Weekend Newsreel- November 4, 2005

Compiled by the FilmBuffOnLine Staff

     Grand Theft Auto Hogwarts: The blue 1962 Ford Anglia seen magically flying Harry Potter and friend Ron Weasley to school in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (2002) has been stolen from the grounds of South West Film Studios in Cornwall, England last Wednesday. According to police, the car could be seen from the roadway outside the studio. The car was non-functioning and it is suspected that a Potter fan or classic car enthusiast snuck onto the premises and removed the car with a trailer.

     German Director Looks To Hitler For Laughs: Director Dani Levy, whose Jewish comedy Go For Zucker! swept this past July’s German Film Awards, capturing seven statues including those for Best Film and Best Director, has announced his next picture- a comedy centering Adolph Hitler. The film, entitled My Fuehrer- The Really Truest Truth About Adolph Hitler, is currently still in development. Hitler has been the subject of comedies before, with Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940), the Disney Oscar-winning cartoon Der Fuehrer’s Face (1942), Ernst Lubbitch’s To Be Or Not To Be (1942) and Mel Brooks’ The Producers (1968) considered classics. However, a 1990 British sitcom entitled Heil Honey, I’m Home, which attempted to parody 1950s American sitcom conventions by placing Hitler and mistress Eva Braun as the neighbors of a Jewish family in 1938 Berlin, failed, being cancelled after only the first of its eight produced episodes had aired.

     Shaw Brothers Hong Kong Classics To Come To US- Image Entertainment has signed a deal to bring 30 titles from Hong Kong based Celestial Pictures’ Shaw Brothers library to US and Canadian home video. For 25 years, the Shaw Brothers studio was virtually the entirety of the film industry in Hong Kong, generating some 760 from the 1960s through 1984. Although the studio produced films in all genres, it is best known for its martial arts films which accounted for nearly half its output and which have influenced filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and John Woo. Included in the Image deal are The Shadow Boxer (1974), Heaven And Hell (1980) and The Magic Blade (1976). Previously, Miramax had purchased the rights to 50 Shaw Brothers titles in 2003 but have announced no plans for the titles since.

     Remake Watch: Steve Miner has been picked to helm Day Of The Dead, a remake of George Romero’s 1985 zombie film classic, for Millennium Pictures. Miner, who has previously directed Halloween H2O and Lake Placid will direct from a script by Jeffrey Reddick (Final Destination). . .  Speaking of George Romero, Wild Bunch, the French production house behind Romero’s recent Land Of The Dead, have greenlit a new version of the 1978 B-movie classic Piranha. With a budget of approximately $20 to 24 million, the film is set to begin production next spring with a script by Chuck Russell. No director or cast has been announced. . . Black Christmas, based on the 1974 slasher, will begin shooting this January with Glen Morgan handling the directorial reigns, working from a script written by himself and writing/producing partner James Wong. Miramax subsidiary Dimension Films will be distributing for the 2006 Christmas holiday season. . . Warner Independent Pictures and Cherry Road Films have announced a plan to remount Nicholas Roeg’s 1977 classic The Man Who Fell To Earth. Cherry Road has optioned both remake rights to the original film plus film rights to Walter Tevis’ original 1963 novel. Oren Moverman is set to script. No director has been attached yet. . . Mandaly Pictures has announced Countdown, a science-fiction thriller based on a short story and subsequent Twilight Zone episode by Richard Matheson. The story follows the crew of a spaceship who lands on a mysterious planet and discover their own dead bodies in the wreckage of a duplicate of their own spaceship. The screenplay is by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, reworking a draft by Scott Burn and Stephen Gregg.

In Remembrance

Lloyd Bochner- The character actor who appeared in Point Blank and Tony Rome (both 1967) at age 81.

This week’s Releases-

November 4

• 7 Days (limited)

• Chicken Little

• Christmas In The Clouds (limited)

• The Comedians Of Comedy (NY)

• The Dying Gaul (NY, LA)

• Gay Sex In The 70s (NY)

• I Love Your Work (LA)

• Jarhead

• National Lampoon's Adam & Eve (limited)

• The Passenger (LA)

• Show Me (limited)

November 9

• Get Rich Or Die Tryin'

• Pulse (Kairo, limited)

• Swenkas (limited)