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week 33-01
ShowBiz Weekly: news from the UK & US...

With three months to go until the highly anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, pre-production is already under way on the follow-up film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Director CHRIS COLUMBUS and the rest of the cast, including ROBBIE COLTRANE, MAGGIE SMITH and RICHARD HARRIS, will be returning when filming begins in November. And to keep the ball rolling, the screenwriter of the two films, STEVE KLOVES, has already been hired to adapt the third JK ROWLING book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Kloves, who was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation of Wonder Boys, also wrote and directed The Fabulous Baker Boys.

British actress EMILY WATSON will join SIR ANTHONY HOPKINS in Red Dragon, the next film featuring psychiatrist-turned-cannibal Hannibal Lecter. Production will begin in November on the project, which has been fast-tracked by Universal after the RIDLEY SCOTT-directed Hannibal earned more than 250 million at the box office. The film will also star EDWARD NORTON as an obsessive former FBI agent hunting down a brutal serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy. Watson will play Reba, a blind woman for whom the killer works. Red Dragon, the first of author THOMAS HARRIS's books to introduce the Lecter character, was previously filmed in 1986 as Manhunter with BRIAN COX portraying Lecter. The new version, with a screenplay by Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs screenwriter TED TALLY, will use elements from the book that did not make it into the Manhunter film.

MICHAEL DOUGLAS is planning to team up again with director MILOS FORMAN for a film adaptation of the ARTHUR MILLER play The Ride Down Mount Morgan. The duo worked together when they both won Oscars for the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which Douglas co-produced and Forman directed. Now Forman will helm and Douglas will star in The Ride Down Mount Morgan, a satire on the state of marriage which had its London premiere in 1991. It later played on Broadway where it starred PATRICK STEWART and won a Tony nomination for best play.

Dorothy and the land of Oz are coming to television in a weekly series originally pioneered by Planet of the Apes director TIM BURTON. Tales of Oz, based on the 45 novels by L FRANK BAUM, will be dark and treat Dorothy and company as figures who inhabited Oz more than 60 years ago. This vision comes from The X-Files writer DAVID HAYTER, who has written the pilot episode and will executive-produce the series with Pulp Fiction's LAWRENCE BENDER. Burton failed with a similar attempt several years ago. ``I have reduced the more childlike aspects of the movie and created a series that inhabits a more visceral world,'' Hayter tells Daily Variety. ``Not many people realise there were 45 books in the series, 16 of them written by L Frank Baum.'' He said the Oz of the series will be a ``very real, very dangerous place''.

WILLIAM SHATNER is to star in the sequel to American Psycho, last year's hit film about Wall Street serial killer Patrick Bateman which starred CHRISTIAN BALE. The next instalment, to be called American Psycho 2: The Girl Who Wouldn't Die, will centre on the murderous exploits of a college girl to be played by MILA KUNIS of the television series That 70s Show. If it is successful, more American Psycho films could follow as BRETT EASTON ELLIS, who wrote the original American Psycho novel, has sold the rights to Lions Gate Films. ``We're going to see what happens with American Psycho 2 before we go ahead with a franchise,'' said a source at the studio. ``American Psycho does have a brand name and it was a big international hit.''

FABRICE MORVAN, half of the band Milli Vanilli, which won and then lost a 1990 Grammy after it was revealed they did not sing on their album, is beginning a new career as a karaoke singer. Morvan, whose partner ROB PILATUS died of a drug overdose in 1998, is the star of Showerpalooz UMA MAKES PREGNANT PAUSE QUENTIN TARANTINO is postponing production of his new film Kill Bill for a year until his star UMA THURMAN, has had the baby she is expecting. He was faced with the alternative of recasting the film but, he tells Daily Variety: ``I'm going to wait for Uma. She is my actress.'' Tarantino began writing the script shortly after Thurman appeared in his Pulp Fiction and he describes Kill Bill as his homage to such genres as ``the spaghetti Westerns, the bad-ass chick flicks and CHARLES BRONSON movies''. He said Thurman helped him come up with her character of the Bride, who tracks down the men who wronged her and kills them one by one.

HUGH HEFNER's Playboy company is moving into the feature film business and plans to produce ``broad romantic comedies'' in the 20 million budget range, according to producer LARRY KASANOFF. ``We want to make movies that are funny and sexy and centre around the unique lifestyle that Playboy has created,'' said Kasanoff, who is Playboy's partner in the venture. The first two films in development are tentatively titled A Night at the Playboy Mansion and Playmate of the Year.

HELEN MIRREN's film-maker husband TAYLOR HACKFORD is to direct a feature film he is developing based on the life of the blind singer RAY CHARLES. No actor has yet been cast as Charles, who, although not appearing in the film, is heavily involved in the music for the project. Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Story will follow the singer's poor beginnings to his rise through the music industry while battling racism, drug use and problems in love. Hackford, whose most recent film was Proof of Life with RUSSELL CROWE and MEG RYAN, previously directed a 1987 documentary about another music legend, Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll.

The Exorcist author WILLIAM PETER BLATTY is unhappy that Warner Bros is going ahead with a third sequel to the 1973 horror film based on his novel. JOHN FRANKENHEIMER is to direct the latest version of the story - a ``prequel'' which portrays Father Merrin's first showdown with the Devil while serving as a missionary in Africa. But Blatty `I don't like people playing with one of my very central characters,'' he tells Daily Variety. ``It does not have my blessing. Far from it.''

DENNIS QUAID, who was recently divorced from Meg Ryan, was forced to confront the failure of his marriage in Dinner With Friends, about an outwardly happily married couple who shock their friends by divorcing. His co-star was ANDIE MacDOWELL, also recently divorced, whom 47-year-old Quaid dated briefly after their marriages broke up. ``Of course the plot made us think and of course we brought our own experiences to it,'' he said in an interview in Los Angeles. ``Relationships change in a day,'' he said. ``You think you know somebody... but that someone changes. ``The real secret of a successful marriage is intimacy, and if there is a loss of intimacy, that is when a relationship starts to die. They are making minimum wage and is someone going to tell Warren Beatty and Annette Bening they can't come? Probably not.''

Finnish film-maker RENNY HARLIN wants JUDE LAW to star in his big-budget film about the father of Finland, CARL MANNERHEIM, who died in 1951. The English language film, which Harlin hopes to being filming in 2003, tells the story of Mannerheim who restored law and order in Finland after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and became president of the country in 1944. The international love story Beyond Borders , which OLIVER STONE recently abandoned after four years' work, is now going ahead with former James Bond director MARTIN CAMPBELL at the helm. ANGELINA JOLIE is to star as a socialite involved in a 10-year romance with a relief worker among disaster-stricken locations in Africa, Thailand and Europe after CATHERINE ZETA-JONES and MEG RYAN dropped out. No male lead has yet been cast, following the withdrawals of KEVIN COSTNER and RALPH FIENNES, but Campbell, who directed the 007 adventure GoldenEye, plans to begin filming on December 15.

Xena star LUCY LAWLESS has begun filming her first The X-Files episode and is expected to become a semi-regular on the series, according to sources. Xena shut down production in May after Lawless, 34, had announced she planned to take a year off to spend time with her 13-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son. ``I wasn't looking to be a guest on anybody's show but then the X-Files creator CHRIS CARTER tracked me down when I was vacationing in Hawaii and asked me to do it,'' she told the New York Daily News. She said she has signed for two episodes which they might expand to eight or more, although her role remains shrouded in secrecy. ``You won't be able to tell if she's a good or evil force,'' said the show's executive producer FRANK SPOTNITZ.

COURTNEY LOVE rescued her husband, Nirvana singer KURT COBAIN, from death nearly a dozen times before he committed suicide in 1994, according to a new biography. Cobain once told his school friends: ``I'm going to be a superstar musician, kill myself and go out in a flame of glory,'' says author CHARLES CROSS in Heavier Than Heaven, his book about the Nirvana frontman. He quotes Love recalling one episode in which she awoke to find her husband passed out on the floor of their hotel room. ``It wasn't that he OD'd. It was that he was DEAD. If I hadn't woken up at seven... I don't know, maybe I sensed it. It was sick and psycho.'' It was the first of many times Love would save Cobain's life, the book says.

CHER is putting her newly completed clifftop mansion in Malibu on the market for 20 million. The Oscar-winning actress-singer employed 70 workmen for two years to build the house, which has seven bedrooms, a wig room, a guest house, pool and tennis court. The house is described by those who have seen it as a cross between a villa and a monastery. Cher is said to have hand-picked all the tile in the house and overseen the installation of such special features as a hammered-copper ceiling in the dining room. GWYNETH PALTROW has revealed she had to seek the help of a psychotherapist after she won the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love in 1999. She said she was ``overwhelmed'' by the fame her win radiated and was ``flipping out''. ``If you think about the whole world focusing on one person that much - if you pointed that much energy at an atom, it would explode,'' she tells W Magazine. ``You think about one poor, tiny girl just trying to make her way through. I thought I wasn't going to make it. I was like, `I need help!''' And she may still need help when it comes to her relationships with men. ``As my reputation will attest,'' she says, ``I have problems with commitment.'' She says that four years after their engagement ended she and BRAD PITT still do not speak and when she broke up with BEN AFFLECK it was hard for him to accept their relationship was over.

The all-girl band The Go-Gos, who broke up in 1985, have reunited and are back on the road with a new album and a possible film in development. ``I think it's just the right time for us again,'' says bassist KATHY VALENTINE. The band broke up amid jealousy and drug use but after they were approached in 1998 by producers interested in optioning their story for a film, the Go-Gos began exchanging e-mails about working together again. ``In the early days, being a Go-Go was about fame, recognition and power,'' singer BELINDA CARLISLE tells US Weekly magazine. ``Now it's about doing something we love and making a living out of it.''

KATE HUDSON has taken over the role originally intended for GWYNETH PALTROW in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Other commitments forced Paltrow to back out of the film, based on the illustrated guide of the same name that chronicles the don'ts of dating and what it takes to ruin a promising relationship in only 10 days. The script has been adapted to focus on a womaniser who bets his friends he can stay in a relationship for more than 10 days. But he winds up getting more than he bargained for when the woman he chooses tries to get rid of him. DANNY DE VITO will direct the film but the leading male role has not yet been cast.

Even though they are only talking to each other through lawyers, TOM CRUISE and NICOLE KIDMAN are thinking about working together again. Cruise's producing partner, PAULA WAGNER, confirmed she and Cruise were developing a film for NICOLE KIDMAN to star in and their friend and Eyes Wide Shut co-star SYDNEY POLLACK to direct. ``That's all I'll say about it, but it's a terrific character,'' Wagner told USA Today. Cruise and Wagner produced The Others, the supernatural chiller set in Jersey and starring Kidman, which has just opened to enthusiastic reviews in America. Wagner said both she and Cruise think Kidman is ``a great actress and wonderful to work with''.

BEN AFFLECK's representatives are not saying whether the actor will leave alcohol rehab to appear at Wednesday's LA premiere of the comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The Pearl Harbour star is undergoing treatment at the Promises clinic in Malibu, where CHARLIE SHEEN also sobered up. Even if he doesn't appear, most of his co-stars, including MATT DAMON, JAMES VAN DER BEEK, SHANNON DOHERTY, JASON BIGGS, CARRIE FISHER and SHANNON ELIZABETH, are expected to attend.

ALBERT FINNEY is to portray WINSTON CHURCHILL and VANESSA REDGRAVE will play his wife Clementine in A Lonely War, a drama about their marriage. The film is being produced by the British film-making brothers Ridley and TONY SCOTT and will be directed by RICHARD LONCRAINE, who helmed Richard III and some episodes of the Second World War mini-series Band of Brothers. Filming begins in London in October.

A casting search is under way to find an actor to portray HERVE VILLECHAIZE in a film biography of the troubled star of Fantasy Island. Villechaize, who portrayed the dwarf island-greeter Tattoo in the popular series, shot himself in 1993 following several brushes with the law and disputes with women friends. Producers of the film, The Big Tease, are holding auditions for ``bold, expressive little people'' to play Villechaize as both a child and an adult.

British boxer LENNOX LEWIS has a cameo role in the gangster drama Shottas, which is being filmed in Jamaica, where the former world heavyweight champion spends much of his time. Former Fugees rapper WYCLEF JEAN is to write the soundtrack for the film, in which he also stars. The story centres on two Jamaican thugs who reunite and decide to take on the city of Miami. It also stars KY-MANI MARLEY, SPRAGGA BENZ and PAUL CAMPBELL.