• DreamWorks Provocative
• Speed Racer Gets New Life For WB
• Propaganda Films "Heart Of The Atom" Luis Mandoki To Direct
• Intermedia Happily Ever After
• Drew Barrymore Dangerous Mind
• Robert De Niro Has Switched Mental Afflictions.
• The Dreamcatcher
• Luke Wilson in Old School
• Peter Berg strikes match for "Fire"
• Michael Radford To Direct South of the Border, West of the Sun
• Constantin Film Is Drawing Up A New Strategy
• Luc Besson’s Company Europa Corp Signed A Three-Year, Ten Picture Deal
• A Total Of $1.2m German Production Support Was Given
• Fox shuts down TV movie division

DreamWorks Provocative

DreamWorks has acquired the spec script "Provocative" from scribe Steven Barancik ("The Last Seduction") in a deal potentially valued in the mid-six-figure range if the project is produced.

The storyline follows an honest policeman who is betrayed by his fellow officers. Soon after, he falls in with a sexy lawyer who seduces him and convinces him to go against everything he believes to bring down the conspiring cops.

The picture will be produced by MGM-based Lindsay Doran, who developed the script with Barancik for several months and praised the script for having what she called "morally complex characters" occupied with "seduction, obsession, betrayal and revenge."

Meanwhile, Doran has set up scribe Zach Helm's romantic comedy-fantasy "The DisAssociate" at MGM, where she'll also serve as sole pic producer.

Speed Racer Gets New Life For WB

Warner Bros. Pictures has entered a $1.2 million deal with Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring to write a new script for "Speed Racer," a feature adaptation of the classic animated series that has spent more than a decade in development at the studio.

Hype Williams is attached to direct the picture. The 52-episode Japanese anime series, which began its English-language syndication life in 1967, is the story of the dashing Speed Racer, whose Mach 5 could jump, go underwater or clear a path of trees. When not winning races, Speed and girlfriend Trixie, kid brother Spritle and pet monkey Chim-Chim did battle with various bad guys.

In addition to a host of scribes -- among them Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett ("Madeline") Jeffrey Abrams ("Joy Ride") and Patrick Read Johnson ("Dragonheart") -- directors who have been attached to the project over the years include Julien Temple, Gus Van Sant and Alfonso Cuaron.

Gudegast and Scheuring, who penned New Line Cinema's upcoming "El Diablo," recently sold Warners the spec "Black Flag," with Simon West attached to direct.

Propaganda Films "Heart Of The Atom" Luis Mandoki To Direct

Propaganda Films has acquired the spec script "Heart of the Atom" for helmer Luis Mandoki ("Angel Eyes") to direct and produce through his and Mimi Polk Gitlin's Mandolin Entertainment.

Written by Jan Eliasberg, the project is described as being in the vein of "Casablanca" and "The English Patient." It's a romantic espionage thriller set during the race between the Allies and the Germans to build the atomic bomb. It follows Jack Verity, a top interrogator in the U.S. Army who is sent to Los Alamos, N.M., to unmask a spy believed to be sending secrets to the head of the Nazi nuclear bomb program. His mission is jeopardized when he begins to fall in love with female scientist Hannah Weiss -- the Army's primary suspect.

Wild at Heart Films' Marlise Karlin and James Eagen will produce with Mandoki and Gitlin. Propaganda president Rick Hess will executive produce.

Mandoki, whose Mandolin has a first-look deal with Propaganda, next directs and produces with Gitlin the feature "24 Hours" starring Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love. Mandolin most recently picked up the dramatic script "One More Day for Hiroshima," with Mandoki attached to direct (HR 8/10).

Eliasberg wrote New Line Cinema's "Mi Corazon," in development at New Line, and "Heart and Soul," in development at Warners. Mandoki, Mandolin and Eliasberg are repped by WMA.

Intermedia Happily Ever After

Intermedia has acquired the self-referential romantic comedy spec "Happily Ever After" from the writing team of Kristen Buckley and Brian Regan ("102 Dalmatians").

In a reverse of the Reese Witherspoon hit "Pleasantville," the project follows the exploits of a character from a romantic comedy who is suddenly thrust into the "real" world.

"Of course, in romantic comedies," said Buckley, "you can always catch a cab, you never have to pay rent on a fabulous New York city apartment, and homeless people are always clever and sweet. And in this new real world, she finds that all that isn't true: She's five months behind on rent, the homeless aren't cute or funny, and the world isn't colorblind."

Drew Barrymore Dangerous Mind

Drew Barrymore will play the female lead in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," the George Clooney-directed adaptation of the memoirs of game show magnate Chuck Barris.

Barrymore will join Sam Rockwell and Clooney in the quirky Miramax comedy, written by Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich").

Barrymore, who opens Friday in the Penny Marshall-directed Columbia drama "Riding in Cars with Boys," will once again be paired with Rockwell, who played her lover (and the villain) in "Charlie's Angels." Here, Rockwell plays Barris, who claims he was drafted to become a government-sponsored assassin.

In addition to making his feature directing debut on the project, Clooney plays the CIA operative who recruits Barris.

Robert De Niro Has Switched Mental Afflictions.

The actor has dropped plans to produce and play a phobic therapist in "Scared Guys" for director Dean Parisot ("Galaxy Quest"). Instead, he'll reprise his role as an anxiety-ridden mobster treated by a reluctant shrink in "Analyze That," a sequel to the hit 1999 comedy "Analyze This."

The Peter Steinfeld-penned Warner Bros. picture is expected to begin production in February, and De Niro will be getting his career-best payday, near $20 million, sources said. Sources said De Niro received $17.5 million for WB's upcoming "Showtime," co-starring Eddie Murphy.

De Niro, whose salary has soared since he broadened his dramatic resume and made the hit comedies "Analyze This" and last year's "Meet the Parents," had been expected to play against his tough-guy type as a man afraid of everything in "Scared." De Niro and his Tribeca partner Jane Rosenthal joined John Baldecchi in producing the Columbia comedy, with De Niro to have played a phobic therapist who pries himself from the apartment for the first time in years.

While there was talk of pairing him with such actors as Adam Sandler and James Gandolfini in the role of an equally phobic sibling, De Niro dropped the project abruptly, partly because he wasn't crazy about a rewrite, and also because Columbia wasn't crazy about his desire to push back the comedy while he first did "Analyze That." Columbia is looking for a new A-list actor for "Scared Guys."

De Niro has closed a deal with an eye toward reteaming with "Analyze This" director Harold Ramis and co-stars Lisa Kudrow and Billy Crystal, who played the reluctant shrink in the original co-production between Tribeca and Baltimore/Spring Creek. The dealmaking for Ramis and Crystal is ongoing.

The Dreamcatcher

Castle Rock has given a green light to and begun casting "The Dreamcatcher," its latest adaptation of a Stephen King work. The studio got the rights from King, retaining "Misery" and "Hearts in Atlantis" scribe William Goldman. Lawrence Kasdan then came aboard and has spent the past year working on a rewrite; he plans to produce and direct.

The film, about four kids who bond while performing a heroic act and then reteam to tackle a much larger adversary, will start production in January.

The tale is a match of "Stand by Me" with "Alien," and it was one of King's biggest bestsellers. Castle Rock has done King-sized biz with the author's adaptations "Stand by Me," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Misery" and "The Green Mile."

Luke Wilson in Old School

Luke Wilson, most recently onscreen in MGM's "Legally Blonde," is in final negotiations to topline the DreamWorks comedy "Old School" for director Todd Phillips and Montecito Pictures.

The project, written by Phillips and Scot Armstrong, is about three men -- Mitch, Frank and Beanie -- who are dissatisfied with life and attempt to recapture their college days. Wilson will play Mitch, who narrates the story and tells it from his point of view.

Phillips also is producing the project with Montecito partners Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock. Phillips came aboard the project last year in a deal worth $3 million for his directing, producing and co-writing services. "Old School" is his follow-up feature to "Road Trip," also a DreamWorks and Montecito production.

Wilson, repped by ICM, next stars in the Walt Disney Co.'s "The Royal Tenenbaums" and Miramax Films' "The Third Wheel." His credits include "Charlie's Angels," "My Dog Skip" and "Blue Streak."

Peter Berg strikes match for "Fire"

 Actor Peter Berg is returning to the director's chair to shoot "California Fire and Life," a thriller about an arson adjuster who investigates the suspicious death of a wealthy young mother. The Working Title/Universal project was adapted from a thriller by Don Winslow.

Berg last directed the 1998 picture "Very Bad Things," which he also wrote. Among his long list of acting credits is his latest, "Corky Romano."

Berg is also attached to direct "Pu-239" for Working Title. But Berg says the project, adapted from a Ken Kalfus story about the black market for high-grade plutonium in the former Soviet Union, has been held up as potentially too risky in the current political climate.

He was set to direct "Truck 44," from his own spec script, for Fox 2000, but that project, which shows New York firefighters in peril, has also been pushed back. Berg was planning to play one of the firefighters in "Truck 44."

"At this point, my priority is writing and directing," he said. "But if a role comes along and it's a good fit, I'm ready and available."

Book Review (Buy This Book) Whether you're new to arson-fraud fiction or an old fan, this burn-by-burn account think Double Indemnity in flames could be the only novel on the subject you'll ever need. Jack Wade, bounced off the Orange County Sheriff's Office 12 years ago for beating a confession out of a suspect and lying about it under oath, has been a bulldog claims investigator for California Fire and Life Mutual ever since, but he's about to meet his match (to make one of the few arson puns Winslow doesn't exploit). Society fund-raiser Pamela Vale has been burned to death in a home fire that Jack's old nemesis, fire investigator Brian Bentley, has pronounced accidental.

Based on a survey of the physical evidence that would do Patricia Cornwell proud, Jack's certain Pam Vale and her house were torched, and just as certain the arsonist is her husband Nicky, who phoned Jack to discuss his claim the morning after the blaze. Jack doesn't know about Nicky's ties to the KGB and the Russian mafia (which Winslow, as thorough as Jack, explains in numbing detail), but he can see that the good times had stopped rolling for the overextended developer; he doesn't believe the alibi Nicky's controlling mother gives him; and he's shocked but delighted when his former lover, Sheriff's deputy Letitia de Rio, turns out to be Pam's half-sister. Getting their act together again, Jack and Letty build an impressive case against Nicky.

But when California Fire and Life finally confronts Nicky, Jack suddenly realizes he's been caught in as sweet a scam as he's ever seen, with no way to avoid going down in flames (oops). Though Winslow (The Death and Life of Bobby Z, 1997, etc.) writes as crudely as he puns, his plotting is shapely and inventive, and most readers will get caught up in the tale of Jack's treacherous descent into hot water and his miraculous escape. The whole story reads like a house a fire a real barn-burner. (First printing of 60,000) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved

About the Author Don Winslow has worked as a private investigator in London, Amsterdam and various places in the United States, and as an arson investigator in Los Angeles for more than 15 years. He lives in California.

Michael Radford To Direct South of the Border, West of the Sun

 Pandora Films will turn Japanese author Haruki Murakami's "South of the Border, West of the Sun" into a feature that will be developed as a directing vehicle for Michael Radford, the helmer Oscar-nominated for "Il Postino."

Radford, who was just brought on to direct the Leonard Goldberg-produced "Crime of Honor" for Phoenix Pictures, plans to then move on to Murakami's tale of a seemingly happily married father who finds a midlife crisis is rearing its head when the first woman he loved comes back into his life.

Book Review (Buy This Book) This latest from the internationally celebrated Japanese author of A Wild Sheep Chase and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle eschews Murakami's trademark comic extravagance, offering instead a muted portrayal of dream-driven midlife crisis.

Narrator Hajime, an only child (a condition that obsesses him) whose very conventional upbringing includes a sexless (if emotionally intense) friendship with a crippled girl named Shimamoto, discovers in his mid-30s that his settled bourgeois existence masks an urgent desire to resume and consummate the relationship that dominated his youth.

Having endured a frustrating teenage romance (which was ended by his own unfaithfulness) and an unrewarding job as a textbook editor, Hajime later married happily, fathered children, and thanks to his wealthy father-in-law became the proprietor of two popular "jazz bars."

One night Shimamoto walks into Hajime's popular Robin's Nest, they talk for hours, and the fantasies of adventurous lives and exotic faraway places that had absorbed their earlier years gradually resurface. Persuading himself that "I was living someone else's life, not my own," Hajime surrenders to Shimamoto's spell, accompanying her on an enigmatic "pilgrimage," then tumbling into an affair terminated only when she inexplicably departs again, abandoning Hajime to the workaday world and domestic routine he had imagined escaping.

In a slowly moving narrative made even more attenuated by shapeless lengthy conversations, Murakami presents Hajime as a hopeful dreamer chastened, though not changed, by his realization that "I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover."

It seems scant material for a novel, though there are fine moments, including a hilarious anecdotal account of adolescent sexual panic and an eerie climactic encounter with Izumi, the girl Hajime had wronged many years earlier. Brief Encounter meets Blue Velvet? Or a book written to exorcize personal demons? Whichever, it's only middling Murakami what well have to make do with until the next wild sheep or wind-up bird comes along. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved

About the Author Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and lives outside Tokyo. His most recent novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, won the Borders Original Voices Book of the Year Award for fiction, and was named an Editor's Choice by Booklist and a Notable Book by the New York Times Book Review. Murakami's novels Dance Dance Dance, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle--as well as The Elephant Vanishes, a collection of stories--are available in Vintage paperback

Pandora, now a division of Gaylord Films, finances its own films through foreign pre-sales and distributes its films domestically through Warner Bros. The company had a prolific year, completing production on "Welcome to Collinwood" and "A Walk to Remember" at WB and "Company Man" at Miramax.

Constantin Film Is Drawing Up A New Strategy

Germany's Constantin Film will not be renewing its output deal arrangement with Mandalay Pictures when it expires at the end of this year. The decision comes as the producer-distributor is drawing up a new strategy for filling its product pipeline for theatrical releases.

As a recent bank analyst report observed, until now there had been a three-way split in the sourcing of Constantin’s product between in-house productions, output deals, and first look/pick up deals. In future, the plan is increase the product share of in-house productions to 35%, while the share of output deals and first look/pick up deals would each be reduced to 25%, and the new source via service deals - such as the one concluded with RTL Television - would provide a further 15%.

Its current output deals are with Mandalay (which will lapse on December 31st this year), Hyde Park Entertainment (which extends until mid 2005), USA Films (the end of 2003), Spyglass Entertainment (for a number of films) and Escape Artists (end of 2005). In the case of Hyde Park and Spyglass, the TV rights are held by KirchMedia.

While Constantin's in-house and co-productions such Girls On Top, Emil Und Die Detektive and Der Schuh Des Manitu were highly successful at the German box office this year, the company has not fared so well with titles from its output deals.

Launched in Germany as the opening film of this year's Berlinale, Jean-Jacques Annaud's Mandalay Pictures/CP Medien production Enemy At The Gates was savaged by the German critics and was seen by 196,000 cinemagoers for a gross of DM 2.3m. Another Mandalay/CP Medien production Frank Oz's The Score took just DM 3.6m and was seen by 302,383 despite its high-calibre cast. Releases so far from Hyde Park haven't done any better with Original Sin taking around 130,000 tickets and Startup a paltry 65,000; and nor have those from USA Films, with One Night At McCool's being seen by 202,000 cinemagoers for a gross of DM 2.34m when the film was released at the end of April 2001.

The situation has reversed itself from last year where Constantin's outstanding success in theatrical distribution had been driven by its output deals with such releases as Sleepy Hollow (from Mandalay) and The Sixth Sense (from Spyglass).

As Thomas Peter Friedl, Constantin's board member responsible for distribution and marketing, told the business new service vwd, the disappointing performance of films from the output deals had been responsible for last week's issuing of a profit warning. He stressed, however, that Constantin had not "participated in the madness" of some its competitors by paying as much as 17% of the films' production costs when committing to its output deals. "We participated with ten and eleven per cent in the production costs", he declared.

According to Friedl, Constantin will have posted estimated sales of Euro 84m and an EBIT of Euro 2m for the first nine months of this year and, after last week’s profit warning, the company is looking to sales of more than Euro 100m and an EBIT of between Euro 2m and Euro 5m for the full financial year.

In the same interview with vwd, Friedl suggested that an EBIT of Euro 2m would be the “worst case scenario” and there were hopes that the final three releases of 2001 - including the Bruce Willis-starrer Bandits from Hyde Park - would propel that figure about Euro 2m. In addition, another 100-300,000 admissions could be added to Der Schuh Des Manitu's 8.5m total by the end of the year.

Luc Besson’s Company Europa Corp Signed A Three-Year, Ten Picture Deal

Vivendi Universal and Canal Plus have signed a three-year, ten picture deal with Luc Besson’s company Europa Corp. The partnership also includes the use by Universal Music and Universal Studios of Besson’s own high-tech facilities Digital Factory.

The amount represented by the various deals remained undisclosed. Vivendi Universal chairman and CEO, Jean-Marie Messier, underlined that the most important element of the deal was creativity, stressing that : "Behind (the deal) there is a notion which is dear to both of us: claiming our French roots loud and clear."

On the production side the deal will include Europa Corp’s upcoming projects Taxi 3, the sequel to the two highly successful 1998 and 2000 action comedies (over 10 million tickets sold for last year’s French chart-topper Taxi 2), swashbuckling epic Fanfan La Tulipe, car racing flick Michel Vaillant, Corey Yuen's The Transporter, Special Police, Le Bonheur Ne Coute Rien as well as two animated features, Arthur and Ektor, and Besson’s next film.

For the duration of the deal, Canal Plus will have a first look at any further titles produced by Europa, outside of the ten pictures deal. The first films turned out by the production and distribution company founded last year by Besson and former Gaumont principal Pierre-Ange Le Pogam -- Jet Li-starrer Kiss Of The Dragon, Yamakasi and 15 Aout -- have performed well at the box office, all three titles passing the one million admissions mark.

The other side of the two-pronged partnership involves Besson’s Normandy-based digital facilites, Vivendi Universal contributing to the building of a massive sound studio. "The most advanced and the largest in Europe." said Messier, who added that the complex, which is situated on Besson’s own property, would be "better than George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch"

A Total Of $1.2m German Production Support Was Given

New film projects by Margarethe von Trotta, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Volker Schloendorff, and Rolf Schuebel have received backing in the latest round of funding by Hamburg’s regional public film fund FilmFoerderung Hamburg.

A total of $1.2m (DM2.6m) production support was given to von Trotta’s Rosenstrasse project, which will begin shooting next spring with Katja Riemann and Maria Schrader in the leads and to Fridriksson’s international co-production Falcons. Von Trotta's Rosenstrasse also got $277,000 (DM600,000) today (Oct 17) from the German Federal Film Board (FFA), in addition to the $1.08m (DM2.3m) already awarded it by the Bavarian public funder FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (FFF)

In addition, $185,000 (DM400,000) was granted to Berlin-based Road Movies for the feature-length documentary Atlantic Affairs – 20 Suitcases, to be directed by Volker Schloendorff and featuring German "rock dinosaur" Udo Lindenberg and other musicians singing their interpretations of songs by famous German emigres –from Marlene Dietrich and Lotte Lenja through Kurt Weill and Bert Brecht to Kurt Tucholsky and Friedrich Hollaender – who found refuge in America from the Nazis.

Backing has also been given for the development of Rolf Schuebel’s adaptation of Charlotte Kerner’s novel Blueprint – which has Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente lined up to star – and Hermine Huntgeburth’s drama Weiss (White) for MMM Filmproduktion.

Fox shuts down TV movie division

Fox's on-again, off-again, on-again TV movie division is off again. After weeks of speculation, the network officially decided Wednesday to shutter its longform unit and shelve a handful of pictures in various stages of development. Marci Pool, who was brought in last year as executive VP of movies and minieries, to oversee a new attempt to focus on event pictures, has left the network, along with her four staffers.

Despite an ambitious start in 1991 with the critically acclaimed Jim Carrey drama "Doing Time on Maple Drive," Fox's movie division has never been able to find true success. Even after they brought Pool in, Fox executives never truly seemed excited about the idea of television movies.

Now, with longform divisions at all networks struggling for time slots, Fox simply decided there was no room for another network player in the marketplace -- particularly at a network that programs 15 hours per week vs. 22 for the other networks.

Three pictures produced by Pool -- the high-concept "WWIII," "Who Wants to Marry A Billionaire" and "Black River" -- generated decent if unspectacular ratings, despite very little promotion. Two other Pool pictures -- "The Rats" and "The Glow" -- have yet to air.

Fox still intends to produce a "Brady Bunch" spinoff picture in which the classic clan heads to the White House. Last spring, NBC decided to eliminate its remaining movie night, while CBS cut back to a Sunday franchise. ABC has had solid longform success with a series of event pictures.