Since Steven Spielberg jumped the Harry Potter ship, the matter of bringing the children's cult classic to the screen has been moving quickly. Steve Kloves has finished the first draft of the screenplay, which has been sent to 10 A-list directors, including Peter Weir, Rob Reiner, and Jonathan Demme, who now have to take part in what Hollywood calls a 'creative bake-off'. Each director has to pitch his vision of the young wizard and his bewitching exploits to Warner Bros executives and the film's producer, David Heyman, who are apparently considering shooting the first two Potter stories back to back with the same director helming both.
The first completed footage of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy has been screened in Los Angeles. The New Zealand Herald reports that the six-minute showreel, which was shown to American and Kiwi VIPs, featured "dark, hooded figures against magnificent New Zealand landscapes, some of the 20,000 extras and computer clones in battle scenes, a quaint rustic Middle Earth village, artists' drawings that inspired the production design, and the stars - Sir Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee - in costume". A seven-part TV series based on hit film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is currently in production. The story will focus on The Lock, a London pub run by a group of wheeler-dealers who get involved in all sorts of shady scams. None of the original cast will star in the series, and director Guy Ritchie is serving only in an executive producer capacity.
Casting couch
Geena Davis will reprise her role in the sequel to Stuart Little, last year's surprise US hit about a talking mouse who is adopted by a human couple. It is not clear whether co-star Laurie, or Michael J. Fox, who voiced the animated mouse, will join Davis.
