BOP Daily News
August 29, 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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Spike Lee is finding the current climate in Hollywood isn't conducive to his
style of filmmaking, so he is turning to TV work instead. Lee has been
quoted as saying, "It's hard to get a film made, my kind of film anyway, in
Hollywood these days," and points out that most of the films being made
today are sequels and comic-book properties. Lee is currently working on a
movie for Showtime, and says working for a cable channel is much the same as
working on a feature film, as language and violent content are not
restricted. Of course, if they were, Lee's films would be 13 minutes long, though they'd still feel like they're 3 hours long.
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Samuel L. Jackson may be taking his kicking ass-and-taking names attitude
back to high school, with reports that he is an early favorite to play the
lead in Back in the Day. The movie will tell the tale of Ken Carter,
controversial coach of an undefeated high-school basketball team who benched
his students for poor academic performance. The team, which included Coach
Carter's son, subsequently forfeited two games and was banned from the gym
until their grades improved. In the immortal words of Chris Rock, Denzel's gonna sue somebody!
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Yet another version of the classic science-fiction/horror film Invasion of
the Body Snatchers is in the works, this one by the creative team who
brought us the 1993 film Body Snatchers, which was a reworking of the tale
of paranoia as members of a small town start realizing that their friends
and loved ones are no longer their friends and loved ones, even though their
outer appearance hasn't changed. Colin Powell has reportedly been cast in the lead role.
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The classic 1,001 Arabian Nights tale Scheherazade is getting an updated
treatment in a film starring Juliette Binoche, Laurence Fishburne and Gary
Sinise. In this modern telling, Scheherazade is the unfaithful wife of a
powerful mobster who is kidnapped by his henchmen and then must talk her way
to freedom. Producers were reportedly prevented from pursuing their first
choice for the role, Fran Drescher, by both Amnesty International and the US
Surgeon General.
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Attorney generals from 24 states sent a letter to MPAA president Jack
"Boom-Boom" Valenti requesting that he influence studios to stop showing
people smoking in movies because it encourages teens to take up the habit.
The action was spurred by a recent study that revealed children who watch
movies in which actors smoke are three times more likely to try smoking
themselves than those exposed to on-screen puffing. If the attorneys general
are successful in their efforts, they next plan to request Hollywood show
more children being toilet trained and learning to tie their shoes.
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Looks like distributors are looking to take advantage of all the free
publicity generated by the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's upcoming The
Passion, as several well-known companies that specialize in limited releases
are currently expressing interest in acquiring the rights. Icon
Productions, Gibson's film company, reportedly won't be making its decision
on a distributor until after Labor Day, but one of the first obstacles faced
by the eventual winner may be a title change, as Miramax has already laid
claim to The Passion for a period romantic drama on its schedule. We hear Spider-Man 3 isn't taken.
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Macaulay Culkin as Hannibal Lecter? It just might happen if legendary
producer Dino De Laurentiis gets his way. He's looking to cast Culkin in a
new Lecter film that would follow the famed serial killer from his childhood
in Lithuania through a period in Paris in his teens to his arrival in the
US. Four actors would be required for the film, playing Lecter at 12, 16, 20
and 25. According to De Laurentiis, Lecter's backstory contains a
privileged birth into a loving family that was destroyed by war when he and
his sister were orphaned at a young age. Lecter is also said to have a
"very close relationship" with said sister. If not for the sister thing, Culkin could almost be starring in his own autobiography.
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"What're you gonna do? Arrest me for smoking?"
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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