'The Cook' is back with more reports of all the latest news from the Cannes Film Festival on the French Riviera:
John Hurt has just signed on to headline "Shooting Dogs". The $7m pic is directed by Michael Caton-Jones and will be shot in Rwanda for BBC films.
Dimension Films has acquired North American distribution rights to video game feature "Tekken" from Crystal Sky. Penned by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary ("The Mask," "Tomb Raider"), pic is a CGI actioner budgeted at about $40 million. Charles Stone ("Drumline") is in negotiations to direct and is expected to complete shooting in the third quarter of 2004.
Musicvideo helmer Roel Reine has come aboard to direct Hyde Park Entertainment's thriller"The Duelist". The story centers on a Wall Street analyst who joins a powerful modern-day dueling society. When darker elements of the organization surface, he must fight for his family's survival. It's expected to start shooting this fall in the U.K. and Ireland and has not yet been cast
Eddie Izzard is in town to promote a feature documentary called "Diva 51", which is about his life. Directed by Sarah Townsend and exec produced by Joni Sighvatsson, the pic has been shooting for three years and will be ready for release in 2005. Jim Caviezel will play the lead role in "M," a $35 million adaptation of a bestselling French comic book written and to be directed by Gallic helmer James Huth. "M" is intended to be the first of a series of films based on the comic books described as a Sherlock Holmes/Indiana Jones mutated cross.
Director Antonia Bird, actor Robert Carlyle, writer Irvine Welsh and producer Mark Cousins have unveiled their first collaboration - Bird will direct "The Meat Trade," starring Carlyle, from an original screenplay by Welsh (author of "Trainspotting"). The black comedy/horror pic is set in contemporary Edinburgh, and inspired by the legendary Scottish tale of the 19th-century bodysnatchers Burke and Hare.
Monica Bellucci will star in Bertrand Blier's "How Much Do You Make?," a romantic comedy that will shoot in February. The Italian actress will play a prostitute hired by an admirer who has just won the lottery to be his around-the-clock "wife".
"Daisy Scarlett: Semper Occultus" is gaining lots of buzz around Cannes. Intended to star Kate Beckinsale in another possible franchise of her own, it now seems various casting elements are on hold, though Jason Statham is off and word that Jet Li's character has been replaced by the spectactular Collin Chou (Seraph in "Matrix" 2 and 3).
Spanish director Luna ("Whore") is prepping a new pic, the $12 million Moscow-set chiller "Moscow Zero". The pic begins with the disappearance of an Moscow anthropologist conducting research on the homeless who live in vast tunnels below Moscow. A friend sets out to find him and discovers this underground world connects with the underworld. Filming begins in January.
Heath Ledger and Geoffrey Rush are teaming for the movie Candy. Debut by Australian helmer Neil Armfield. Abbie Cornish also star in this comic story about two people so deeply in love that they don't want anything to come between them. Shooting begins in Australia later in the year. Finally, "Shark Tale" has a launch with Will Smith, Angelina Jolie & Jack Black in person to help the launch. Here's some photos:
Thanks to 'CW'
