Short Cuts
The Conrans will 'Captain' 'Princess of Mars'; plus, Linklater headed for 'Bad News'
By Marc Savlov, Fri., Sept. 17, 2004
• Conrans to "Captain" "Princess of Mars": What was a quartet of World War II era fighter planes doing buzzing the far North Austin area around 7pm this past Saturday? Relax: Homeland security is, we'd like to hope, slightly less vintage than that. The P-40 Warhawk and a trio of fellow aviators were on hand for a fly-by of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema's Lake Creek location, where Harry Knowles and the Ain't It Cool News gang had assembled along with some 200-plus for the regional premiere of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Director Kerry Conran and his sibling/production designer Kevin were on hand for the packed screening, which saw the Alamo and its staff decked out in their finest flyin' ace regalia. Conran's vivid, CGI 'n' actors opus dei for all things retro went over like Gangbusters and was followed by a Q&A that matched the brothers' winning self-deprecation with the announcement that the Brothers Conran are on board to helm the Knowles-produced adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, a position originally, tentatively helmed by Robert Rodriguez until his recent tiff/withdrawal from the Directors' Guild of America over directing credits on the just-wrapped Sin City. Whether or not the equally CGI-heavy Princess will be shooting here in Austin is still up in the air, although fingers (tentacles?) remain crossed.
• More "Bad News": An article in the Sept. 8 Variety online has announced that Richard Linklater's next project is going to be a remake of the 1976 crowd-pleaser The Bad News Bears, reteaming him with School of Rock studio Paramount and adding Bad Santa scribes Glenn Ficarra and John Requa to the mix. Billy Bob Thornton is slated for the Walter Matthau alcoholic curmudgeon role – no word yet on who's going to be filling Tatum O'Neal's shoes.
• Her Head Hurts: Storie Productions' Kat Candler (Cicadas) is currently up in NYC for the 26th annual IFP (Independent Feature Project) Market, shopping around her script Brain Brawl, which nailed first prize in the Rhode Island International Film Festival Screenplay Competition recently. Says Candler, "The script is about Livvie Reynolds, a popular 13-year-old who gets transferred by her parents into her worst nightmare, Hampton College Prep ... where intelligence equals cool and hardcore nerds make up the social elite. When word gets out about her genius IQ, she gets bullied into joining the eighth-grade academic decathlon team, Brain Brawl." What, no zombies?
