BOP Daily News
January 16, 2004
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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Given Hollywood’s penchant for remakes and “re-imaginings”, it’s almost headline news when an original film idea gets greenlighted. Such is the case with Constantin Film’s thriller Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. The costume drama is based on the novel of the same name and tells the tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an 18th-century French nobleman who is born with no smell of his own. He becomes obsessed with scents, and develops a nearly super-human olfactory sense in his quest to find the ultimate smell. His obsession leads him into the perfume business, where he creates unrivaled scents until he turns to murder to satisfy his olfactory obsession. Orlando Bloom is said to be at the top of the short list to play Grenouille, if the shoot can be sandwiched into his busy schedule. One rumored attempt by the producers to ensure the film’s success hit a snag when the idea of having Queer Eye’s Fab Five do a cameo as Grenouille’s assistants was shot down by potential star Bloom loudly insisting he is not at all gay.
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And speaking of being gay, a biopic of the late designer Halston is being planned, and the producers reportedly want Alec Baldwin to play the flamboyant fashionista, who died in 1990 of complications from AIDS. In order to take on the part, Baldwin says the producers want him to lose about 30 pounds and become rather gaunt, as much of the film will apparently take place during the time Halston was quite ill. But the real shocker, according to Baldwin, will not come from his altered appearance, "There's a full-blown love scene with a guy in that." Upon hearing about this potentially fascinating sequence, Orlando Bloom released a statement that he is not in any way gay.
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Jane Fonda is returning to the screen to star opposite Jennifer Lopez in the upcoming comedy Monster-in-Law. J-Lo will play Charlie, a young woman who believes she has found the perfect man, until she meets her ruthless mother-in-law-to-be. Fonda will portray the mother-in-law from Hell, who believes no woman is good enough for her little boy, and most especially not Charlie. Rumors that Ben Affleck was being considered for the part of the perfect man caused all involved with the project to run screaming for the exits.
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Brian De Palma is bringing a fictionalized account of the infamous Black Dahlia murder to the screen. The film, which will be an adaptation of a James Ellroy novel, uses the unsolved 1947 murder of would-be actress Elizabeth Short as a backdrop for the film. The actual plot will follow two detectives, to be played by Mark Wahlberg and Josh Hartnett, as they try to solve the murder in an atmosphere of corruption and deceit. The case is further complicated when the pair begin to vie for the affection of a woman who’s the proverbial dead ringer for the murdered girl. As with most De Palma films, what appears on theatre screens will steal shamelessly from Hitchcock, be completely incomprehensible, and ultimately make the real-life unsolved mystery about as interesting as counting the number of blue cars on the freeway.
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"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum."
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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