Father Geek here with the newest edition of Elston's regular weekly column that fills you in on all the previous week's confirmed movie news. Its a great report that brings you up-to-date on any of the breaking stories that you may have missed during the busy work-week, and they're all here in one easy to find place...

The WEEKLY RECAP...

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Regina Hall will return to the cast of Dimension Films' SCARY MOVIE 3, opposite Charlie Sheen. Hall will also produce and possibly star in a high-concept pitch for Dimension Films. Hall is penning the treatment.

* Cedric the Entertainer has reupped to star in the sequel to MGM's BARBERSHOP for director Tim Story. Don D. Scott is writing the script. The studio is still in talks with Ice Cube to join the follow-up.

* James Franco is in talks to star in the 20th Century Fox/Franchise Pictures period romance TRISTAN & ISOLDE for director Kevin Reynolds and Scott Free. Set in medieval Britain and Ireland, the project is an adaptation of the romantic myth in which doomed young lovers must rail against the forces of royal politics. It follows an English knight who attempts to unite England by winning the hand of the Irish king's daughter. Dean Georgaris wrote the script.

* Evan Rachel Wood (THIRTEEN) is in final talks to star in New Line's teen music drama HEART OF SUMMER for director James Hayman. Sam Shriver wrote the script based on an idea by Mitch Rotter. The story follows a small-town teenage girl to New York, where she spends the summer at a performing arts school.

* Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Robin Williams and Jonathan Pryce are in talks to star in BROTHERS GRIMM for director Terry Gilliam and MGM. Production begins in June in Prague. It's a fictional action-adventure tale about folklore collectors Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. In Gilliam's version, the brothers are two young con men who travel the countryside pulling off exorcisms but soon come upon a real fairy tale curse requiring genuine courage.

* Alfred Molina will play the evil Doc Ock in Columbia Pictures' sequel to SPIDER-MAN for director Sam Raimi. Shooting in April for a 2004 release. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco are returning as their original roles.

* Brian Cox and Sean Bean join Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom and Rose Byrne in TROY for director Wolfgang Petersen and Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures. Shooting begins April 22.

* Hugo Weaving (MATRIX, LORD OF THE RINGS) will star opposite Jacqueline Mackenzie in the new Australian film PEACHES for director Craig Monaghan. Shooting begins in South Australia in the coming weeks. It's a romantic drama set against the backdrop of a peach cannery.

* Robert Patrick joins John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix LADDER 49 for director Jay Russell.

* Robert De Niro, Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Geraldine Chaplin, Pilar Lopez de Ayala and Mark and Michael Polish will star in THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY, an 18th century ensemble drama for Senator International and writer/director Mary McGuckian (THIS IS THE SEA). It's an adaptation of Thornton Wilder's 1927 Pulitzer-prize winning novel set against the background of an Inquisition trial in 1740s Peru. The film turns on the lives of five people who plunged to their deaths when the San Luis Rey bridge collapsed. It also explores the lives of people who knew them. Production begins in April in Spain.

* Sarah Michelle Gellar is in talks to star in MGM's ROMANTIC COMEDY for director Joel Gallen. Production is slated to begin in August. It's about a young man named Max tries to win the affections of the girl he loves by copying romantic movie moments. Khazei, Jeff Lowell, Barra Garant and Bob Harting wrote the script.

* Daryl Hannah will star in WHORE, the third feature from Spanish director-actress Luna, aka Maria Lidon and Dolores Pictures. It's based on the best-selling novel by Isabel Pisano and delves into the world of prostitution and the human cost of the world's oldest profession.

* Bruce Dern and Pruitt Taylor Vince join Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci in MDP Worldwide's MONSTER for writer/director Patty Jenkins.

* Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester and Jacob Pitts will star in the untitled Montecito project formerly known as UGLY AMERICANS for DreamWorks and Montecito Picture Co. The project is scripted and will be directed by Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer and David Mandel. Production begins in April and centers on the misadventures of five friends who go on a trip criss-crossing Europe following their high school graduation.

* Charlize Theron will star opposite Penelope Cruz, Stuart Townsend and Thomas Kretschmann in the upcoming historical drama HEAD IN THE CLOUDS for director John Duigan (LAWN DOGS). The story is set in 1930s England, the Spanish Civil War and the last days of the occupation of Paris, centering on the adventures of a young Cambridge student whose world is changed forever by a passionate affair with a hedonistic photographer.

* Kenneth Branagh will star in SCHNEIDER'S 2ND STAGE, a feature version of the 16-minute short thriller, for writer/director Phil Stoole and Random Harvest. It's about an idyllic community torn apart by the disappearance of a young girl.

* Michael Caton (THE CASTLE) "The Castle") will star in STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, about two straight guys in a country town who pretend to be gay to fool tax collectors. Dean Murphy directs from a script by Murphy and Stewart Faichney.

* Anthony Edwards joins THUNDERBIRDS, the live-action film version of the 1960s cult U.K. TV puppet show for Working Title Films and Universal Pictures. Bill Paxton and Ben Kingsley also star.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* David Gordon Green (GEORGE WASHINGTON, ALL THE REAL GIRLS) will direct UNDERTOW starring Josh Lucas, Dermot Mulroney and Jamie Bell for ContentFilm. The project, co-written by Green and Joe Conway, was originally developed at Sunflower Prods. and is slated to go into production in and around Savannah, Ga., in April.

* Laurence Fishburne will write, direct and star in THE ALCHEMIST, an adaptation of the Paulo Coehlo novel, for Warner Bros. It's about the journey of self-discovery undertaken by a traveler who ventures beyond his borders in Spain during the Inquisition, trying to understand man's purpose on the planet.

* Barry Levinson will develop with an eye to direct Paramount's THE SENTINEL. Michael Douglas is attached to star in the pic, which he also is producing. It's based on Gerald Petievich's novel of the same name centering on a U.S. Secret Service agent who has an affair with the first lady and finds himself the suspect in a plot to assassinate the president. George Nolfi adapted.

* Marvel legend Stan Lee's POW! Films will produce FOREVER MAN, based on his own idea, along with Idiom Films. Luke McMullen will write the script. has been drafted to pen the screenplay. Th plot's being kept under wraps, but will center on superheroes in a "different type of situation" -- crime and punishment in the not-too-distant future.

* Paul Greengrass (BLOODY SUNDAY) will direct CROSS TOWN TRAFFIC, about the last days of Hendrix in London before his death in 1970. Oliver Parker (IT WAS AN ACCIDENT) is writing the script.

* Director Marc Evans is developing HUNKY DORY with producer John Finn and Working Title, about a music teacher in Swansea in 1976 trying to get bored kids involved in a futuristic rock extravaganza.

* John McKay and producer Lee Thomas (CRUSH) will develop GHOSTHUNTERS, about a parapsychologist who finds a way of talking to ghosts.

* Blake Edwards will direct 10 AGAIN, a remake of his 1979 hit 10, for MDP Worldwide. Shooting is expected to begin in August in Britain and at various tropical island locations. The original film centered on a middle-aged songwriter risking his relationship with his lover to chase after a mysterious younger woman.

* Brad Silberling (CASPER, MOONLIGHT MILE) will direct LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, the adaptation of the books that will star Jim Carrey as the evil Count Olaf, for Paramount and DreamWorks. Shooting begins in October for a Christmas 2004 release.

* Warner Bros. and producer David Heyman have optioned the John Freyer book ALL MY LIFE FOR SALE and the British children's novel DIAL A GHOST. LIFE is about a man who sells his possessions on eBay, then tracks down the buyers and visits them. Iona Brindle has been set to adapt GHOST, by Eva Ibbotson, about a boy who discovers that his boring dad is actually part of a secret organization responsible for keeping a balance between ghosts and humans.

* Kevin Spacey will direct, star in, sing in and produce BEYOND THE SEA, a movie about the life of singer Bobby Darin, set to begin shooting in June. The film covers his life from the 1940s through the 1970s.

* Robert Benton will direct Paramount Pictures' DELMORE CAN'T DANCE, scripted by Anne Meredith, for producer Scott Rudin. The project is a heartbreaking comedy centering on Delmore, a nondescript, scrappy, bumbling man who thinks the world revolves around him. When he drinks, he has a tendency to get into fights, and he lands in jail after one such incident. After he gets out, he decides he wants to see the girl with whom he had been having recreational sex. When he arrives at her doorstep, he sees that she is living with another woman and is actually gay. He freaks out as his world begins to crumble around him. As the film unfolds, he unwittingly gets enlightened.

* Goldie Hawn and Jeremy Pisker (BULWORTH) have written the screenplay ASHES about the spiritual odyssey of a woman confronting her own mortality. Hawn will produced under her production banner, Cosmic Entertainment/Clear Light.

* ContentFilm has purchased the script THE KING by Milo Addica (MONSTER'S BALL) with Gael Garcia Bernal in talks to star for director James Marsh. It's an explosive family drama about a young man fresh out of the Navy, whose unwelcome return into the life of his Baptist preacher father sparks violence and tragedy.

* Mick Garris ("The Stand") adapted and will also direct Stephen King's RIDING THE BULLET for Motion Picture Corp. of and ApolloMedia. It tells the story of a suicidal college kid trying to hitchhike across Maine to see his ailing mother. A series of bizarre rides and misfortunes culminates in the teen being picked up by a menacing stranger.

* Odd Lot Entertainment has picked up the female-driven psychological thriller TRAP FOR CINDERELLA with Iain Softley attached to direct and produce. The project is based on a 1964 French novel penned by Jean-Baptiste Rossi under the pseudonym Sebastien Japrisot. It follows the story of two female friends, one rich and one poor, who share a beach house at a French resort. When the house is destroyed by a suspicious fire, only one of the women survives, but she is burned beyond recognition and suffers from amnesia. Her face is reconstructed through surgery, but she can't recall her identity or if she is the killer or the intended victim.

* Michael Davis will direct the road-trip thriller MONSTERMAN from his own script for Lions Gate and Dream Entertainment. It's about two college buddies on a road trip who realize they are being pursued by a terrifying monster truck. Eric Jungmann (NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE) will star.

* Ghost House Pictures has struck a deal with producer Taka Ichise for the English-language remake rights to the Japanese horror franchise JU-ON (THE GRUDGE) with original writer/director Takashi Shimizu set to direct the redo.

* Roger Corman's Concorde-New Horizons is producing DINOCROC, starring Costas Mandylor, Bruce Weitz and Charles Napier. Damian Akavi is directing from a Francis Dole script about a town terrorized by a large and fierce crocodile after the beast is resurrected from the age of the dinosaurs.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Dimension Films has optioned the upcoming survival-horror video game BACKWATER from creators Flint Dille and John Zuur Platten of Bureau of Film and Games. In the proposed game, a player is would-be victim on the run from a killer named Mr. Jangle, who lives deep in a swamp.

* Miramax Films has picked up remake rights to the Korean jailbreak comedy JAIL BREAKERS with Method Man and Redman attached to the project.

* Francesca Barra, Selwyn Roberts and Charles Sturridge (SHACKLETON) are developing a remake of the British horror classic THE WITCHFINDER GENERAL.

* Producer Leslee Udwin (EAST IS EAST) is developing MRS. RADCLIFFE'S REVOLUTION, a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the Cold War in 1965.

* Paramount Pictures has picked up the film rights to the upcoming novel SLEEPING WITH SCHUBERT for Lorenzo di Bonaventura to produce. The book centers on an unemotional young attorney in New York who suddenly becomes a piano virtuoso and believes she's inhabited by the spirit of famed Austrian composer Franz Schubert.

* Disney grabbed CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN, based on the Dyan Sheldon novel, in turnaround from New Line Cinema. Gail Parent adapted the story of a teen who thinks her home city revolves around her until her family packs up and moves to the suburbs. Sara Sugarman will direct.

* Ralph Bakshi (FRITZ THE CAT) and John Kricfalusi ("Ren & Stimpy") are shopping around their R-rated teen exploitation script BOBBY'S GIRL to make as an animated feature. The two are teaming to create down and dirty animated features that will cost under $10 million.

GUNN SHOTS

(NOT from the trades)

* CORRECTION: Opening Night of the 2003 Florida Film Festival is March 7th NOT June 7th.

* Ron Hall has written/directed VAMPIRE ASSASSIN, an action horror film featuring martial arts. It tells the story of Derek Washington, a cop who is afraid of blood, pursuing a very powerful vampire hunter who has now become a vampire. Mel Novak and Rudy Ray Moore star.

* Cinemarati: The Web Alliance for Film Commentary today chose THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS as the Best Film of 2002 in the third annual Cinemarati Awards. Winners in 26 additional categories, recognizing the best cinematic efforts of last year, were also named. For more info, visit http://www.cinemarati.org

* THE ART OF PLOTTING gives you the tools to weave the tapestry of action and emotion, the elements of plot and character, to tell page-turning stories and make scripts live. MARCH 8TH -- REGISTER NOW http://www.PlotsInc.com Los Angeles Film School Theater, Hollywood

* With the third movie in a series of short films, Sonnyboo Productions use Super 8 film to make comedies for the Internet. Featuring actors George Caleodis, Quinn Patterson, from the main stage cast of the Second City, and Second City instructor Joe Teeters, the short film BANK ROBBERY brings the Super 8 film format back from the dead. http://www.sonnyboo.com

Until next week.

Elston Gunn

elstongunn@hotmail.com