THE prospect of Ron Howard directing a US remake of Hidden (Caché), Michael Haneke's complex and intriguing French drama, is not an attractive one.
But Imagine, the successful production company headed by Howard and producer Brian Grazer, has acquired the remake rights. Howard is also attached to make the film of Peter Morgan's hit play, Frost/Nixon, along with Angels and Demons, based on the novel by Tom Brown, whose Da Vinci Code was filmed by Howard.
Meanwhile, another US remake of a Haneke film, Funny Games, is due for release later next year, with Haneke himself directing. As in the 1997 Austrian original, the film deals with two psychotic young men holding a family hostage in their holiday cabin. The stars are Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt and Tim Roth.
Far out, man
Gremlins director Joe Dante, one of the many proteges of legendary producer Roger Corman, is about to make a fictional film inspired by the true story of Corman dropping acid to research The Trip, his controversial 1967 movie written by Jack Nicholson and starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Dante's film, The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes, takes its title from a line in The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Some other Corman proteges - Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese and John Sayles - have agreed to appear, and Corman himself will make a cameo appearance.
Faking it on film
Milli Vanilli are the subject of a movie written and to be directed by Jeff Nathanson, who took a sympathetic view of an opportunist in his screenplay for Catch Me If You Can. His film will tell the story of how record producer Frank Farian hired Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus to front Milli Vanilli, lip-synching to songs recorded by three other singers. After the duo topped the charts and sold millions of records, they refused to promote a follow-up album unless Farian let them sing on it. Instead, he blew the whistle.
Nathanson is making his film with the cooperation of Morvan and of the estate of Pilatus, who died in 1998.
All things French in Cork
The Carte Noire 18th Cork French Film Festival opens next Thursday night at the Gate cinema with Paris, Je t'Aime, an omnibus of 18 short films set in Paris and directed by, among others, Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne, Gerard Dépardieu, Alfonso Cuarón, Tom Tykwer and Joel and Ethan Coen. Producer Claudie Ossard, whose many credits include Amélie and Delicatessen, will introduce the screening.
To mark the 60th anniversary of the Alliance Française in Cork, there will be a special screening of Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête, also 60 years old, with live musical accompaniment by 3epkano. The 20th anniversary of La Fémis, the French film school, will be celebrated in a retrospective programme. The closing film on March 9th will be Michel Gondrey's The Science of Sleep.
Hail Césars, again
The Césars, the annual French film industry awards, will be presented in Paris tomorrow night and will be shown live from 8pm on TV5 Monde, which is widely available in Ireland. The front-runners, with nine nominations each, are Rachid Bouchareb's Days of Glory (Indigènes), Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterly and Guillaume Canet's Tell No One (Ne le Dis à Personne).
Chadna to shoot JR
Gurinder Chadna, who make Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice, remains attached to direct the slowly gestating movie based on the TV series Dallas. Chadna is also in negotiations to make a film of Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, the hit novel in which a girl keeps a diary about the ups and downs of being a teenager.
Ze ultimate zombie movie
Rob Zombie, who directed House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, has made a three-minute spoof trailer to be shown with Grindhouse, the two-part horror movie directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Grindhouse is due for US release in April and for its international premiere at Cannes in May.
Zombie's trailer, Werewolf Women of the SS, features Nicolas Cage, Udo Kier, Sybil Danning and the director's wife, Sheri Moon Zombie. It's based on the premise that Hitler planned to create a race of superhuman female werewolves to help him win the second World War. It "could quite possible be the greatest motion picture ever made!" Zombie declares on his MySpace page.
