ShowBiz Ireland - ShowBiz Weekly : WEEK 05

Wanna Be Paparazzi & Make Easy Money?
Email us your Celebrity Digital Photos and Videos... There could be a fortune sitting in your mobile handset. If you snapped it then send it to us at:
Very. Important. Pictures.

week 05-00
ShowBiz Weekly: news from the UK & US...

Part of the website for the film Quills has been closed down amid complaints from parents about the risque nature of the site. Quills, which stars GEOFFREY RUSH and KATE WINSLET, tells of the Marquis de Sade's attempts to publish his prose while incarcerated in an asylum from 1801. The film has won favourable reviews and several awards. The website featured a ``vices section'' containing excerpts from some of de Sade's writings and a history of pleasure. ``The irony is that the movie is about how the Marquis de Sade was willing to die for his right to speak his mind without censorship,'' said a spokesman for the company which created the Quills site for Fox Searchlight Pictures. ``But the website for the movie was taken down without a fight.'' A Fox Searchlight spokesman said: ``Given the fact that you cannot prevent children from viewing adult materials on the internet we made the decision to take the vices section of the Quills site down.''

HEATHER GRAHAM, who has finished filming the Jack the Ripper tale From Hell, is in negotiations to star with MARISA TOMEI in Guru of Sex. The film follows the adventures of Ramu, a young Indian who goes to New York to find fame and fortune and becomes a guru who teaches spiritual enlightenment through sex. Graham and Tomei would play the two women involved in his life. The guru role has yet to be cast. It is based on an idea by Elizabeth director SHEKHAR KAPUR, who is also co-producing the film for Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's Working Title company.

The Oscar-winning director SAM MENDES has British stage actor DANIEL CRAIG to play the villain in his next film, The Road to Perdition. Craig will co-star with TOM HANKS, JUDE LAW and PAUL NEWMAN, playing the prime suspect in murder of the wife of a hitman. Craig has just finished filming a role opposite ANGELINA JOLIE in Tomb Raider, and was recently named best actor at the British Independent Film Awards for his performance in SIMON CELLEN-JONES's Some Voices.

JUDI DENCH is to return to work opposite KEVIN SPACEY in The Shipping News. She had been turning down film offers to care for her husband, MICHAEL WILLIAMS, who died on January 11. Dench will play Spacey's aunt and Welsh actor RHYS IFANS will play his boss in the film, which is due to begin shooting in Newfoundland in April. The role will reunite her with her Chocolat director LASSE HALLSTROM. Spacey plays a divorced father who takes his two daughters to live in a small fishing village where he takes a job on the local newspaper.

HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN returns to film more scenes for the next Star Wars saga when he finishes work with KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS and KEVIN KLINE on Life As A House. Christensen, 19, who plays the teenage Anakin Skywalker, has been signed by GEORGE LUCAS to return in 2003 as Darth Vader in the third Star Wars prequel. The blonde Christensen dyed his hair black with a purple streak for his role in Life As a House. He plays a rebellious son who makes amends with Kline, his cancer-stricken father. They both trained in carpentry for scenes in which they build a house together.

AL PACINO and BEVERLY D'ANGELO have named their new twins Anton and Olivia. The boy and girl are with their parents in Los Angeles, where they were born last week. But they will soon be moving to New York where their father is due to begin filming The People I Know, playing a press agent down to his last big client.

Director DAVID CRONENBERG has walked out of Basic Instinct II, reportedly because of disputes with its star, SHARON STONE. Now the whole project, which lacks a leading man and director, is in doubt and Stone is reportedly looking for other projects. The original director, PAUL VERHOEVEN, and male star, MICHAEL DOUGLAS, declined to return for a sequel. Other male actors wanted as Stone's co-star - HARRISON FORD, PIERCE BROSNAN, KURT RUSSELL and ROBERT DOWNEY JR - were unavailable.

FAYE DUNAWAY's dream of portraying MARIA CALLAS on screen may have been shattered. CATHERINE ZETA JONES is reportedly being sought to play the opera star in a film about Callas's life with ARISTOTLE ONASSIS. Dunaway owns the film rights to the play Master Class, which tells of Callas's stint as a university lecturer in the early 1970s. Although she starred in the stage version she has not yet been able to get a movie project started. Director COSTA GRAVAS wants Zeta Jones to star in a film based on NICOLAS GAGE's book, Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The screenplay has been written by Gage's son Christos, and RUSSELL CROWE is being talked about as a possible candidate for the role of Onassis.

The British singer-songwriter DAVID GRAY, who is about to embark on his 11th US tour, believes he knows what stateside audiences want. ``In America they don't like these English bands who come over all full of it, do a couple of gigs on the West Coast and in New York, then head off back home and think they've cracked it,'' Gray tells the Los Angeles Times. ``They like a good song, some decent lyrics and if you can do it live, you're for real and they'll take you on board. Touring America is like joining the Marines - they want to see you get down and dirty.'' During his tour, which includes concerts at Radio City Music Hall in New York and the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, he will also appear on the Jay Leno Show.

MARK ADDY has signed to star opposite GUY PEARCE in The Time Machine, a film based on the classic novel by HG WELLS. Wells's great-grandson, SIMON WELLS, will direct the film from a script penned by Gladiator writer JOHN LOGAN. Addy will portray the best friend of the inventor who builds a machine that allows him to travel 800,000 years into the future. The actor, who found Hollywood fame after portraying the overweight Dave in The Full Monty, will next be seen with CHRIS ROCK in the comedy Down to Earth.

ROWAN ATKINSON will be heading for Australia next month as one of the stars of the comedy-adventure Scooby-Doo, which will be filmed in Sydney. He rounds out a cast that includes FREDDIE PRINZE JR as Fred and MATTHEW LILLARD as Shaggy. BO DEREK is writing a book called Everything I Know About Men I Learned From a Stallion. Derek, a horse breeder, says stallions can be hugely territorial and men do irrational things for the same reason. The actress, whose husband JOHN DEREK died two years ago, tells USA Today the book is ``the scariest thing I've ever done''.

WARREN BEATTY is distancing himself from British director PETER CHELSOM's much-delayed film Town and Country, in which he stars. Its release date has been pushed back for the 12th time, while Daily Variety reports that the film's budget ballooned to around $60 million. The film industry newspaper also referred to ``marathon rewrites, scheduling nightmares and even legal threats from its leading man'' as well as ``costly group writing sessions led by Chelsom and Beatty''. Meanwhile, Beatty's lawyer, Bert Fields, has issued a statement saying he was ``in no way responsible for the film costing more than was anticipated''. He denies Beatty asked for any retakes during shooting, stating: ``He was strictly an actor in the film. He did not create it, write it, direct it or produce it.'' Town and Country, which is shrouded in secrecy, also stars GARRY SHANDLING, DIANE KEATON and GOLDIE HAWN, and is now due for release in the US on April 20.

TOM CRUISE is to portray the British stage magician Jasper Maskelyne in The War Magician, a film based on a true Second World War story. Cruise's production company will also produce the story, based on a 1983 book about Maskelyne's attempts to adapt stage magic to fight the Germans. He used camouflage and special effects to confuse the enemy and create a phantom British Army before the battle of El Alamein. Cruise wants to make The War Magician his next project after filming STEVEN SPIELBERG's Minority Report, which is to begin in April.

JACK NICHOLSON is quashing rumours of his retirement by making two films which touch on the theme. In The Pledge he plays an ex-detective on the trail of a killer, and is to start work on About Schmidt, a dark comedy of a man at the end of his career. ``Any actor will always be attracted to an opportunity to be involved in one more good movie,'' he explains. ``Unless I decide that's not the best thing for me, there's no need to retire. I love being on a set and acting.'' Nicholson has not been seen in a film since he won an Oscar three years ago for As Good As It Gets.

GEOFFREY RUSH, who appears opposite KATE WINSLET in Quills, is to star with GOLDIE HAWN and SUSAN SARANDON in the comedy The Banger Sisters. The Australian star will play a failed middle-aged writer when Hawn's character, a former groupie, meets him en route to visiting to one of her old contemporaries (Sarandon). But when they find her, she has become socialite wife of a powerful lawyer - and will do anything to keep her past a secret.

Weekly's Gone By: