BOOK CLUB NEWS

Following on from New Line’s Lord of the Rings and FilmFour’s Charlotte Gray, Cate Blanchett is scheduled to play the lead in a movie version of Margaret Atwood’s novel, Alias Grace, to which UK-based production company Working Title has acquired the rights after Jodie Foster’s Egg Pictures couldn’t get it together.

The novel is a fictional version of the 19th-century case of a Canadian housemaid accused of the murder of her employer and his mistress. This will be the first screen version of an Atwood novel since Volker Schlöndorff’s underwhelming crack at The Handmaid’s Tale in 1990.

And Emilie Dequenne, the teenage newcomer who won the Palme d’Or for Best Actress at Cannes in 1999 and has since starred in local French hit Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf), is to play the title role in a French TV miniseries version of Thérèse Raquin.

Emile Zola’s turn-of-the-century novel - a tale of passion set in the provincial city of Lyon - occupies a position in French literature somewhat akin to Gone With the Wind, albeit on a higher literary plain. It has been filmed at least twice before, once in 1928 by Jacques Feyder (although no prints of that version have survived), and once in 1953 by Marcel Carné, with Simone Signoret in the title role.

GALE HAS THE WIND UP AGAIN

The Life of David Gale, director Alan Parker’s first movie since Angela’s Ashes, has survived the departure of George Clooney from the title role and looks to have snared a more than suitable replacement in the shape of Kevin Spacey.

Clooney reportedly left because of those pesky ‘creative differences’ over the film, which tells the story of a college professor and anti-capital-punishment activist who finds himself on Death Row for murder. Spacey is expected to do the film soon after the equally troubled The Shipping News, which he has just wrapped for Miramax and Lasse Hallström, and on which he replaced Billy Bob Thornton who had himself replaced John Travolta.

There is talk of a role in Gale for Nicole Kidman. And Nicolas Cage, whose Saturn Pictures joins InterMedia and Universal in the production team, is also expected to play a cameo.

SEEING RED

Following on from New Line’s Lord of the Rings and FilmFour’s Charlotte Gray, Cate Blanchett is scheduled to play the lead in a movie version of Margaret Atwood’s novel, Alias Grace, to which UK-based production company Working Title has acquired the rights after Jodie Foster’s Egg Pictures couldn’t get it together.

The novel is a fictional version of the 19th-century case of a Canadian housemaid accused of the murder of her employer and his mistress. This will be the first screen version of an Atwood novel since Volker Schlöndorff’s underwhelming crack at The Handmaid’s Tale in 1990.

And Emilie Dequenne, the teenage newcomer who won the Palme d’Or for Best Actress at Cannes in 1999 and has since starred in local French hit Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf), is to play the title role in a French TV miniseries version of Thérèse Raquin.

Emile Zola’s turn-of-the-century novel - a tale of passion set in the provincial city of Lyon - occupies a position in French literature somewhat akin to Gone With the Wind, albeit on a higher literary plain. It has been filmed at least twice before, once in 1928 by Jacques Feyder (although no prints of that version have survived), and once in 1953 by Marcel Carné, with Simone Signoret in the title role.

FORTY YEARS ON

The Life of David Gale, director Alan Parker’s first movie since Angela’s Ashes, has survived the departure of George Clooney from the title role and looks to have snared a more than suitable replacement in the shape of Kevin Spacey.

Clooney reportedly left because of those pesky ‘creative differences’ over the film, which tells the story of a college professor and anti-capital-punishment activist who finds himself on Death Row for murder. Spacey is expected to do the film soon after the equally troubled The Shipping News, which he has just wrapped for Miramax and Lasse Hallström, and on which he replaced Billy Bob Thornton who had himself replaced John Travolta.

There is talk of a role in Gale for Nicole Kidman. And Nicolas Cage, whose Saturn Pictures joins InterMedia and Universal in the production team, is also expected to play a cameo.