Picture the scene. A grizzled old thief reckons it’s time to hang up his swag-bag. Then along comes the next generation and persuades him to go round the block one last time. Replace ‘thief’ with ‘hit man’ and you have the plot of Assassins, which teamed Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas back in 1995.
But this is 2000, and production starts in May on Mandalay’s contemporary spin on the tale of an experienced veteran about to retire until he meets a brash young tyro out to replace him.
It’s called The Score, and the older role is played by Robert De Niro, with Edward Norton signing up as the voice of youth after earlier pairings between, first De Niro and Ben Affleck, then De Niro and Brad Pitt, fell apart. Also reportedly interested in signing on is Marlon Brando, who might play the role of De Niro’s equally veteran fence. This, for trivia buffs, would be the first time the two acting icons have worked together, although they have both played the same role - that of Don Vito Corleone - at different ages in different episodes of The Godfather. Frank Oz directs The Score, which will shoot in Montreal.
Pitt, meanwhile, was reportedly attracted to the project because it was a straight-down-the-middle commercial movie, with none of the controversies (not to mention disappointing box-office returns) which have been connected with his recent outings. And, while he didn’t ultimately connect with The Score, he has been in talks to play the lead in another highly commercial project: a remake of the Rat Pack movie Oceans Eleven, which Steven Soderbergh looks likely to make for Warner Bros.
Like the original, the film calls for an ensemble cast of big names, others of whom are rumoured to include Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts and Mike Myers. And before you all start reaching for your calculators, the above are considering the possibility of working for rather less than their normal fees.
If Oceans does finally get to float, however, it won’t be until towards the end of the year, because Soderbergh has first to make the big-screen adaptation of cult European TV series Traffic - a kind of narrative overview of the international drugs trade - which has been speeding up and slowing down with alarming regularity since late last year. It started out with a couple of pretty big names attached, in the combined shape of Harrison Ford and Catherine Zeta-Jones - not bad for a project that was put into turnaround by Fox 2000 last year. Or at least, not bad until Ford bailed in mid-March, saying (according to Variety) that he’d rather do an action movie. Word at the time was that Zeta-Jones had still not signed on the bottom line, although Soderbergh remained convinced that the movie can be made without Ford. Then, of course, the obvious happened: Ms Zeta-Jones’ partner Michael Douglas warmed to the idea of making his first movie with her, and Traffic immediately got the green light, moving over from its mid-budget Fox berth to a spot on the bigger-spending USA Films lot in the process. Production is now due to start “in the spring” (which doesn’t leave long), with a cast also expected to include Benicio Del Toro and Don Cheadle as a couple of FBI narcotics men.
Incidentally, drugs seem to be the hot subject these days, with a whole batch of name actors signing on to star in Ted Demme’s cocaine-trade movie, Blow. In addition to Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz (who we mentioned here in the last issue), Ray Liotta, Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman as was), Kiwi actor Cliff Curtis (seen most recently as an Iraqi in Three Kings), Spanish star Jordi Molla, Rachel Griffiths, Ethan Suplee (the very big guy in American History X) and Run Lola Run star Franka Potente have all joined the New Line movie, which began shooting on February 1.

Femme Not So Fatale

L ike Brad Pitt only the other way round, Drew Barrymore seems to be looking for ways of interspersing her big-ticket movies with smaller, more personal films. Currently tied up in the ultra-high-concept Charlie’s Angels, Barrymore and her production partner Nancy Juvonen recently acquired the rights to a 1958 novel by Robert Nathan called So Love Returns.
It tells the story of a man who is so devastated by the death of his wife that he cuts off from his children until a mysterious and possibly magical woman (the potential Barrymore role) comes into his life. It will be made by New York indie outfit The Shooting Gallery on a budget of around $5 million after being shopped around various studios, the total of whose wisdom was apparently that the mysterious woman should, in fact, be a mermaid.
In the meantime, Barrymore will follow Charlie’s Angels with Penny Marshall’s Riding in Cars With Boys. So Love Returns might come after that.