"Ghost Ship," set for Sailing

Dark Castle Entertainment's horror film "Ghost Ship," starring Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington and Gabriel Byrne, commenced principal photography on location in Queensland, Australia on January 24th.

A Warner Bros. Pictures presentation in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment, "Ghost Ship" is produced by Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis and Gil Adler and directed by Steve Beck, the creative team behind last year's hit Dark Castle horror film "13 Ghosts." The film is executive produced by Bruce Berman and Steve Richards, and associate produced by Susan Levin, with music by John Frizzell.

Written by Mark Hanlon and John Pogue, "Ghost Ship" tells the story of a boat salvage crew that discovers the eerie remains of a grand passenger liner, thought lost for more than 40 years, in a remote region of the Bering Sea. Once onboard, the crew must confront the ship's horrific past and face the ultimate fight for their lives.

Desmond Harrington ("Riding in Cars with Boys") plays the pilot who recruits the salvage crew to recover the mysterious ship; Gabriel Byrne ("Enemy Of The State," "The Usual Suspects") plays the captain of the salvage boat and head of the crew; Julianna Margulies ("ER," "The Mists of Avalon"), Ron Eldard ("Black Hawk Down," "ER") and Isaiah Washington ("Exit Wounds", "Romeo Must Die") are members of the salvage team; Karl Urban (TV's "Xena: Warrior Princess") and Alex Dimitriades ("La Spagnola") round out the cast as salvage crewmembers. Also joining the cast is actress Francesca Rettondini.

Walter Salles Revs Up Guevara Pic

Brazilian director Walter Salles' next film will be the Che Guevara biopic "The Motorcycle Diaries," a Spanish-language project expected to begin production in Argentina, Peru and Chile in the fall.

"Motorcycle" recounts the journey of the 23-year-old Guevara, who was then a medical student but would become a charismatic and controversial political revolutionary. With his friend Alberto Granado, Guevara traveled the South American continent on a personal odyssey in the early 1950s. The script, penned by playwright Jose Rivera, was adapted from journals written by Guevara and Granado on the road.

The film's producer Southfork Pictures, a division of Robert Redford's Wildwood Enterprises, acquired the rights to the diaries from Italian journalist and documentary filmmaker Gianni Minna, who will act as a creative consultant along with Italian director Ettore Scola.

Full of high drama and comedy, The Motorcycle Diaries is the story of a remarkable road journey in the words of a 23-year-old medical student known as "Che". There are fights, parties, and serious drinking. There are also moving examples of Guevara's idealism and solidarity with the oppressed, in this vivid record of what for others would have been the adventure of a lifetime. No biographical study or understanding of Che Guevara is complete without the reading of his diaries recording his thoughts as he journeyed around South America.

"This is a complicated story to tell -- to work past the legend to reveal the true man -- and Walter is a great storyteller and observer of human behavior. He'll bring that rich sensibility to the piece," Redford said.

Salles explained: "The resonance of this coming-of-age story, the way in which the piece observes the unveiling of a young man's potential, affected me deeply." Salles previously directed "Behind the Sun" and "Central Station."

Actor Don Cheadle Set to Direct Movie Tishomingo Blues

 Bestselling author Elmore Leonard is thrilled that Don Cheadle will be making his directorial debut with Tishomingo Blues.

Published by William Morrow/An Imprint of HarperCollins on February 1st, the book has received glowing reviews and has been on the New York Times Bestseller's List at #9 since publication.

Set in Tunica, Mississippi, Tishomingo Blues features classic Leonard characters. Among the cast of oddballs and schemers are Denis Lenahan, a boy-next-door type high-diver slightly past his prime and Robert Taylor, a smooth-talking, gun-toting, blues-loving Detroit operator -- whom Cheadle may play. The author calls his 37th and most recent book his ``favorite so far.''

Still going strong at 76-years old, Leonard says that when writing he sometimes casts his characters as if he were casting a movie. The bestselling author says ``while I was writing the character of Robert Taylor I saw Don Cheadle.''

Leonard, who has been named one of the producers of the movie by British production company Film Four, has been a fan of Cheadle's since the actor played the part of the antagonist in his Out of Sight, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh. The author is eager to see how the rest of the movie is cast.

Book Description Dennis Lenahan the high diver would tell people that if you put a fifty-cent piece on the floor and looked down at it, that's what the tank looked like from the top of that eighty-foot steel ladder.

Dennis is a daredevil and the girls love him. Things are going along okay with his gig at the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino in Tunica, Mississippi, "the Casino Capital of the South," until the day he looks down from the high-dive platform and witnesses a mob hit -- Dixie style. The killer looks up and says, "Let's see you dive." Suddenly, being a daredevil has lost its kick.

Turns out there was a second witness, Robert Taylor from Detroit, who carries a picture of his great-granddaddy's lynching along with a gun in a briefcase and listens to Marvin Pontiac while cruising the back roads of Mississippi in his black Jaguar. Robert works for a man from up north who has come to play General Grant in a Civil War battle reenactment, but like Dennis, Robert has a death-defying act of his own: he's sleeping with his boss's wife.

Thirty-seven miles from Tunica is the famous "crossroads" where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for a style of funky blues that had never been heard before. Robert Taylor is about to introduce Dennis to a "crossroads" of his own. He has a secret agenda for taking on the Cornbread Cosa Nostra and wants Dennis in on it.

To complicate matters are the women. Some are dressed in hoop skirts, and all of them have plans of their own. Vernice lures Dennis with the whitest thighs he's ever seen. Diane comes to do a story on him and wants to take him to Memphis. And still another comes along to give Dennis the surprise of his life. But it's the scams Robert Taylor plays, drawing Dennis into his game, that move the action through all kinds of unexpected twists and turns. Before he knows it, Dennis has agreed to join Robert in the battle reenactment, which leads to a showdown between the bad guys and the really bad guys.

Tishomingo Blues rings true with the bestselling author's dead-on dialogue, capturing the flavor and rhythms of the South, and finds him plotting at his unpredictable best.

Macaulay Culkin 'Party Monster'

In his first film in eight years, Macaulay Culkin will star in "Party Monster," a darkly comic recounting of the sick, sad and true story of 1990s party promoter and convicted murderer Michael Alig. Budgeted under $5 million, the Killer Films project also will star Seth Green ("Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me"), and will begin production in Gotham in mid-April.

Alig, a "club kid" and party promoter, rose to prominence in the early 1990s. At his peak, he had his own record label and magazine. He also was doing a lot of drugs and, as his addictions got worse, his party themes became darker and more twisted. He murdered his drug dealer by injecting him with Drano and threw him in the East River. The power he wielded on the club scene made him feel untouchable, so he didn't hesitate to boast of the murder. The press thought it was a publicity stunt until the body washed ashore.

Documentary veterans Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato will make their feature writing/directing debuts on the project. Their credits include "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," as well as an Alig documentary, also called "Party Monster."

Their script is based on the book "Disco Blood Bath," which was penned by fellow Alig club kid James St. James (to be played by Green).

"(Bailey and Barbato) have their fingers on a kind of zeitgeist that is kind of amazing, a pop culture sense that's like playing great music," Killer, Bailey and Barbato have long wanted to produce the picture, but the subject matter made it a difficult sell.

"When our deal was at MGM, we tried to get them to make it," Vachon said. "It was almost like we had to wait for Macaulay to grow up." Culkin's last feature role was in the 1994 "Richie Rich," but he received good reviews late last year for his performance in the play "Madame Melville," which was produced in both London and New York. Now 21, he is best known for his role in the first two "Home Alone" movies

Columbia,US Rights to John Travolta/Samuel L. Jackson thriller "Basic. "

Columbia Pictures has taken domestic distribution rights to the John Travolta/Samuel L. Jackson thriller "Basic. " John McTiernan, currently in theaters with the "Rollerball" remake, is directing the Phoenix Pictures/Intermedia Films project, which began shooting in November.

Travolta plays a former Army Ranger and discredited DEA agent who is brought in to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a decorated Army Ranger drill instructor (Jackson) and several of his recruits during a military training exercise gone awry. The instructor teams up with a female military police officer (Connie Nielsen) in the investigation. Tim Daly, Harry Connick Jr., Brian Van Holt, Giovanni Ribisi, Taye Diggs, Roselyn Sanchez and Cristian de la Fuente round out the cast.

The picture had been close to a green light at Columbia Pictures 18 months ago, with Lee Tamahori to direct and Catherine Keener and Benicio Del Toro as the leads

Simply Halston a biopic for HBO

HBO has biopic designs on the life of Halston, the 1970s fashion icon who hobnobbed with the rich and famous at Studio 54 in his heyday before the high life and bad business deals cost him his career.

HBO is developing "Simply Halston" with Killer Films' Christine Vachon, Katie Roumel and Pamela Koffler as well as Craig Zadan and Neil Meron of Storyline Entertainment. Daniel Minahan ("Series 7") and James Lescesne ("Further Tales of the City") are co-writing the screenplay, based on the Halston biography by writer Steven Gaines.

Killer Films had been developing the project as a feature at Fox Searchlight, but it migrated to HBO a few months ago. Dave Mace, Storyline's head of TV, brought the project to HBO and will serve as a producer.

"Simply Halston" is the first HBO project tackled by Zadan and Meron, who have had a string of successful biopics for ABC in recent years, including "Me and My Shadows: Life With Judy Garland," "The Beach Boys" and "The Three Stooges." Killer Films is known for the Oscar-winning "Boys Don't Cry," the Todd Soldonz-helmed "Storytelling" and the feature adaptation of the stage hit "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

"We're excited to be in business for the first time with HBO and with Killer Films," said Zadan, who noted that they've long competed with HBO in the annual race for Emmy longform honors. "HBO always does these really avant-garde biopics -- they break all of the rules, cinematically. When we got involved (with Killer Films), we came up with a whole new point of view and approach to telling the Halston story," Zadan said.

Indeed, the life story of the designer born Roy Halston Frowick in Des Moines, Iowa, seems tailor-made for the HBO star treatment. Halston, who died of AIDS -related cancer in 1990 at age 57, was the first American designer with international impact, bucking the haute couture trends of the time with a clean, plain style once described by Bill Blass as "American simplicity incarnate."

Halston first gained fame for designing the distinctive pillbox hat that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to the 1961 inauguration ceremony. He worked his way up the ranks at Bergdorf Goodman before becoming a one-name sensation with the launch of his own line in 1968.

Halston was famous for dressing and partying with the jet set -- he famously opined that "you're only as good as the people you dress" -- but he lost control of the use of his own name after selling his line in a $16 million deal with Norton Simon Inc. in 1973. By the 1980s, he'd been tossed out of his own company, which had changed hands several times. Bergdorf Goodman even dropped Halston's line after he struck a deal for a line of sportswear with J.C. Penney.

Paul Nagle of WMA brokered the HBO deal on behalf of Storyline. Writer Minahan is repped by CAA and manager Frank Frattaroli.

Miramax Go Italian with 'The Door to Heaven

Miramax Films is to finance and produce "La porta del cielo" (The Door to Heaven), the story of the unorthodox shooting of Vittorio De Sica's religious-themed film of the same name during WWII.

The studio will have worldwide rights to the feature, which it plans to shoot next year in Rome, with period reconstruction at Cinecitta Studios. It marks Miramax's second Italian-language feature and the company's first solo production in the country after teaming with Medusa Film on Giuseppe Tornatore's "Malena."

The screenplay was penned by Christian De Sica, who will play his father in the film, and Graziano Diana. No director has been attached, but producer Fabrizio Lombardo did not rule out De Sica taking on helming duties.

"La porta del cielo" would represent a considerable leap in terms of scale and ambition for the son of the Oscar-winning maestro of neo-realism, who directed such classics as "The Bicycle Thief," "Shoeshine" and "Miracle in Milan."

Sean Connery, in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for fox

20th Century Fox has closed a deal with Sean Connery for the actor to topline the Steve Norrington-directed "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Shooting is scheduled to start in the summer on the Don Murphy-produced project, budgeted in the $80 million range.

Scripted by James Robinson, "Gentlemen" is described as a period-piece "X-Men." It is understood that Connery's deal includes sequel commitments.

"Gentlemen" is based on the Alan Moore-penned Victorian era-set comic book about various literary protagonists -- including Captain Nemo, Dr. Jekyll, Allan Quatermain and Mina Harker -- called upon by Queen Victoria to thwart an evil madman. Connery had been in talks with the studio about the project (HR 1/25).

Connery will play Quatermain, a character created by British novelist H. Rider Haggard and described as the literary precursor to Indiana Jones. Quatermain has appeared several times on the silver screen, including in three films based on "King Solomon's Mines," with Cedric Hardwicke playing the explorer in 1937, Stewart Granger taking on the role in 1950 and Richard Chamberlain picking it up in 1985.

Fox senior vp production Michael Andreen is overseeing the project for Hutch Parker's TCF division. Murphy, who produced for Fox the comic book-adapted "From Hell," starring Johnny Depp, is producing hrough his Angry Films. Connery is repped by CAA.

First Look Pictures has acquired Ken Loach's "The Navigators." For US

First Look Pictures has acquired North American rights to British director Ken Loach's "The Navigators." The company plans a summer release.

Late railwayman Rob Dawber wrote the script, a seriocomic examination of how the privatization of the British rail system affects the lives of a group of ordinary men.

"Ken Loach is one of the world's preeminent film directors," said First Look president MJ Peckos. "His films are socially and politically poignant with universal appeal. 'The Navigators' is a film that everyone can relate to." Loach's credits include "Land and Freedom," "My Name Is Joe" and "Bread and Roses."

First Look Pictures, the U.S. theatrical division of First Look Media, recently released the Italian comedy "Bread and Tulips," whose $5 million gross made it one of the biggest foreign films of last year.

Scam Alert, SEC have pulled the plug on Make It Reel Prods

Federal regulators have pulled the plug on an Internet-based movie investment scheme allegedly touting ownership of "New Horizons," a picture that the scammers claimed would have starred Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

The Securities & Exchange Commission said investors were lured by bogus claims that Florida-based Make It Reel Prods. had struck a deal with a production shingle owned by Quentin Tarantino's father, and that Al Pacino and Paul Newman were part of the "target cast." The SEC noted that Tarantino Prods. had no agreement with Make It Reel and that none of the actors were ever formally approached about "New Horizons."

The SEC announced Thursday it had obtained a federal court order against Make It Reel, company chairman Joseph Rubbo and salesman Peter D. Ragofsky. The court also granted the commission's request to freeze Make It Reel's assets.

The SEC alleged that Make It Reel had been conducting an unregistered $90 million offering of Class A preferred stock since June by using the Web site to direct interested investors to salespeople. It accused Ragofsky of claiming to an undercover agent that an investment would yield a 500% return in six months and touting his years of Wall Street experience without disclosing that he had been barred from the brokerage industry by the National Assn. of Securities Dealers.