• Sophie Ellis Bextor and Salma Hayek 'take Bond girl screen tests'
• Eve boarding Diesel-fueled thriller 'XXX'
• Blair Witch 3 gets green light
• Natalie Imbruglia To Make Feature Film Debut?
• Farrell is Hottest Irish Star of 2001...
• Enya for a Golden Globe, May it Be...
• New deals increase US focus for Intermedia
• Hello, He Lied… How to become a movie producer
• 2001 Amidst Turmoil, Studios Enjoy A Record Year
• A Checklist Of Some Recent Films Along With Audience Advisories
• Previous Days
  • Jan 2
  • Jan 3

Sophie Ellis Bextor and Salma Hayek 'take Bond girl screen tests'

Sophie Ellis Bextor, Salma Hayek and Saffron Burrows have all reportedly taken screen tests for the new James Bond movie.

The MI6 website claims actor Colin Salmon played 007 in a mock love scene to help audition the prospective Bond girls. Pierce Brosnan is said to have been unavailable at the time.

Salmon told: "I really enjoyed the audition with Saffron Burrows and Salma Hayek was great. "Sophie Ellis Bextor came along too but I can't tell you any more, it would be more than my job's worth." Filming is due to start sometime this month.

Eve boarding Diesel-fueled thriller 'XXX'

Rapper Eve will star alongside Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson and Asia Argento in Revolution Studios' spy thriller "XXX" for director Rob Cohen and producer Neal Moritz.

Production began last month in Los Angeles and has moved to Prague with an eye for an August release.

Eve will play Diesel's friend and business partner in the story of a tough extreme-sports player (Diesel) co-opted by the government to infiltrate a crime ring. Cohen said Eve also is likely to perform the title song for the film.

Additionally, famed East German rock group Rammstein and seminal English electronica act Orbital will be featured on camera in pivotal scenes. Orbital will perform an original song titled "Technologisky Park" during a rave scene, Cohen said.

Of choosing Rammstein and Orbital -- two acts with huge European acclaim -- to be part of film, Cohen said, "To get the true stranger in a strange land, you don't want the track riddled with hip-hop and American rock; you want to get the flavor as Vin's character gets the flavor of this new world."

Written by Rich Wilkes ("Airheads"), the project is being executive produced by Revolution co-partner Todd Garner along with Diesel's producing partner George Zakk. Creative executive Derek Dauchy is overseeing. Kathy Nelson is the film's music supervisor.

"XXX" marks Eve's second acting gig, following a deal for her to star in the MGM comedy "Barbershop" for director Tim Story and George Tillman and Robert Teitel's State Street Pictures. She is repped by WMA and Untitled Entertainment's Jason Weinberg.

Blair Witch 3 gets green light

The original creators of The Blair Witch Project have finally committed to write a script for a third film, following 2000's disastrous sequel.

Artisan, the studio behind the original movie, boldly announced that the writing and directing team of Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez would be back for BWP part three over a year ago. But it took until the end of 2001 for the two sides to meet and agree to go ahead with the project.

After the phenomenal success of the first film, which made over $200m worldwide, Artisan went into overdrive to get a sequel out in record time. The result was the ill-received Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 which, despite being directed by respected documentary maker Joe Berlinger, made only $26m.

The studio say they want to "take more time" on this film. In the interim, Myrick and Sanchez have written a romantic comedy, Heart of Love.

There is no official word as to the plot of Blair Witch 3, but it has long been rumoured that it will be a prequel, and will elaborate on the mythology that was created for the first film, dealing with the story of the original 'witch', with that of the child-killer Rustin Parr, or perhaps both.

Natalie Imbruglia To Make Feature Film Debut?

Pop star and one-time soap opera actress Natalie Imbruglia might be making a return to acting as part of a Hollywood remake of the 1937 film, Dead End.

The Australian artist, best known for her 1997 hit single, "Torn," is reportedly on the verge of signing on for the project, joining a marquee cast that includes Edward Norton, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Matt LeBlanc, according to Aussie news outlet Undercover. The film is about a gangster who returns home to his East Side New York neighborhood. The original version starred Humphrey Bogart.

Through much of the mid-'90s, Imbruglia appeared in the Australian soap opera Neighbours. If Imbruglia takes the part, 2002 will likely be a busy year for her--her second album, White Lilies Island, is slated for American release on March 5 from RCA Records.

Farrell is Hottest Irish Star of 2001...

A web poll has chosen Irish actor Colin Farrell is the Hottest Irish Star of 2001, with Amanda Byram close at his heels.

Dubliner, Farrell has gone from obscurity to the Hottest property in Hollywood following his highly acclaimed role in Joel Schumacher's Tigerland. He subsequently landed a number of top roles alongside Bruce Willis (Hart's War), Tom Cruise (Minority Report), and now Al Pacino in The Farm.

Another talented Dubliner Amanda Byram nearly beat Farrell to the top slot proving a hit with fans of her wit, charisma, and beauty on the ill fated Big Breakfast show.

Samantha Mumba and Enya both figured high in the poll, both having a very high profile year in the charts and in movie theatres.

Mumba hit the US charts and also starred in the soon to be released The Time Machine alongside her brother Omero and Guy Pearce.

Enya's music featured on the soundtrack of what may be one of the biggest movies ever (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), aswell as releasing a new album, A Day Without Rain.

Enya for a Golden Globe, May it Be...

 Irish singer Enya has been nominated for a Hollywood Golden Globe award for Best Original Song for "May It Be" recorded for the film The Lord Of The Rings.

The Enya team were asked to write two songs for The Fellowship Of The Rings, Aniron (Theme from Aragorn and Arwen) & May It Be.

The Fellowship Of The Ring is the first in a trilogy of films based on JRR Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings. The Golden Globe Awards take place on January 20th 2002.

Enya's album A Day Without Rain has sold 11 million copies worldwide, 6 million in America alone, making Enya the Biggest Selling Irish Artist In the World.

The album is still riding high in the American Billboard Charts at No. 7, and is currently 55 weeks on the American Billboard 200 Chart and peaked at No. 2.

Total album sales worldwide is 54 million. In Japan Enya has 3 albums in The Top 30 Chart, A Day Without Rain (currently triple platinum), Paint The Sky With Stars and Calmi Cuori Appassionapie.

New deals increase US focus for Intermedia

It was a muddy picture at Intermedia parent International Media in the New Year as news, some authorized, some not, trickled out of the independent giant - in one of its most tumultuous periods of growth since floating on Frankfurt's Neuer Markt in May 1999.

Co-chairman Moritz Bormann traveled between Los Angeles and Germany closing a deal to buy 100% of Graham King's Initial Entertainment Group (IEG) while speculation about negotiations to acquire Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum's Spyglass Entertainment surfaced in the Hollywood press.

Eiol reported in the closing days of 2001 that Bormann's co-chairmen Guy East and Nigel Sinclair were stepping down from their positions, the latter believed to be negotiating a production deal with Intermedia. Should the two veterans choose to sell their shares - around 25% of the company - they could bag up to $60m each before any deductions.

Meanwhile, the company made its first deal announcement of the New Year this week - the sale of most international rights to its epic sci-fi actioner Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines to Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International (CTFDI).

What will emerge from such frenzied activity is as yet unclear and a company spokesperson wasn't returning calls at press time, although the IEG and Spyglass deals will clearly boost the value of the company on the Neuer Markt, bringing library titles such as The Sixth Sense and Traffic and a wealth of talent relationships into the company.

The new moves also complete the shift of the company from a European/US axis to a Hollywood powerbase. With Jon Gumpert - formerly executive vice president of Universal Pictures, now vice chairman and former BVI executive Jere Hausfater, president of worldwide distributions and acquisitions, in charge of worldwide distribution, having moved the sales operation from London to LA, the arrival of Birnbaum and Barber as well as LA-based Brit King creates a pool of seasoned and well-connected LA executives and producers. That's not to mention the arrival of additional international financing expertise in the shape of Barber and King.

IEG will operate as an autonomous label within the InternationalMedia fold alongside Intermedia and possibly Spyglass. Spyglass cut a five-year co-financing deal with The Walt Disney Studios in August 1998 and has a concurrent arrangement with Kirch Media for continental European rights. How distribution of its films will be handled after these expire is unclear, but Intermedia could offer an alternative - the Disney deal was struck with Joe Roth before he left the studio and the Kirch deal has been hampered by changes within Kirch's film financing arm.

Through all this news and speculation, Intermedia's share price has shown remarkable resilience on the Neuer Markt. Since early November the stock has traded in a tight Euros 23- Euros 25 range and closed earlier this week at Euros 23.43

Hello, He Lied… How to become a movie producer

A primer on moviemaking for the Hollywood outsider, AMC special ``Hello, He Lied'' (Tues. (8), 10-11 p.m. EST, AMC) adapts Lynda Obst's intelligent memoir into a stylish hour that attempts to find the elusive answer to the question, what exactly does a producer do? Documentary essay provides a whirlwind tour of the producing process, from finding material to the opening weekend, which means it's inevitably vague and not especially insightful. But this is an energetic, slick and solid special, combining pop-up video wisecracks with plenty of interviews with top producers.

Whereas Obst's book employed stories from her own career to make the necessary points, here other producers do much of the talking, with Obst delivering the commentary that provides the how-to throughline, picking out the essential kernels of wisdom from the interviews. For example, when longtime producer David Brown declares, ``Relationships without a script will get you nowhere,'' Obst deems the point important enough to be worth rewinding the videotape to hear it a second time.

Of course, one thing relationships will get you is some well-credentialed people to appear in your doc. In this case, veteran producers such as Brown and Barbara Boyle, recent hitmakers Gary Foster (Obst's partner on ``Sleepless in Seattle''), Dan Jinks (``American Beauty'') and John H. Williams (``Shrek'') and studio execs-cum-producers like Mark Canton and Tom Pollock all chime in or allow cameras to follow them to pitches or lunches, none of which is especially revealing.

The piece doesn't provide the same sophisticated view of Hollywood culture that the book offered (the title, for example, is never discussed), but in just an hour, how could it? There's no time for the personal stories that make the pithy advice come off as more than obvious and superficial. But ``Hello, He Lied'' remains entertaining throughout and packs in plenty of info for the uninitiated.

Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini enliven some dull moments with the pop-up comments (``Is he irritated?,'' reads one, superimposed on a writer getting notes from a gaggle of young execs at a boring development meeting); the entire documentary has a sassiness that's appealing.

Edited by Tom Donahue, the documentary moves rapidly from point to point, with Leigh Roberts' pulsing music setting the beat. The pacing cleverly communicates something about the producer's frenetic life, sometimes more effectively than the commentary.

Host: Lynda Obst.

Shot in Los Angeles by Tailslate Pictures in association with American Movie Classics. Executive producers, Lynda Obst, Marc Juris, Jessica Falcon; producer, Alicia Sams; co-producers, Julia King. Directors, Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini; based on Obst's book ``Hello, He Lied -- and Other Truths From the Hollywood Trenches''; editor, Tom Donahue; camera, Sandra Chandler, Nelson Hume; music, Leigh Roberts; sound, Stacy Hruby, Gregory McKean, Scott Harber, Dennis Baxter.