BOP Daily News
October 7, 2003
The spirit of BOP News lives on in
This is So Last Week,
our pop culture week-in-review,
presented in a pleasing quiz form.
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The Farrelly Brothers have just received the green light from Warner Bros
for their take on the classic Three Stooges films. The project, which will
focus on the character created by Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Jerome "Curly"
Howard, is set to be released sometime in the summer of 2005. The Farrellys
are reportedly updating the characters for a new generation of moviegoers,
and will likely put their own unique spin on what Warner likely anticipates
becoming a contemporary franchise with hopefully the longevity of the
original series. In related rumors, the story will allegedly follow the attempts of Warner Bros. to make the latest film version of Superman.
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Talk about jumping the gun. The proverbial corpse not only isn't cold yet,
it's not even officially a corpse, yet reports regarding recasting of the
most famous film super-spy continue to surface. The most recent candidate
to replace current James Bond Pierce Brosnan is Clive Owen, who reportedly
was recommended by Brosnan himself. According to the rumor, Brosnan will
announce early next year that the next Bond film, his fifth and the
venerable franchise's 21st, will be his last, and the announcement that Owen
will replace him will be made soon thereafter. According to one insider,
Brosnan's recommendation prompted the producers to check out Owen's
performance in the film Croupier, and they were reportedly duly impressed.
The producers were also apparently impressed by the fact that Owen looks
good in a tuxedo. Meanwhile, rumors that Roger Moore was parading around in
front of the producers' offices wearing a tuxedo and a sandwich board
saying, "I'm available" could not be confirmed at press time.
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With the first two films of the Lord of the Rings trilogy riding high at the
box office and anticipation for the third building steadily, Hollywood is
looking to the fantasy genre for more inspiration. Miramax has just
optioned The Two Princesses of Barnarre, which reportedly shares many of the
fantasy elements of JRR Tolkein's Middle Earth epic. The story focuses on
the youngest daughter of a royal family who must overcome her natural
timidity in order to save her kingdom - and her older sister - from a
mysterious illness. LotR fans promptly responded to the news that the next
big fantasy epic would feature a girl by asking, "What's a girl?"
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William H. Macy and Steven Schachter, fresh from the triumphant Emmy
performance of their film Door to Door, will team up once again for the
independent feature Belle of Indiana. The story will focus on Belle, a
young farmer's wife in turn-of-the-20th century Indiana whose husband
deserts her and her young ward. After trying to run the farm themselves,
Belle and her ward, Jennie, who is prone to wild behavior, advertise for a
farmhand and are overwhelmed with a number of handsome applicants for the
job. But things take a dark turn as the farmhands hired to help Belle and
Jennie begin mysteriously disappearing one by one. This begs the question, who the hell would Macy play?
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The Bennifer backlash may be having some rather serious and unexpected
consequences if the current Hollywood buzz turns out to be accurate.
Paramount is reportedly considering not having Ben Affleck continue as Jack
Ryan in the next film in the franchise, which is currently in the
pre-production stage. Although Affleck's first appearance in the role, The
Sum of All Fears, did quite well at the box office, recent events, including
the dismal performance of Gigli, have made him less than palatable to the
studio execs. Paramount is denying the rumors, but when a spokeswoman was
asked directly if Affleck would definitely appear in the next film, she
admitted she didn't' know, and Affleck's rep was also quoted as saying, "I
have absolutely no idea" when asked if Affleck would be playing Jack Ryan
again. Jersey Girl should make up a lot of people’s minds.
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Seems Vin Diesel likes to start franchises, but not finish them. Hot on the
heels of reports that Rob Cohen will not be back to direct the second
installment in the xXx action series comes word that Diesel will also not
return. Rapper-turned-actor Ice-Cube will take Diesel's place as the
super-hip secret agent, and Lee Tamahori, who helmed the last installment in
the James Bond franchise, will go behind the camera. Diesel and Cohen are
not completely out of the series, however, having retained their exec
producer credits. Diesel also passed up the opportunity to film 2Fast
2Furious, the poorly-named sequel to his breakout hit, The Fast and the Furious.
Joan Rivers has reportedly offered Diesel $25 million to star in a film about a short, Jewish former comedienne who gets one last chance at the spotlight when she finds a huge fan base in France.
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Proving that even demi-gods get no respect from studio accounts, the stars
of the syndicated hits Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules are suing
Universal over their shares of the profits. Kevin Sorbo and Lucy Lawless
allege in the suits that Universal increased distribution and production
costs in order to reduce the amount of profit, thus shorting the stars eight
percent and five percent, respectively. Universal has made no official
comment on the suit, but insiders report execs told Sorbo and Lawless their
series would have made more money had five gay guys appeared each week to do
a makeover on the featured villain.
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Val Kilmer is denying reports that he is horrific to work with on sets,
pointing out instead that it is his characters that are difficult, not him.
In the wake of remarks by director John Frankenheimer that working with
Kilmer was a nightmare, the actor was quoted as saying, "I don't know
anybody who's good at their job who doesn't get into trouble," and went on
to claim that Hollywood confuses him with the conflicted characters he
plays. Actually, Val, we're pretty sure it's not Hollywood that's confused.
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Ah, the trials and tribulations of holding on to a boy-toy. Reports are
surfacing that Demi Moore is making life on the set of Ashton Kutcher's TV
series That '70S Show a living hell by keeping an eagle eye on her honey, to
the extent that Kutcher's female co-stars and crewmembers are becoming
increasingly self-conscious, lest they say or do something that will make
Demi think they're after her man. If Ashton is real smart he’d just tell Demi that he’s already slept with all his co-stars; that would really solve his problem.
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"Affleck, you da bomb in Phantoms, yo!"
Box Office Prophets offers quality, reliable news about the entertainment industry. BOP is also entertaining. To that end, please be advised that some content in this column is intended to be humorous and should not be considered factual.
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