The Chronicles of Narnia courtesy Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Per the Hollywood Reporter, Michael Apted is set to claim the reins from Andrew Adamson and direct The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third film in the seven-pic series. Among the returning cast members are (spoiler alert?) Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes.... Marc Forster (Monster's Ball) will helm and cowrite with Paul Haggis the 22nd James Bond film.... Ben Stiller will produce/perhaps star in the comedy In Deep, in which a man fighting a parking ticket gets caught up in a nightmarish chain of events.... Per Variety, a September release is set for National Lampoon's Homo Erectus, a caveman comedy (is there any other kind these days, really?) starring the likes of Ali Larter, David Carradine and Gary Busey.... Frank Miller will adapt Raymond Chandler's Trouble Is My Business as a starring vehicle for Clive Owen.
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Jimmy Smits
The networks are just days away from unveiling their fall lineups. Here's the early word on what new shows to expect.
ABC will try hard to diversify its program lineup with a few dramas that don't fall into the soap category. That's why Marlowe, based on the famous Raymond Chandler detective character, and Pushing Daisies, a quirky supernatural drama about a man whose touch brings people back to life ("with procedural elements" as the pilot's log line says), are on the list of possible pickups. A sitcom based on the Geico cavemen and Sam I Am, starring Christina Applegate, are contenders on the comedy side. And oh, yes — the network also has a new series that will be spun out of a little show called Grey's Anatomy.
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Per Reuters, MGM has acquired distribution rights for Myriam, Mother of the Christ, a dramatic rendering of the life of Jesus' mom, penned by The Passion of the Christ's Benedict Fitzgerald and slated for an Easter 2008 release.... Per Variety, Clive Owen will exec-produce and narrate a feature based on one of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe mysteries.... Salma Hayek will star in and produce the Spanish-language comedy La Banda, in which a wealthy housewife secretly takes a job as a wedding singer.
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Inching their way to your television screen:• ABC has granted pilot orders to Marlowe, a contemporary take on Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled private eye, and Pushing Daisies, a romantic drama about a man who can bring dead people back to life, just by touching them.• NBC has ordered a pilot for Zip, a comedy about a grifter who angles to live the good life with his kids in Beverly Hills.• Sci Fi has teamed with Sex and the City creator Darren Star and scribe Mike Werb (Face/Off) on a crime series about four convicts outfitted with technologically enhanced bodies (Pam Anderson is already in the casting office) and sent to work for a covert wing of the government, says Reuters.• Lifetime has given a series pickup and set a summer debut for State of Mind, starring Lili Taylor as a therapist.
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ABC is pondering a fresh take on Raymond Chandler's famous sleuth, Philip Marlowe, in the form of a present-day procedural boasting noir aspects, reports Variety. Though there are no plans to use any Chandler books as source material, producer Sean Bailey promises "femme fatales and very wealthy individuals".... HBO is developing a miniseries about the Third Crusade, the 12th-century clash between Islam and Christianity, told through the eyes of their respective leaders, Saladin and Richard the Lionheart. "This is not some dry historical costume drama," screenwriter Kario Salem (The Rat Pack) tells the Hollywood Reporter. "I think of it as a medieval gangster epic." With femme fatales and wealthy people?... ABC has granted a pilot order to a "CEOs gone wild" drama from Jon Feldman (Reunion), while Fox is hot for New Amsterdam, about a New York homicide detective who is secretly centuries-old. Hey, I think we may see Abe Vigoda with a badge again!
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