• MGM for Sale for $7 Billion, Sources Say
• Miramax pays $5 million for acclaimed Sundance pic
• Lions Gate buys worldwide rights to May
• James Cameron, Last of the Amazons
• Daniel Baldwin 'Aces' WB drama role for writer Leonard Dick
• Jason Isaacs is ready to take on Harry Potter
• Bad News, Up for grabs
• Monica Bellucci femmes fatales in " Lucretia Borgia "
• Robert Downey Jr, Six Bullets From Now
• Miramax unveils Neverland, The Forger
• Paramount Retains Two Members of Senior Team
• California proposes production tax incentives
• Hollywood 2002, Big Sequels, Big Money
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  • Monday Jan 14

Miramax pays $5 million for acclaimed Sundance pic

The dealmaking at the Sundance FIlm Festival has heated up, with Miramax closing a $5 million deal for audience fave "Tadpole" .

The festival's other major pact, which closed late in the day Monday, was for "The Good Girl," a comedy starring Jennifer Aniston. Fox Searchlight outbid Paramount Classics and other suitors for domestic and various other rights to the picture.

Directed by Gary Winick, "Tadpole" stars Sigourney Weaver, Bebe Neuwirth, John Ritter and Aaron Stanford, who makes his feature film debut in the lead role as a precocious teenager obsessed with older women. When a beautiful fortysomething friend of the family takes notice of his infatuation, the comedic complications compound.

"I'm really excited to be working with Miramax, a company whose track record speaks for itself," Winick said.

Lions Gate buys worldwide rights to May

The third deal of the Sundance Film Festival was closed yesterday as Lions Gate Films acquired worldwide rights to horror picture May written and directed by Lucky McKee. A loose retelling of Roman Polanski's Repulsion, May stars Angela Bettis as a girl who wants to make friends but lacks the confidence to do so because of a perceived imperfection that has kept her in a shell since childhood. But when she learns to hide her physical flaw, her attempts to connect with other people prove to be a disaster.

The deal, thought to be in the $0.8m range, was closed by Cinetic Media on behalf of the film's producers with Sergei Yershov, co-president of Lions Gate Films International and Jason Constantine, director of acquisitions at Lions Gate Films.

The film was produced by Marius Balchunas and Scott Sturgeon and co-stars James Sisto, Anna Faris and James Duval.

James Cameron, Last of the Amazons

Twentieth Century Fox and James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment have optioned "Last of the Amazons," an upcoming novel about female Amazon warriors who nearly overrun Greece.

More than four years after directing the biggest hit in movie history, Cameron has yet to lock in a directorial follow-up to "Titanic." But "Amazons" shares the female empowerment themes prevalent in his films, including "Terminator 2," "True Lies" and "The Abyss." All were subtle compared with the Amazons, a clan of fierce female hunters who only seek out the company of males when they need to repopulate.

Steven Pressfield's novel will be published by Doubleday in June and is the first deal made by Hotchkiss and Associates, which represents Pressfield, who might write the script.

Pressfield wrote the first draft adaptation of his novel "The Legend of Bagger Vance," and he is also the author of "Gates of Fire," the epic Spartan battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., which will be directed by Michael Mann at Universal, with script by David Self ("13 Days").

Daniel Baldwin 'Aces' WB drama role for writer Leonard Dick

The WB Network has "Aces" up its sleeve. The network has ordered a one-hour pilot presentation from writer-producer Leonard Dick to star Daniel Baldwin.

The Regency Television/Warner Bros. Television show, described by Dick as a light family drama, centers on the son of a poker-playing rounder who attends an elite private school. Baldwin is set to play the father in the project, which marks his first return to a TV series since his starring role in NBC's "Homicide: Life on the Street."

"He is an absolute Mickey Mantle home run in the role," Dick said. Dick, who wrote "Aces" as a spec script, will executive produce the pilot with Emmy-winning producer Michael M. Robin (ABC's "NYPD Blue") and Greer Shephard (the WB's "Popular").

"This is a valentine to my parents," Dick said about the show, based on his own life growing up in Canada. Dick attended the country's most prestigious private school at a time when his father was making a living as a card player, and his tuition when he first started at the school was paid by his dad's poker money.

In "Aces," the son, Andy, lives with his mother, who has been separated but not divorced from his father for 11 years. The show will follow Andy's old and new school life as well as his relationship with his father, who still comes over for family dinner and takes care of his wife and son.

"It's a very loving family, much like a family that I know quite well," Dick said.

Baldwin recently finished filming the indie "Irish Eyes Are Crying." His credits also include "Silver Man," "John Carpenter's Vampires" and "Silicon Towers." He is managed by Dan Spilo at Evolution.

Dick was a producer on the WB's midseason comedy "A Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star." His writing credits include the WB's animated series "The Oblongs" and "Baby Blues" and the syndicated action-drama "Relic Hunter." He is repped by Vision Art Management's Scott Schwartz.

Jason Isaacs is ready to take on Harry Potter

After portraying the villain in "The Patriot" and menacing a group of soldiers as a ranger captain in "Black Hawk Down," Jason Isaacs is ready to take on Harry Potter.

Isaacs is in talks to play villain Lucius Malfoy in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the second installment of the J.K. Rowling series at Warner Bros. The pic is lensing in England, giving the British-born Isaacs a chance to be home when his wife Emma gives birth to their first child in March. He will reprise the role in the fourth "Harry Potter" in stallment.

Bad News, Up for grabs

Up for grabs is the next film by director Milos Forman. The Phoenix Pictures adaptation of the Donald Westlake novel "Bad News" was originally set at Warner Bros. Phoenix chairman Mike Medavoy is now in talks with several studios. The film is a comic caper about a career crook who attempts an underhanded takeover of an Indian gambling casino. Doug Wright ("Quills") has already written a script, and the film is ready to go into production in April.

While he awaits a studio for his "Bad News," Donald Westlake received good news for his most famous fictional creation, the character of Parker, the unredeemable but principled villain played by Mel Gibson in "Payback" and Lee Marvin portrayed in "Point Blank."

The Parker novel series, which Westlake wrote under the pen name Richard Stark, has been acquired for series treatment by FX net entertainment president Kevin Reilly, who commissioned a pilot script.

Book Description: Dortmunder doesn't like manual labor. So when Andy Kelp relays the offer of a grand to help dig up a grave in a far-flung cemetery, he balks...until he begins to wonder just why Fitzroy Guilderpost, criminal mastermind, wants to pull a switcheroo of two 70-years-dead Indians. Central to the plan is Little Feather Redcorn, the ex-Vegas showgirl and great-granddaughter of the newly-switched stiff. She will pose as the last remaining member of the Pottaknobbee tribe, one-third owners of the largest casino in the east. When the remains of the last known Pottaknobbee are dug up, down there in Queens, the DNA will prove that it's her ancestor. But when the scam goes into play, it's Dortmunder and his band who must step in to make sure everything runs smoothly.

The script will be written by Alexander Ignon ("Ransom"), who adapted the Westlake novel "The Green Eagle Score" with Steve Norrington attached to direct. Westlake, whose other novel adaptations include "The Grifters" and "The Hot Rock," liked Ignos' work and blessed the series. It'll be an original caper for Parker, and will be written in the vein of "The Sopranos" and "Heat," with the idea that a massive heist will be perpetrated over the course of a season, the setup building over episodes until the actual crime is perpetrated. 

Monica Bellucci femmes fatales in " Lucretia Borgia "

Italian actress Monica Bellucci, who appeared on the cover of the February 2001 Esquire wearing only Iranian caviar, will star in "Lucretia Borgia," an English-language movie about one of history's most deadly femmes fatales.

Lucretia Borgia was born in 1480, the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI. According to lore, she killed three husbands and countless lovers, poisoning many of them with deadly powdered foxglove administered from a ring she wore on her finger.

No other actors have been cast. A 30-page synopsis of French producer StudioCanal's $20 million-plus movie is currently being turned into a script, producer Richard Grandpierre said, with a view to shooting in spring 2003.

The picture is being written and will be shot by a French director whose name has not been released.

Neil Jordan is developing a rival project about the Borgias, but it takes place during an earlier period in the family's history than the StudioCanal film.

Bellucci is currently in U.S. theaters with the French-language action picture "The Brotherhood of the Wolf," which opened last Friday on 21 screens via Universal Pictures. Her other credits include Italian writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore's wartime romance "Malena" and the Gene Hackman thriller "Under Suspicion."

Robert Downey Jr, Six Bullets From Now

Robert Downey Jr. has got another shot in Hollywood, this time through a life of crime: He is in negotiations to star in "Six Bullets From Now," the story of the biggest hotel heist in history.

Stephen T. Kay ("Get Carter") will direct the film, which is inspired by the events of New Year's Day 1972, when five gunmen stole more than $10 million in cash and jewels from the Pierre Hotel in New York City in broad daylight. The theft led to a massive FBI manhunt.

The $20 million film is slated to begin shooting this spring in Montreal and New York. Director Ridley Scott ("Black Hawk Down") will serve as a producer via his Scott Free Prods. shingle.

DreamWorks has a competing project based on Ira Berkow's 1988 book about the same event, "The Man Who Robbed the Pierre."

Downey, last seen on the big screen in Curtis Hanson's 2000 drama "Wonder Boys," was sentenced to three years probation last year after pleading no contest to drug charges.

Miramax unveils Neverland, The Forger

Miramax Films has announced two new pictures - it has signed Marc Forster (Monster's Ball) to direct Neverland, the film of Allan Knee's play The Man Who Was Peter Pan and it has acquired the rights to Paul Watkins' novel The Forger and hired Proof playwright David Auburn to adapt it for the screen.

Neverland was adapted from the play by David Magee and will be produced by Richard Gladstein through his company FilmColony. Gary Binkow will executive produce with Nellie Bellflower of Key Light Entertainment. The film is the story of how James M Barrie's play Peter Pan came to be staged.

Swiss-born Forster made a big impression at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago with his first film Everything Put Together and has won critical acclaim for Monster's Ball which won a Golden Globe nomination for its lead actress Halle Berry.

Laura Ziskin - who is producing the Academy Awards show this year as well as the film of Spiderman - will produce The Forger, a suspense story about a young American art student in Paris in 1939 who gets caught up in a plot to forge renowned paintings. David Auburn won a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for his play Proof which is being filmed by Hart Sharp Entertainment.

Paramount Retains Two Members of Senior Team

Paramount Pictures senior executives Robert Friedman and John Goldwyn have extended their contracts for four years and been given elevated titles at the Viacom Inc.-owned studio.

Both executives will continue to report to studio Chairwoman Sherry Lansing and will retain their current duties.

Friedman, who left Warner Bros. to join Paramount in January 1997 as vice chairman of the motion picture group, takes on the newly created title of chief operating officer. He will continue to oversee worldwide theatrical marketing, distribution and acquisition of movies and worldwide marketing and distribution of home entertainment. Friedman also oversees the studio's specialty film unit Paramount Classics. Goldwyn, who has served as president of the motion picture group since 1991, will share the title with Friedman of vice chairman of the group and will be president of Paramount Pictures. Goldwyn will continue to oversee the studio's movie slate, with responsibility for development, budgeting, casting, production and acquisition of literary materials.

The studio scored its second-best year at the box office in 2001 with such hits as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," which took in more than $130 million, and "Save the Last Dance," a modestly budgeted teen favorite that was highly profitable after grossing more than $90 million domestically.

Among the Hollywood studios, Paramount continues to have one of the most stable management teams. Last spring, Lansing and Viacom Entertainment Group Chairman Jonathan Dolgen signed new six-year deals.

Dolgen said he was pleased to keep the management team together, as Paramount "enjoys a level of consistency and stability few other studios can match."

California proposes production tax incentives

An apparently escalating decline in local production has prompted the state of California to propose a tax incentive to encourage film and TV producers to shoot in the state.

California governor Gray Davis has announced that, if instituted, the labour-based tax credit would return $230m to the production community over three years. Although by no means the first such tax credit - more than 30 states offer incentives - it is the most generous.

However, the scheme is unlikely to affect so-called runaway production of feature films. Projects eligible for the tax break would have a budget ceiling of $10m. The average studio-backed motion picture has a budget of $50m. Slated to take effect in 2004 - legislation will be required to implement it - the system would provide a 15% credit on the first $25,000 earned by a California worker.

According to a government statement, the new credit would target California-based productions that have been the most "negatively impacted" by runaway production: low- or mid-size productions such as Movies of the Week, mini series and cable productions. And yet, according to data compiled by the LA-based Center for Entertainment Industry Data and Research, the biggest growth area in Canadian-based production was in films with budgets in excess of $50m, followed by productions in the $20m-$50m range.

The proposal comes in the wake of the withdrawal of a petition before the US Commerce Department by the labour-backed Film and Television Action Committee (FTAC). The petition sought to bring about tariffs against Canadian exports in retaliation for the productions lost to Canada.

The petition was opposed from several quarters, especially the Motion Picture Association which referred to the petition as "dangerous", adding "it is a direct incentive to a trade war and goes against the trade policies of the U.S. government." The petition was withdrawn because FTAC could not prove it represented the US film industry and was opposed by other unions and production companies.

Canadian observers are bemused by the spectacle of their US neighbours demanding a level playing field when US-based film distributors control 90% of the Canadian theatrical box office and US-produced television programmes dominate Canadian television.