The Manchurian Candidate Get The Remake Treatment

On the heels of the worldwide success of "Ocean's Eleven," another Frank Sinatra film is about to get the remake treatment.

Paramount Pictures is developing an updated version of director John Frankenheimer's 1962 classic "The Manchurian Candidate," which starred Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. Sinatra's daughter, Tina, will produce the project with studio-based filmmaker Scott Rudin.

Adapted by George Axelrod from the 1959 novel by Richard Condon, "Candidate" was a sophisticated combination of political thriller and black-hearted satire of McCarthyism and the anticommunist hysteria of the '50s.

Sinatra and Harvey portrayed Bennett Marco and Raymond Shaw, soldiers returning to civilian life after the Korean War. Shaw has a Medal of Honor he doesn't remember earning, while Marco is plagued by nightmares. As it turns out, both were brainwashed in Korea by Soviet and Communist Chinese officials, and Marco must prevent Shaw from fulfilling his programmed mission to assassinate the president of the United States.

First released in October 1962 to tepid public response, interest in the film skyrocketed a year later with the assassination of President Kennedy. Angela Lansbury received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role.

In 1972, Frank Sinatra bought the rights to "Manchurian" from United Artists to prevent it from returning to circulation. When "Manchurian" was re-released theatrically in 1988, it was critically hailed, with Sinatra's performance cited as the best of his career.

Frank Sinatra, who died in 1998, gave Tina his blessing to set up a "Manchurian" remake.

"He believed, as we do, that premises can be brought into the future," Sinatra told Daily Variety.

She nearly got the remake on its feet with producer Joel Silver at Warner Bros. Pictures. When the studio put it into turnaround several years ago, she set it up at Paramount Pictures and went through a couple of writers, but never got a green light.

Sinatra said Paramount chairman Sherry Lansing called her in December with the suggestion that she meet with Rudin, which later led to the hiring of Dan Pyne ("Any Given Sunday").

"The development process takes its course, but I couldn't be happier with where it is right now," Sinatra said. "A lot of its success will rely on a writer of Dan Pyne's caliber."

The "Ocean's Eleven" remake of a 40-year-old Rat Pack crime caper has grossed more than $181 million at the North American box office since its December release.

Ridley Scott To Make His Next Film 'Tripoli'

Oscar-nominated "Black Hawk Down" director Ridley Scott has committed to make his next film the historical drama "Tripoli."

The 20th Century Fox project revolves around the true story of William Eaton, an American who helped the rightful heir to the throne of Tripoli (now Libya) lead an overthrow of a corrupt ruler who was oppressing the population in the early 1800s.

"Tripoli" had a remarkably brief gestation period, as William Monahan's script was purchased by Fox and producer Mark Gordon just three months ago. The studio is eyeing a late summer or early fall start date for the project, which is being compared in scope to "Lawrence of Arabia."

"It is the story of a young man's growth from a diplomat to a soldier to a statesman, and it has all those things that Ridley does so well," said Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman.

The "Tripoli" commitment comes just days after Scott's Fox-based Scott Free banner, which he runs with brother Tony, hired Massachusetts-based Monahan to draft an epic adventure set during the 11th century Crusades; Scott hopes to direct that picture after he completes "Tripoli."

Win a Date With Tad Hamilton Pays Off For Vic Levin

DreamWorks Pictures has plopped down $800,000 against $1.5 million for Vic Levin's romantic comedy spec "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!!!" with Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher's Red Wagon on board to produce.

DreamWorks closed the deal in a flash, ponying up top dollar for the outright buy Wednesday before any other interested studios could place formal offers, sources said. The deal is Levin's first spec script sale.

The project tells the story of what happens when the hottest movie star in Hollywood does battle with a guy who bags groceries in a Piggly Wiggly in West Virginia over a sweet small-town girl who has won a date with the movie star in a contest.

Red Wagon toppers Wick and Fisher will produce "Hamilton," which was brought in by senior vp Matt Berenson. At DreamWorks, production head Michael De Luca will oversee with production executive Marc Haimes.

Sony-based Red Wagon produced "Stuart Little 2," set for release in the summer from Columbia Pictures. Wick last teamed with DreamWorks on the Russell Crowe starrer "Gladiator," which nabbed the best picture Oscar last year.

Levin, repped by Jim Rosen and Todd Hoffman at Broder-Kurland-Webb-Uffner and Brillstein-Grey's Sandy Wernick, was an executive producer on "Mad About You" for two seasons. He has an overall deal at Columbia TriStar Television.

Del Toro In Remake Of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Oscar-winning actor Benicio Del Toro ("Traffic") will star in a remake of the 1974 Sam Peckinpah drama "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia."

 Scott has maintained a prolific post-millennium pace, directing in quick succession the best picture Oscar winner "Gladiator," followed by the hits "Hannibal" and "Black Hawk Down."

The MGM film will mark the feature directorial debut of Samuel Bayer, a video and commercials veteran best known for Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video.

The gritty actioner revolved around a wealthy Mexican man who offers a $1 million reward for the skull of the title character, who seduced his daughter. In the remake, Del Toro will play a character named Benny, who's out to claim the reward.

The redo will be scripted by Mateo Silva, a Harvard English professor whose writing sample grabbed MGM executives. Del Toro and Bayer will also serve as producers.

Del Toro has just completed starring with Tommy Lee Jones in the William Friedkin-directed drama "The Hunted." The Paramount project stalled close to the end of production when the actor broke his wrist.

Bayer has directed more than 100 videos for the likes of the Rolling Stones, Marilyn Manson, Metallica and David Bowie, as well as numerous national commercials for the likes of Nike, Coke, Pepsi, Nissan and Mountain Dew.

Anger Management For Marisa Tomei

Hot off the success of her Oscar-nominated performance in "In the Bedroom," Marisa Tomei is in negotiations to star as the female lead opposite Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson in Revolution Studios' comedy "Anger Management" for helmer Pete Segal. The project will begin shooting April 1 in Los Angeles for a summer 2003 release.

Written by David Dorfman, "Anger" is about a conservative, quiet man (Sandler) arrested and sentenced to an anger-management program. Unfortunately, the program happens to be run by the one person (Nicholson) capable of making the man angry. Tomei would play Sandler's girlfriend.

John Jacobs is producing the project with Sandler and Jack Giarraputo's Happy Madison Prods. Revolution picked up the project as a pitch last year, with Sandler committing to star in November and Nicholson coming aboard a month later.

Tomei, repped by UTA and Artists Management Group, won a supporting actress Oscar for "My Cousin Vinny." Her recent credits include "Just a Kiss," "What Women Want" and "Slums of Beverly Hills."

Hawn Rolls with Sept. 11 Hijacking Pic for F/X

Goldie Hawn has partnered with basic-cable network F/X to develop a movie about the passengers of United Flight 93, the hijacked jetliner that crashed in a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11.

 F/X and Hawn's Cosmic Entertainment banner -- whose principals also include Kurt Russell and Hawn's children Kate and Oliver Hudson -- have optioned an article from Vanity Fair's December issue to serve as the basis of the project.

In five vignettes, the Bryan Burroughs-penned VF piece "Manifest Courage" chronicled the interaction between victims and their families on the morning of Sept. 11, from the time they began their day until the flight crashed at 10:06 a.m.

"Bryan's article did not spend very much time on the airplane on that day. Neither will we," F/X Entertainment president Kevin Reilly said. "This will not be 'The Taking of Flight 93."'

In fact, the last scene of the movie likely will be the boarding process. The concept is to memorialize the victims, through a series of vignettes looking at their lives before the fateful flight and how ordinary people would become heroes.

"It was almost impossible to comprehend the decision these people made to ultimately do what they did," Reilly said. "Everyone sat wondering if they would have had the same courage. None of them were wearing capes. They were just good people."

"We're going to find the drama in very small moments, set against what's ahead."

Everyone involved in the project insisted the material will be approached sensitively -- or they won't do it.

"We realize this is a sensitive subject," said Shanna Tyndall, the head of Cosmic's TV division. "We hope to do it justice and to memorialize the heroes made on the flight, as well as the heroes who were made after. Heroes also were made in those people they left behind."

Steven Tolkin, who most recently wrote Showtime's "Fidel," is set to write the picture.

Reilly said the key players have talked about mounting the picture as a commercial-free event on F/X, perhaps with one sponsor. They're also looking to attract a cast of well-known actors to play key parts, much in the way stars rose to the occasion for HBO's "And the Band Played On."

At least two other Sept. 11-related TV movies are in the works at other outlets. CBS has a picture from journalist-producer Lawrence Schiller that likely will take place in real time and will end up focusing on Flight 93. Canadian indie powerhouse Alliance Atlantis is talking to several networks about a picture focusing on the Hamburg, Germany, terror cell believed to be connected to the Sept. 11 hijackings.

In addition, USA Network is mounting a biopic about Rudy Giuliani, which will include the former New York City mayor's tribulations on Sept. 11, and HBO is working on a documentary with Giuliani about that day.

Glenn, Matthew and Stephen have joined the cast of "Le Divorce

Glenn Close, Matthew Modin and Stephen Fry have joined the cast of "Le Divorce," a comedy starring Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson, director James Ivory said Thursday.

 Stockard Channing, James Waterston and French thesps Leslie Caron, Thierry Lhermitte and Melvil Poupaud also star in the $12.5 million project, which starts shooting in Paris Monday.

The social comedy concerns two American sisters confronted with the complex mores of French bourgeois society.

"In the end, the whole American family comes up against wily foreigners, and they wage war," Paris-based Ivory told Daily Variety, adding that he was "looking forward to making a contemporary comedy for a change."

Watts plays the elder sister, brutally ditched in her eighth month of pregnancy by an immature French husband, played by Gallic actor Poupaud (now in Marion Vernoux's "Reines d'un jour"). Hudson plays her cynical younger sister. Close plays an American writer living in Paris; Modine has been cast as the deranged spouse of the deserting husband's new love. Fry will play a Christie's art expert.

Channing and Waterston are the American parents, while Leslie Caron is the uptight Gallic matriarch.

Ivory and longtime collaborator Ruth Prawar Jhabvala adapted the script from American writer Diane Johnson's best-selling novel.

Ivory said he had been pursuing the project for five years. "I read the book when it came out after seeing a review in the International Herald Tribune. It sounded like it could be fun."

But although Ivory and author Johnson met in Paris, Ted Field's Radar Pictures had already optioned the book, so the idea was put on hold. With Fox Searchlight eventually agreeing to finance the picture, Radar will take an executive producing credit, while Ivory's partner Ismail Merchant will produce.

Australia's Pocket-Size Pop Princess Kylie Minogue Is Riding High.

The 33-year-old star has now conquered the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and been garlanded with pop awards after her remarkable renaissance in the charts.

And the singer whose skimpy corset-style outfits have set male hearts racing around the world Friday firmly put to rest tabloid tales -- she did not have plastic surgery to improve her perfectly crafted posterior.

"I really don't do anything to my backside," she told obsessed showbiz readers of Friday's Sun tabloid after landing yet another award at the World Music Awards in Monaco.

"I have been getting a lot of grief about my posterior," she said. "It appears to have become a national obsession but I think the fuss is ridiculous."

Cracking the American market is notoriously difficult -- but Minogue has done the double with her single "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" reaching the U.S. Top Ten while the album "Fever" has reached Number Three.

"Can't Get You Out of My Head" has sold more than one million copies in Britain alone and is still in the top 40 five months after its release.

The former soap star from "Neighbors" had a string of hits in the 1980s and early 1990s but her career then slumped. Now she is a hot ticket once more in the notoriously fickle music industry and last month landed two prestigious Brit Awards.

"I feel humbled and baffled by it," she told the magazine Hello. "I've been allowed to make mistakes and fall flat on my face and somehow people have retained an interest in me."

She also revealed to reporters at the Monaco awards that if the right project came along she would like to tackle movies now. She already has made a memorable cameo appearance in the award-winning musical "Moulin Rouge."

Minogue, who once had an affair with fellow Australian pop star Michael Hutchence, is now dating British male model James Gooding and told BBC chat show host Michael Parkinson: "I do want to get married and have children with James."

But Friday she offered a glimmer of hope for her legion of hot-blooded male fans, telling The Sun: "I didn't mean it was going to happen immediately. I have no intention to get married at this stage in my life."

Stacey Snider Defends A Beautiful Mind

Universal Pictures Stacey Snider has hit back at criticism of A Beautiful Mind.The Russell Crowe film has come under fire for shying away from John Forbes Nash's homosexuality.

Stacey Snider says she deplores the "unethical tactics" used by rivals in this year's Oscars contest. "There's been a shocking absence of self-restraint," Snider tells Hollywood Reporter

"Lines that should be clear to all of us have recklessly been crossed. Filmmakers who have done honest work that was never engineered to win an award now are having to defend their intentions."

"I've never met John Nash. But a 73-year-old man who has gone through hell and who agreed to entrust us with his life shouldn't have to go through these attacks.

"We never set out to sugarcoat his life, but I don't think it's a misrepresentation of that life to have concentrated on the facts that try to get to the essence of his life."

Crowe admits the film plays down hints of homosexuality which are included in the book it's based on. He says "a certain adventurousness in his sexuality" is suggested in Sylvia Nasar's biography of Nash.

Snider won't say where she suspects the attacks might have started from, but she did say she has spoken to rival studio executives, encouraging them not to launch attacks on each other's films.

"I have chosen to try to appeal to our competitors on a personal level, to urge them not to tumble down this moral slope," she said.