Up-n-coming, 4/20.

"Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes has announced he plans to make the first big-screen version of the George Eliot novel Middlemarch." The BBC reports.

Variety: "Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman will star in Doubt, the screen adaptation of the John Patrick Shanley play for Miramax Films that begins production in New York on Dec 1."

"Fresh from their roles in Ocean's 13, Brad Pitt and George Clooney are preparing another co-starring venture in the new film from the Coen brothers," reports the Guardian. Burn After Reading is "a black comedy that is based on the brothers' first original screenplay since 2001's The Man Who Wasn't There."

"For the sake of a friend in need, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is stepping back in the cast of John Woo's The Battle of Red Cliff after Chow Yun-fat's sudden departure." Wolf's got the news at Twitch.

Meantime, once again, Alison Willmore does lots and lots of up-n-coming heavy lifting at the IFC News blog.

More news of productions in the works from european-films.net, where Boyd van Hoeij has more details on each of these:

• Sangue pazzo (Crazy Blood). Marco Tullio Giordana (Best of Youth) directs Monica Bellucci and Luca Zingaretti.

• Previously mentioned, but still: Cristóvão Colombo: O Enigma (Christopher Columbus: The Enigma). Manoel de Oliveira reclaims the explorer for the Portuguese.

• Barcelona (un mapa). Ventura Pons directs Rosa María Sardà, Núria Espert, Josep Maria Pou, Jordi Bosch, María Botto and Pablo Derqui.

• Notre univers impitoyable (Our Merciless Universe). Léa Fazer directs Alice Taglioni, currently on view in, as they say, selected cities, in The Valet, Jocelyn Quivrin and Thierry Lhermite.

• Parlami d'amore (Talk to Me About Love). Silvio Muccino (younger brother of Gabriele) directs himself, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Carolina Crescentini.

• No me pidas que te bese, porque te besaré (Don't Ask Me to Kiss You, Because I Will). Albert Espinosa directs himself, Eloy Azorín, Teresa Hurtado, Alberto Amarilla, Alex González and Pablo Rivero in an adaptation of one of his own plays.

Also at european-films.net, Boyd talks with Morten Hartz Kaplers, whose mockumentary AFR "sees him play a rent boy and squatter who has a stormy relationship with the current Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who is seen in archive footage and whose initials make up the title, JFK style."

"Having made the monstrous mess of a movie that was Boxing Helena, one would think that writer-director's Jennifer Lynch's career was over before it had even begun, but this week, disturbing news reaches Time Out towers," reports Chris Tilly. "After nearly 15 years in the cinematic wilderness, Lynch will be allowed back behind a camera to shoot a supernatural thriller entitled Surveillance.... [H]er father David will produce, and the cast includes Pell James, Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman (who must be a glutton for punishment having also appeared in Boxing)." Is he thinking of Bill Paxton?

Posted by dwhudson at April 20, 2007 1:24 PM