FOOTBALL CRAZY

Fans of the late Robert Aldrich will be pleased to know that there are plans to remake one of his best late-period movies, The Longest Yard, a 1974 sports saga hailed by at least one eminent French critic as an enduring masterpiece. The original, you may (or may not) recall, was about a football match between prisoners and prison guards. It was classic Aldrich stuff: tough underdogs facing up to tough overdogs in a trial of strength and endurance. The ‘football’, of course, was the gridiron variety.

The remake will be different, however. Paramount are relocating the action to a British prison, and the game will, as a result, still be football. Only it will be soccer, as the Americans insist on calling it. Best of all, the Burt Reynolds role - the tough old footballing pro who co-ordinates the prisoners’ team and leads them to victory - will be played by Vinnie Jones. And Vinnie, non-Brits may need reminding, was the hard man of the British football pitch before he flew off to Hollywood to become a movie star (or indeed an indie icon, if you include his role in Night at the Golden Eagle - see page 40).

The new film will be directed by Barry Skolnick, with Vas Blackwood and Jason Stathem (who appeared with Jones in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) also appearing.

THEY LOVE LUCY

The progress to solo stardom of Ally McBeal regular Lucy Liu - from a dodgy supporting role in Payback, via the triple-headed Charlie’s Angels and Mike Figgis’ ensemble piece, Hotel - looks like reaching fruition with the upcoming The Company Man.

Liu, who stars opposite Jeremy Northam, plays a mysterious woman who seems to be the only source of salvation for Northam’s character, an ordinary guy who ends up doing some corporate espionage. The film will be the first directorial outing for Vicenzo Natali since his cult hit, Cube, and is also the first film to be announced by Pandora Films since it relocated from Paris to Burbank. Production began in Toronto on May 7.

KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY

That old Hollywood curse - the one that says that two powerful people have the same idea at much the same time, and end up making movies on the same subject which come out in the same month - looks like it has struck the life story of Harry Houdini.

In the last issue, I mentioned that a biopic of the famous escape artist and illusionist was one of the projects being developed by Ang Lee. Now along comes another ‘illusionist’ movie, admittedly not about Houdini, but about a French magician with a very similar name: Robert Houdin. It is called Smoke and Mirrors, and has cropped up on these pages a few times in the past, with both Sean Connery and Mel Gibson mentioned as possible stars.

Now, however, it seems to be on the fast track. And, if you want a powerful cast, you don’t get much more powerful than this, at least in terms of Hollywood royalty: Michael Douglas in the lead, with wife Catherine Zeta-Jones co-starring, and a possible cameo role for father Kirk. John McTiernan was at one stage going to direct, but has since backed out again.

Just to complete the family picture, the film - which is set in the 1850s - is being produced by Michael’s older brother, Joel, together with Catherine’s brother, David Jones (who, unlike his sister, hasn’t incorporated his grandmother’s name into his own).

DIVA FEVER

Of late, the directorial career of Franco Zeffirelli has alternated between semi-autobiographical period pieces like Tea With Mussolini and operatic movies such as Otello. Now, however, the flamboyant Italian maestro is in the final stages of pre-production on Callas Forever, the life story of a fellow Italian with even more of the myth about her.

The film will not, however, tell the whole of Callas’ story: instead, it will focus on the last month of her life (July 1977), most of which she spent alone in an apartment in Paris. The title role was originally to have been played by Greek soprano Teresa Stratas, but she was recently replaced by the somewhat more bankable Fanny Ardant (although it is not clear who will do the singing). Jeremy Irons plays a theatrical agent who attempts to coax Callas out of retirement. Production is due to start this month (July) in Paris.

Irons will be busy this summer, since he has also just taken over from John Malkovich in Claude Lelouch’s new film And Now Ladies and Gentlemen, which is being made in both French and English and began shooting in Paris at the beginning of May.

Irons plays a gentleman thief-cum-international yachtsman - a part which has gone through quite a few modifications since it was first penned. The role was reportedly originally tailor-made for Dustin Hoffman, then reshaped for Malkovich. But, with production delays on Liliana Cavani’s Ripley’s Game - in which Malkovich plays the title role - and the (then) looming actor’s strike, Lelouch decided to recast, in the process rewriting the role entirely to turn the central character from an American into an Englishman. Whence Irons.