Jamie Foxx has signed up for the forthcoming adaptation of the Jeffrey Stetson novel Blood on the Leaves, which will be directed by George C Wolfe. The story centres on a district attorney who finds himself in a difficult position when he is called upon to prosecute a black history professor accused of murdering a group of white men involved in race crimes during the civil rights era. Wolfe will make his feature film directing debut on the project.
Taiwanese director Edward Yang, who won best director at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival for Yi Yi, has died from complications related to colon cancer. He was 59. The American citizen died at his home in Beverly Hills on Friday night. Yi Yi, which was about a family that copes with the serious illness of their elderly mother, was his last film.
Steven Spielberg is still cashing in on a bet he made with George Lucas in 1977 over the respective returns from the films Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Lucas was so worried that Star Wars would not make any money that he offered to swap a percentage of the film's take for a percentage of the take from Spielberg's movie. "Close Encounters made so much money and rescued Columbia from bankruptcy," said Spielberg. "It was the most money I ever made, but it was a meagre success story. Star Wars was a phenomenon and I was the happy beneficiary of a couple of points from that movie which I am still seeing money on today."
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