the film scheduled to start shooting mid-March in Montreal and Manitoba.

Penned by Erich & Jon Hoeber and based on the award-winning Greg Rucka graphic novel mini-seres, the story follows U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko who uncovers the first murder ever in the Antarctic.

Adding to the problem is that the sun is about to set for six months and she must catch the killer before he leaves the ice or be stuck there with him in the dark.

The trades yesterday reported that director Marc Rocco ("Murder in the First") was set to direct an adaptation of Jim Thompson's 1952 book "The Killer Inside Me".

There's one problem though, the film's producer Chris Hanley tells IGN Filmforce that Rocco has nothing to do with the project.

"...Nor had I been aware until the article came out of the director Mark Rocco being associated in any way to the property that I have had the direct motion picture book rights with the estate of Jim Thompson for well more than ten years" says Hanley.

Hanley added that he has been working with director John Curran ("We Don't Live Here Anymore", "The Painted Veil") on the project in recent months.

Warner Bros. Pictures and Thunder Road has picked up the spec script "Invaders" from scribe Jayson Rothwell ("Kept"). says the trades.

The controversial action-thriller centers on a group of thieves who are forced by a rogue U.S. government agent to retrieve a video of the president having sex with the wife of an Arab sheik.

The US, Canada, France and South Africa are all apaprently locales for the film's action. Rothwell is also at work on Fox's planned film version of 80's TV series "The A-Team".

Quint saw Tony Kaye's epic abortion movie, LAKE OF FIRE, at the Santa Barbara Film Festival!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I've dragged some ass post Sundance. I've been attending the Santa Barbara Film Festival and seeing a decent amount of flicks, but any free time I've had I spent either catching up on Sundance reports or sleeping or finding old New Zealand friends on MySpace (hi Julia). You know, important things.

So, I've got a fair amount of guilt about dodging the SBIFF coverage, but I'm here to shovel some coal and get the review train rolling. And what a way to start.

By far, my favorite film I've seen at the Santa Barbara Film Festival is Tony Kaye's epic documentary, LAKE OF FIRE. And it's one that by all means could have not worked out for me.

One, it's an abortion documentary. Two, it's a three hour long abortion documentary. Three, it's a three hour long black and white abortion documentary.

However, I was engrossed the whole time, the documentary flying by. This is helped by Tony Kaye's stance. He is completely neutral the whole time, showing both sides in extremely good light and pathetically bad light.

Our first glimpses of the pro-choice camp are them protesting the pro-life protesters at an abortion clinic and they are so damn annoying. They act like 5 year olds, mimicking the leader of the pro-life crowd. Yet the pro-life crowd has ten-fold more crazy people and flat out cold-blooded murderers in their ranks, including one amazingly entertaining, yet incredibly frightening preacher that recounts literal stories (in his mind) of women who got abortions carrying out the fresh fetus from the abortion clinic, parading it in front of the anti-abortion protesters, pulling out a grill, throwing the fetus on that grill, cooking it and eating it in front of the shocked anti-abortionists.

My own personal politics and views were challenged, strengthened and every step in-between.

There's some harsh shit in this movie, graphic, yet sterile, footage of the abortion process, from consultation to execution of the procedure. There are some flat out revolting shots of the doctors sifting through the contents of the vacuum, making sure there aren't any pieces left in the mother's womb. The little baby parts, recognizable hands, feet, faces...

I can see the religious right getting behind this movie and using it as a tool to gain support, but I can also see the pro-choice movement using it for those exact same purposes. For every graphic shot of a doctor measuring a severed baby's foot, there's footage or stills of a murdered doctor and the complete lack of disapproval by the pro-life movement. In fact, not just the lack of disapproval, but a definite approval of their murders and the support of others in the future doing the same.

The debate in all its forms is shown. The best speaker, by far, is Noam Chomsky, famous author and linguist. He dissects both sides succinctly and intelligently describes the conundrum of this argument. Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. You'd think that is just non-committal BS, but he goes into great detail on how that is not only possible, but you'll find it hard to disagree with him at all.

The film is amazing, eye-opening, heart-wrenching, funny, scary, sad... It is the end all be all of the debate, every single issue covered. You might not change your mind at the end of this movie, but you'll have a broader understanding of the argument.

I know Tony Kaye still considers this a work in progress, but I think it's as powerful as it can ever be. Roger Durling, head honcho of the Santa Barbara Fest, seemed to believe ThinkFilm was going to release the movie, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. If released, it'll cause quite the stir, but as I said before I don't think the uproar is going to be as crazy as some people think. I firmly believe both sides of the argument will embrace this movie. Whenever it is released.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com

Roman Polanski ("Rosemary's Baby", "The Pianist") is set to helm his biggest project ever reports Variety.

Polanski will helm the $130 million dramatic thriller "Pompeii" which is set against the days preceeding and during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius which swallowed the ancient Roman city.

Based on the bestseller of the same name by "Fatherland" novelist Robert Harris, the story follows a young engineer who has to repair an enormous aqueduct whose destruction threatens the Roman Empire.

The film takes place over three days and the final act is the volcanic eruption and the destruction of the aqueduct, which stretched 60 miles and served hundreds of thousands of people.

Despite the disaster movie tones, much of the appeal for Polanski lies in the book's thriller aspects which are filled with political intrigue.

Harris himself is writing the script and financing will be done completely through independent means. Filming will begin in Italy this summer.

Davis Films has signed French action helmer Louis-Pascal Couvelaire ("Michel Vaillant", "Sweat") to direct an adaptation of the Robert Leininger's cult thriller novel "Killing Suki Flood" says The Hollywood Reporter.

Leininger's novel begins with a chance meeting on a deserted New Mexico highway between Frank, a traveler with a criminal secret, and Suki, a sexy young woman escaping from her sadistic boyfriend.

Suki discovers that Frank is carrying a large quantity of stolen cash and he finds that she has taken her boyfriend's stash of diamonds.

Casting is underway on the English-language movie, which is budgeted in the $30 million range. A summer shoot is planned in the same Nevada and New Mexico locations which appear in the book.

A Spring 2008 release is planned in France, international territories soon after. Katherine Tomlinson (TV's "La Femme Nikita") penned the script.

Relevant Entertainment will remake Italian helmer Ruggero Deodato's 1980 cult horror film "Cannibal Holocaust", a gorefest that's been banned in dozens of countries.

The story centers on a professor traveling to South America to find out what happened to a film crew that disappeared while shooting a documentary about reputed cannibal tribes.

He eventually discovers the remains of the crew and several reels of undeveloped film, which show the disastrous consequences of the crew's decision to provoke the natives.

Deodato shot the pic in documentary style and was jailed briefly after the Italian premiere until he could prove the actors were unharmed.

Shooting on the remake is scheduled to begin this Summer reports Variety.

Demit, taj dokumentarac sa abortusima izgleda opako. I'll make sure NOT to watch it.

ja ga jedva cekam. Volim Tony Kayea. Inace za Tonyja kazu ljudi koji su ga upoznali da je istinski lud privatno.

Ma nije zbog Tonija Keja, nego mi po opisu izgleda previše eksplicitno. Inače, koncept izgleda vrlo interesantno, odnosno ideja da film bude neutralan i da prikazuje najbolje i najgore od obje strane (kad Majkl Mur napravi takav film, otići ću da skočim u jezero). Kad pogledaš, javi kolko je gadan.

Due to very positive reactions from early test screenings, Universal has delayed its Middle Eastern-set action thriller "The Kingdom" from April 20th to September 28th to give marketing more time to create buzz reports Variety.

Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner and Chris Cooper star in the Peter-Berg directed project which follows an elite FBI detail sent to hunt down a terrorist mastermind. Michael Mann produced the film.

The delay comes due to box-office concerns. This April is already overcrowded with releases, and is famous for being a month which has yet to produce any realy $100 million hits.

The late September slot though will open the film on the Columbus Day holiday weekend, the same weekend which proved a big success last year for "Jackass: Number Two".

Kiefer Sutherland will spend his "24" hiatus starring in the supernatural thriller "Mirrors" reports Variety.

In "Mirrors," Sutherland will play an ex-cop who works security at a mall and discovers something awry in the mirrors of a department store. He tries to discover the origin of the evil.

Sutherland joined when plans for a "24" feature were postponed because the script wasn't ready. Fox will work on that film next summer when Sutherland completes the seventh season of the show.

New Regency is financing and will distribute through 20th Century Fox. Alexandre Aja ("The Hills Have Eyes", "Haute Tension") will direct and wrote the most recent draft.

Shooting runs from early May to mid July in Romania.

Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey are forming a new performance-capture film production company based at Walt Disney Studios.
The company will create films using performance-capture technology, a technique of digitally recording actors' movements that are fed into a computer allowing for the development of 3-D motion pictures.

Zemeckis is expected to direct many of the projects and as part of the deal all of Zemeckis' future performance-capture movies will be exclusively made at the company.

Disney will distribute and market its films worldwide, though the pact does not cover any live-action films Zemeckis may want to make.

Director Mark Romanek ("One Hour Photo") has been hired to helm a new version of the 1941 horror classic "The Wolfman" says The Hollywood Reporter.

Benicio Del Toro is attached to star in and produce the remake of the classic Universal Studios monster tale about an American who returns to his ancestral home in Victorian-era Great Britain, gets bitten by a werewolf and becomes one of the canine monsters.

Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the screenplay. A Fall start is scheduled.

Warner Bros is apparently championing a remake of a modestly successful John Landis comedy 'Spies Like Us' with Chevy Chase and Dan Ayrkoyd. Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer and Dave Mandel - the trio behind 2004's "Eurotrip", are at work on the project..."

Romanek is going to make Benicio Del Toro howl at the moon in Andrew Kevin Walker's THE WOLFMAN!!!

Hey folks, Harry here... In recent days we've had a lot of fanboy disappointment. Bad news on beloved projects turning from wet dream to clean-up on aisle 7. Well - today - a project that I've been VERY JAZZED ABOUT... Andrew Kevin Walker's THE WOLFMAN - the Victorian Period retelling of the classic Lon Chaney Jr THE WOLFMAN... starring Benicio Del Toro as Larry Talbot... well - it got its director... MARK ROMANEK.

You probably know Romanek from his amazing Music Video work - or the too few of you that saw his wonderful ONE HOUR PHOTO... you know him from that.

Over the last 3 years, I've gotten to know Mark Romanek quite well. We keep similar hours on AIM - and in numerous IM conversation he's exhibited quite the disdain for CG. Mark is an old school director - professing a desire to make films that are captured by a lens capturing the light and shadow in front of it.

I am SO happy at this reveal from Universal. It shows a real vision, by going with a director that absolutely keeps it real. From reading Andrew's script - I can't help but think that this will be an R-rated affair - and with Mark directing Benicio... I imagine the torment and torture of this cursed soul to be laid bare on screen... and I hope the transformation will be practical. I'm going to try to get Mark to talk with AICN soon about this. Because this is the most exciting Horror project out there for me right now.

An A-list horror film that is classic, violent and sexy without being just a nonsensical mess of CG. At least that's what I hope Romanek directing means!

Hard Case books pix
Screen time for crime
Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment has formed a producing partnership with James Polster and Charles Ardai to develop feature projects based on the Hard Case Crime novels.

First film, aimed for lensing later this year, will be "Little Girl Lost," based on the Richard Aleas novel about a young detective who discovers that his high school sweetheart has just been found brutally murdered on the roof of New York's seediest strip club.

"Richard Aleas" is a pen name for Hard Case Crime publisher Ardai, who will collaborate on the screenplay with Polster ("The Rape of Richard Beck") and James Hirsch. Robert Papazian and Hirsch will exec produce.

"These movies will adhere to the visual and storytelling style that have made the Hard Case Crime novels so popular," said Papazian and Hirsch, co-producers on HBO's "Rome" and the "Raw Feed" DVD thrillers distributed by Warner Home Video. "We want to capture everything that makes these books irresistible, from the great plotting and hard-boiled action to the film noir atmosphere, which just begs to be brought to the screen with musical scores by the legends of American jazz."

Hirsch told Daily Variety that the pics will be budgeted in the $5 million range.

Ardai, the founder and CEO of Internet company Juno, launched Hard Case in 2004 with the aim of reviving the pulp era crime novels of the 1940s and '50s. The imprint, a venture of Winterfall, includes novels by Stephen King, Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Pete Hamill and Donald E. Westlake, as well as pulp era authors such as Cornell Woolrich, David Dodge and George Axelrod.

Whilst John Carpenter may be the founding father of late 70's to early 90's genre movies, Peter Hyams proved over the same period to be one of the more reliable directors out there in that time.

Granted almost none of his films one would consider a masterpiece, but looking back on them his assorted filmmography delivered some flawed yet entertaining science-fiction tales and lightly enjoyable action thrillers that still hold up well today.

"2010," "Outland," "Timecop," "The Star Chamber," "The Presidio," "Sudden Death," "The Relic," "End of Days" - it was a pretty solid track record with admittedly the odd stumble ("A Sound of Thunder," "The Musketeer," "Stay Tuned").

Now, like Carpenter, he's finding much of his early works are about to get the remake treatment. Already the Michael Douglas-led "The Star Chamber" and Sean Connery-led "Outland" are being remade, now "Capricorn One" is also on the cards reports Moviehole.

Elliott Gould, James Brolin, O.J. Simpson, Karen Black, Telly Savalas, Sam Waterston and Brenda Vaccaro all starred in the original 1978 thriller about the first manned Mars mission.

The astronauts are pulled off the launchpad and forced for several months to work in a secret soundstage where they fake the landing expedition due to a major defect in the space vehicle which NASA just can't admit too.

Meanwhile a journalist is on the trail of the truth, yet every time he gets closer someone tries to take him out.

Peter Buchman ("Jurassic Park III") will write and David Dobkin ("Shanghai Knights") is set to direct the remake entitled "Capricorn Two" for Regency Films. Shooting is slated to start later this year.

Patrick Fugit, Clifton Collins, Jr. and Neil McDonough have joined that cast of "Horsemen," a crime thriller starring Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang and Peter Stormare reports Variety.

"Horsemen" centers on a detective who has grown increasingly distant from his two young sons since the death of his wife and finds himself thrust into an investigation of serial killings rooted in the Biblical prophecy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Principal photography has launched on Mandate Pictures production, directed Jonas Åkerlund ("Spun") from a screenplay by David Callaham. "Horsemen" will shoot for eight weeks in and around the Winnipeg area.

Lionsgate has picked up U.S. rights to Roger Donaldson's sexy thriller "The Bank Job," starring Jason Statham and Saffron Burrows reports Reuters.

The story is based on a real life unsolved daring robbery that took place in London in 1971 when a band of thieves tunneled their way into a safe deposit vault, taking millions of dollars in cash and jewelry.

A few days later a government gag order stopped all mention of the incident in the press. Currently in production in the U.K., shooting is due to end in March.

BERLIN — Three of Korea's top male stars will join hands in director Kim Jee-woon's Korean-style Western, "The Good, the Bad and the Weird."
Production company Barunson said that the Sergio Leone-inspired Western will star thesps Lee Byung-heon ("A Bittersweet Life") as "the good"; Jung Woo-sung ("The Restless") as "the bad"; and Song Kang-ho ("The Host") as "the weird."

The casting of the three top actors turns the pic into the biggest showcase of Korea's star system in recent memory.

The $10 million production will be set in Manchuria during the early 1900s, building off a string of Korean genre films from the 1970s that combined the aesthetics of the Western with outlaw movements aligned against Japanese colonial forces.Pic is scheduled to shoot from April to June in China, with a delivery planned for early 2008. Seoul-based seller Cineclick Asia is handling pre-sales at the EFM.

Emmanuelle Beart, who stars in Andre Techine's Competition title "The Witness" (CQ title), has joined supernational thriller "Vinyan," the English-language debut of Belgian director Frabice du Welz ("The Ordeal").

Beart will play a mother who travels to Thailand to find her lost child.

The film's title comes from the Thai word for a lost spirit that torments the living.

"Vinyan" was developed by Michael Gentile's Paris-based The Film together with UK's Film 4 and Lizzie Francke.
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France's Backup Films is handling sales and financing of the film at the European Film Market.

Shooting is set to begin in Thailand in May

Evo vesti koja ce obradovati Mehu Krljica -
Sony is bringing hit vidgame franchise "Metal Gear Solid" to the bigscreen.

Michael De Luca will produce the adaptation, with vidgame creator Hideo Kojima as exec producer. A bigscreen adaptation of the futuristic vidgame has been rumored since last May's E3 confab, but negotiations with Konami Digital Entertainment have been ongoing. Sony chair Yair Landau confirmed it was in the works following his keynote speech Thursday at the DICE vidgame confab in Las Vegas.

Columbia co-prexy of production Doug Belgrad hailed the franchise as especially cinematic in its storytelling and "loaded with well-developed, intriguing characters."

"Metal Gear Solid" has sold more than 20 million units since 1998, but its roots date back even further; the first "Metal Gear" game came out in 1987. Stealth action title became one of the industry's biggest hits and has four sequels, the last three of which came out under the "Metal Gear Solid" moniker. Another sequel is set for release this year.

"Metal Gear" games involve political intrigue and have a generally antiwar message.

CAA represents Konami and negotiated the deal.

Prilično je indikativno da se režiser ne spominje... Uwe je pre jedno godinu dana, verovatno više u šali, pomenuo da će on to potencijalno da režira ali je Kojima decidirano rekaod a od toga nema ništa...

Ne znam... MGS igre jesu filmične ali... Sumnjam u kvalitet ovoga. Holivud...

Brothers SHAWN, MARLON and KEENEN IVORY WAYANS are teaming up to bring THE MUNSTERS into the modern day in a new movie.

While none of the siblings will star in the project, Keenen Ivory is expected to direct the film, although a deal has yet to be made.

The classic 1960s TV series on which the movie is based told the story of a suburban family resembling a range of monsters from the 1930s, who couldn't understand why their neighbours were petrified of them.

Sing along! Milli Vanilli: The Movie at Universal?

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little bit of oddness on this day of my birth. Jeff Nathanson (who went from SPEED 2 to back to back Spielberg movies (CATCH ME IF YOU CAN and THE TERMINAL) will write and direct a Milli Vanilli biopic for Universal.

I'd love to see this movie with a soundtrack a half-second out of whack, but Nathanson seems to want to make a respectful and serious film. In all seriousness, the story of Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan is a very sad one and the drama and tragedy involved I'm sure is incredibly appealing to Nathanson.

He's gotten the support of Pilatus estate and the cooperation of Morvan.




Biography by Steve Huey
Milli Vanilli. The mere mention of the name still calls up the same derision it did when the dance-pop duo's career came to a sudden and ignominious end: Fakers. Frauds. A blatant marketing scam. Their story has been retold countless times: after selling millions of records, Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan were revealed to be models who publicly lip-synced to tracks recorded by anonymous studio vocalists. They became the first act ever stripped of a Grammy award and came to symbolize everything people disliked about dance-pop: it was so faceless that every musician involved could remain anonymous without anyone knowing the difference, so mechanical and artificial that the people who constructed it had to hire models to give it any human appeal, so pandering and superficial that people bought it just for its attachment to a pretty face. Whether that assessment was fair or not, it was beyond easy to hold Milli Vanilli in contempt. Yet for all the scapegoating, they were far from the only dance-pop act to be fronted by lip-syncers in the late '80s (the Martha Wash-voiced Black Box and C+C Music Factory spring to mind), nor were they the only Europop act to employ similar marketing tactics. (They were simply the most successful and visible, since their incorporation of rap made them more appealing to Americans.) What's more, pop music had a long tradition of hits recorded by anonymous studio musicians, dating back to '50s instrumental combos and '60s bubblegum. Milli Vanilli had the bad luck to get caught in a hoax during the extraordinarily image-conscious MTV era and a time when dance music of any stripe was accorded virtually no critical respect anyway, before its producers were perceived as the real creative points of focus. It's not as though Milli Vanilli were acclaimed for their honesty of expression before the scandal broke; it's more likely that what fueled the backlash was public resentment over Rob and Fab's celebrity (why should they be famous if they couldn't sing?) and embarrassment over the fact that Milli Vanilli's marketing had worked like a charm on everyone right up through the Grammy committee.

Milli Vanilli was the brainchild of German producer Frank Farian, who'd previously masterminded the European disco group Boney M. and the session-musician rock outfit Far Corporation. Seeking to fuse European dance-pop with elements of American rap, Farian assembled a number of session musicians and vocalists, including rapper Charles Shaw (an Army veteran) and two middle-aged American singers living in Germany, Johnny Davis and Brad Howell (some accounts give his name as Howe). Realizing that he had a marketable record but a distinctly unmarketable image, Farian hired two aspiring models and former breakdancers, Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, to pretend to be the group in videos, concerts, interviews, and the like. Pilatus had been born in New York in 1965, but grew up in Munich, spending some time in an orphanage after his parents (an American soldier and German stripper) gave him up for adoption. Morvan was born in 1966 on the island of Guadeloupe, lived in Miami for a time, and moved with his mother to Paris; he had been a skilled trampoline athlete until he suffered a neck injury in a fall. Both skilled dancers, the two had met sometime circa 1984 (differing accounts list their meeting place as Munich, Paris, or Los Angeles) and were attempting to make it as singers, dancers, models, or whatever they could. Their exotic look and long dreadlock extensions were just what Farian was looking for.

Milli Vanilli's first album, All or Nothing, was released in Europe in 1988 and was an instant success. Retitled Girl You Know It's True (after the lead single) and trimmed a bit, the record was issued in the U.S. in early 1989. Its catchy, lightweight pop-rap proved equally popular with American audiences; "Girl You Know It's True" raced up the pop charts to number two, and the next three Milli Vanilli singles — "Baby Don't Forget My Number," the ballad "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You," and the Diane Warren-penned "Blame It on the Rain" — all hit number one. Despite near-universal critical distaste (Farian's productions often recycled the same sounds and drum tracks), Girl You Know It's True sold an astounding seven million copies in the U.S. alone; internationally, Milli Vanilli sold approximately 30 million singles. In December 1989, as the fifth single "All or Nothing" was climbing the charts on its way to the Top Five, rapper Charles Shaw revealed to a New York reporter that Pilatus and Morvan had not actually sung any vocals on the album. Shaw quickly retracted his statements (apparently paid off by Farian to keep quiet), claiming that they were merely a PR stunt for his own album. Milli Vanilli was soon nominated for a Grammy award for Best New Artist, even though the rumors continued to swirl. And in early 1990, they won it, for the record beating out the Indigo Girls, Neneh Cherry, Soul II Soul, and Tone-Loc.

Success (or at least fame) was beginning to go to the duo's heads, particularly Pilatus, who was given to extreme mood swings and erratic behavior, and developed a cocaine problem. In an interview with Time magazine, Pilatus compared himself and Milli Vanilli favorably to Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger, and was roundly ridiculed for his statements. Additionally, Pilatus and Morvan had been pressuring Farian to let them sing all the vocals on the next Milli Vanilli album. Exasperated with them, Farian exposed the whole scheme in November 1990 and the public was furious. Pilatus and Morvan were stripped of their Grammy (ironically, the committee had justified its vote by citing the duo's "visual impact"), and a class-action suit was filed against Arista Records, allowing anyone who believed they'd been defrauded into purchasing the group's records to apply for a rebate. Arista dropped the group and deleted Girl You Know It's True from their catalog, making it the biggest-selling album ever taken out of print.

In 1991, Farian attempted to re-form Milli Vanilli with the original session vocalists (including female backup singer Gina Mohammed), this time crediting them and billing them as the Real Milli Vanilli, while also adding a Pilatus/Morvan look-alike named Ray Horton. However, the resulting Moment of Truth album flopped. Pilatus, meanwhile, was unable to deal with the sudden fall from grace; after mixing alcohol and prescription drugs, he slashed one of his wrists in a Los Angeles hotel, then called police and reporters to the scene, where he had to be removed from the balcony he was threatening to jump off of. Attempting to prove that they really could sing if given the chance, Pilatus and Morvan regrouped in 1993 as Rob & Fab; however, with their credibility damaged beyond repair, their self-titled debut reportedly sold only 2,000 copies total, despite an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. Farian had also attempted yet another album, this time renaming his group Try 'N' B and retooling the lineup again to enhance its visual appeal (which meant discarding the original singers); however, Sexy Eyes also stiffed. From there, Pilatus hit rock bottom. Beginning in 1995, he was arrested for several separate incidents in Los Angeles involving assaults (including one man he attacked with a metal lamp base), vandalism, and attempting to break into a car. Convicted of four different misdemeanors, he was sentenced to several months in jail in 1996, and did the first of numerous stints in drug rehab centers for his cocaine addiction. Pilatus eventually returned to Germany; in April 1998, his body was found in a Frankfurt hotel room after he mixed a fatal combination of pills and alcohol. Morvan continues to pursue a solo career.

Suggest to Lynch that he's pushed the camera to its visual limits-giving Inland Empire a grainy, sometimes harsh look that might come from poor TV reception augmented by a broken contrast knob-and he gets even more excitable. "Yeah, it's bad quality," he says. "I'm not pushing it to make it worse. I'm seeing that it's out of focus and I don't give a shit! It's workin' for me. It's just beautiful to me."

New Line's fast-tracking an untitled action pic starring Channing Tatum ("Step Up") as an undercover cop, preemptively snapping up a pitch by T. J. Scott and Kevin Lund and setting it up with Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey.
Story centers on a New York City cop who must infiltrate the underground world of free running, known as Parkour, to bust a seemingly unstoppable gang of bank robbers.

New Line bought the pitch Wednesday.

Tatum will be seen next in Paramount's Kimberly Peirce-directed "Stop-Loss" and Stuart Townsend's "Battle in Seattle." Scott and Lund, who previously set up a "Vivaldi" biopic at Imagine, will pen the screenplay.

Bowen and Godfrey are based at New Line through their Temple Hill banner. They made their debut with "The Nativity Story"; they're developing two other New Line projects -- rodeo romancer "Paper Wings" and political thriller "Material Breach" with Contrafilm partners Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson.

http://www.popboks.com/vesti/2_19_2007.shtml#v2

Tony Kaye ("American History X") is in negotiations to take over the directing duties from Samuel Bayer on the Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson thriller "Black Water Transit" reports Production Weekly.

Based on the Carsten Stroud novel, this action thriller follows the divergent agendas of crooks, cops and lawyers as they clash over a shipment of illegal firearms, mafia ties and a double homicide.

The film, which marks the first time Willis and Jackson have together since 1995's "Die Hard With a Vengeance", will still shoot in New Orleans. Shooting however has been delayed til early April.

As you should know writer/director and AITH alumni ERIC RED (BODY PARTS, COHEN AND TATE) has been gearing up for his next genre vice-grip, the supernatural thriller 100 FEET. The script is a character driven piece, and the proper casting in terms of the female lead was, if you ask me; crucial. Well Mr. Red and his production team over at Grand Illusions just locked their lead dame, and I'm elated to report that its a bang-on choice. Mr. Red you got the floor!

ERIC RED SAYS: "We've been fortunate to cast Famke Janssen ("X-MEN," "GOLDENEYE") in the role of Marnie. Famke is a beautiful actress of great presence and intelligence, completely dedicated to the realism of character and performance.

With Famke's timeless beauty, she will bring glamour and star power to the role of Marnie, reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn in the classic "WAIT UNTIL DARK."  I'm certain the audience will adore watching her. I'm incredibly excited. Nobody could play the part better!"

So there you have it, a great gal for in my opinion, a badass script! 100 FEET is slated to start shooting this coming April in Brooklyn, New York and Budapest, Hungary. Here's the Synopsis for those who didn't catch it.

A young woman, Marnie Watson, is granted early release from her prison sentence for manslaughter (killing her husband - a violent NYC cop - in self defense) on condition she wear an electronic ankle bracelet and remain within her home (sličan zaplet ima DISTURBIA DJ Carusa), effectively under house arrest, for the remainder of her sentence. Her late husband's partner keeps tabs on her from a patrol car parked across the street, hoping she'll violate probation and he can send her back to prison. But the 100-foot radius her ankle bracelet allows isn't the worst of her problems. Her dead husband --now a malevolent ghost--is still in the house, where he died -- intent on savage revenge.(doduše u filmu DISTURBIA nije duh u pitanju nego klasična REAR WINDOW postavka)

Maggie Grace ("The Fog", TV's "Lost") has landed the female lead opposite Liam Neeson in the thriller "Taken," a co-production between Europa Corp. and 20th Century Fox says Reuters.

Grace is set to play the estranged daughter of Neeson's character who is kidnapped and forced into the slave trade. Neeson's character is a former spy who uses his skills to rescue her.

Pierre Morel will direct from a screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Shooting begins this month in Paris.

A spokesman in Rome said yesterday that religious organisation Opus Dei (the villains of "The Da Vinci Code") was collaborating in the production of a full-length feature film on the life of its founder, Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. The producers said they were hoping to enlist Antonio Banderas and Robert De Niro for the leading roles

Fox Searchlight and New Regency will co-finance "The Night Watchman," a James Ellroy-scripted drama that will star Keanu Reeves reports Variety.

Reeves plays a cop who's always done what was needed to solve homicides and crack down on gang violence until he gets a wakeup call and decides he can no longer play the game that made him so effective.

David Fincher, Spike Lee and Oliver Stone have circled the project over the past decade, but it wasn't til the project moved to Fox that it picked up steam.

David Ayer ("Harsh Times") has been set to direct after he does a rewrite. Production begins April 30th.

ThinkFilm has picked up worldwide rights to the provocative, graphic abortion documentary "Lake of Fire," the first feature from director Tony Kaye since 1998's "American History X." The 2 1/2-hour feature takes a stark look at all sides of the abortion debate. "Fire" will be released theatrically in October, with a possible three- to four-hour TV version to follow. Kaye wrote, produced, directed and lensed the self-financed black-and-white film

Teaser za Russella M...
http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2007/02/zona-mrtvih-outcome.html

Warner Bros. and Initial Entertainment Grouphave acquired screen rights to bestselling Brian Selznick children's novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" as a potential directing vehicle for Martin Scorsese reports Variety.

The project's screenwriter John Logan, Scorsese and producer Graham King all previously teamed on 2004's "The Aviator".

The story concerns a 12-year-old orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station in 1930 and a mystery involving the boy, his late father and a robot.

Under the terms of Scorsese's deal with Paramount, that studio has the right to own half of any project Scorsese directs or produces elsewhere.

Scorsese remains attached to helm the Jesuit Priests in 17th century Japan flick "Silence," an adaptation of Eric Jager's historical novel "Last Duel," and a potential "Departed" sequel.

Animated feature helmer Brad Bird ("The Incredibles," "The Iron Giant") is rumoured to be tackling a live action adaptation of James Dalessandro's novel "1906" reports Slashfim.

The story is set around the great San Francisco earthquake and city fire told by a young reporter who delves into the corruption and greed within the city that helped fuel the disaster.

At one point Barry Levinson was in line to direct the Warner Bros. film. Bird is expected to start work after he completes Pixar's upcoming feature "Ratatouille".

Brad Bird je bog. Valjaće ovo. Ili ne...

Na Ghost House sajtu (http://ghosthousepictures.comingsoon.net/news.php?viewby=13) ima klipova sa snimanja 30 days of night, nisu preterano zanimljivi, osim atmosfere snega, krvi i noći koja obećava dobru adaptaciju (ako ne bude spotovske režije tj.)

Quoteako ne bude spotovske režije tj

Odnosno ako se pakao zaledi.

New Line's signed directors on a pair of high-profile projects, attaching Neil Jordan on future fantasy "Killing on Carnival Row" and Mark S. Waters on romantic comedy "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past."
Jordan's also set to do a rewrite on "Killing on Carnival Row," which Arnold and Anne Kopelson will produce through their Kopelson Entertainment banner. New Line acquired "Carnival" in late 2005, preemptively buying Travis Beacham's spec centered on a Victorian city inhabited by humans, faeries, elves and vampires, with a detective pursuing a serial killer.

Jordan wrote and directed "Breakfast on Pluto," which recently won him Irish Film & Television Academy Awards in both categories. He also helmed Warner Bros.' upcoming "The Brave One," with Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard.

Hollywood Elsewhere indicates that "Nip/Tuck" creator and "Running with Scissors" director Ryan Murphy will next be helming "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", a film about the hurdles and roadblocks the iconic director had to go through to make his popular classic "Psycho."

When making "Psycho", the British helmer discovered barriers on all sides - the script was seen as way too dark and perverse, especially his twist of the lead female star getting killed off after 45 minutes.

Even more surprising is the news that Anthony Hopkins is already rumoured to be starring as Hitchcock, and Helen Mirren might co-star as his wife and collaborator Alma Reville.

Considering the subject matter, one expects Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and scribe Joseph Stefano to figure in as characters. Universal is tipped to be the financier/distributor.

Kako kaže narodni pesnik, ,,Monahana sa obadva sina..."

Paramount Pictures is set to handle the rock 'n' roll epic "The Long Play" which will be developed as a directing vehicle for Martin Scorsese.

"The Long Play" follows two friends through 40 years in the music business, from the early days of R&B to contemporary hip-hop.

Variety reports that William Monahan ("The Departed") is set to rewrite the script by Rich Cohen & Matthew Weiss. Rocker Mick Jagger, who originated the project at Disney, will produce.

While Scorsese and Monahan have discussed continuing the storyline of best picture winner "The Departed," Monahan will pen "The Long Play" as his next assignment.

Oscar winning scribe William Monahan ("The Departed") is re-teaming with Leonardo DiCaprio and Vertigo Entertainment for Hong Kong thriller remake "Confessions of Pain" for Warner Bros. Pictures.

The Hollywood Reporter indicates that "Pain" follows two close friends, one a police detective and the other a private detective, who team to investigate the murder of the cop's father-in-law. As the investigation proceeds, they uncover evidence that shows that nothing is as it appears.

The original released last year was created by the team behind "Infernal Affairs" which "The Departed" was based on. "Pain" is being developed as a starring vehicle for DiCaprio who will also produce.

Monahan recently completed the script "Penetration" for Ridley Scott to direct, and his "Marco Polo" script is being developed as a star vehicle for Matt Damon.