Some bad news for John Grisham fans, some good news for the rest of us. The best-selling writer has stated in a lecture at Baylor University in Waco, Texas that he has no further plans to adapt any of his novels into films because Hollywood doesn't have the book's best interest at heart. Grisham has reportedly called The Chamber a "horrible adaptation".
Bernardo Bertolucci has agreed to become the first sponsor of the International Critics' Week (May 11-19) at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The director will also host a workshop in which he will debate film issues with selected Critics' Week directors. Bertolucci's film, Before the Revolution, which made his name in the Critics' Week in 1964, will be screened again at this year's festival.
Casting Couch
Penelope Cruz who wowed audiences with her performance in the highly-acclaimed All About My Mother is to join Nic Cage in an adaptation of the best-selling world war two romance, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Cruz will play Pelagia, the Greek girl who is torn between two men in this John Madden-directed epic set during the Italian occupation of the Greek island of Cephalonia. Shooting starts on May 22 in Greece.
Will Smith is in talks to play the lead in Phone Booth. Not as Superman, but as man who answers a random call in a phone booth and ends up the target of a sniper. No director is attached, but that should quickly change once Smith climbs aboard.
British star made big in Hollywood, Alfred Molina, is to star with Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche in Chocolat, a romantic comedy directed by Cider House Rules helmer, Lasse Hallstrom. Molina will play the Comte de Reynaud, a highly-strung nobleman and leader of a small town whose control over the populace is compromised by their patronage of a chocolate shop opened by a woman (Binoche).
Rachael Leigh Cook has signed to star in a love triangle called Conspiracy. Cook will play the object of two men's complicated affections. Jay Lowi will direct and shooting is scheduled for May.
Helena Bonham Carter will co-star with Steve Martin and Kevin Bacon in a black comedy called Novocaine. She will play Martin's patient who pulls his comfortable dentist's life into a spiral when she seduces him. No director is yet attached but shooting is scheduled to begin in the spring.
Lynn Redgrave and Richard Harris are in negotiations to star in My Kingdom, an indie tale of power, ambition and greed in a contemporary Liverpool family, scripted by Don Boyd and The Guardian's Nick Davies. Harris will play a gangland leader who finds himself embroiled in a family struggle with his daughters when a tragic event causes him to relinquish control over his underworld kingdom. Production is set to begin in May.
