George Clooney is one of the busiest men in Hollywood. He's currently promoting his excellent new legal drama Michael Clayton. He's wrapping up acting and directing duties on Leatherheads, a 1920's football romantic comedy with John Krasinski and Renee Zelwegger. He's shooting the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading, a CIA comedy co-starring Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton (so great in Clayton), John Malkovich, and Frances McDormand. In addition to all that, he's got to fly around the world in a jet made of gold and make the women of the world swoon 24/7. So yeah, the guy's got a lot going on. In fact, he's just decided that he has too much going on.

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Clooney has just dropped out of Joe Carnahan's White Jazz, a gritty tale of police corruption set in 1950s Los Angeles. Clooney was set to star in the independent film, which is based on the James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) novel. White Jazz was expected to begin filming early next year, and was scheduled for a 2009 release date. Grant Heslov, Clooney's producing partner, says "It just simply came down to scheduling. George continues to believe in the project and in Joe." Clooney was set to be a producer on the film, and whether he'll remain involved in that capacity has not been announced. And those of you excited about the film, myself included, might not be too happy with this last sentence. According to a spokesperson at Warner Independent, where the film was set up -- White Jazz has dropped off its slate. Currently, there's no word from Carnahan, who, as of a couple days ago, was pretty pumped about starting production in January.

Last Sunday, Cinematical was the first to tell you that Chris Pine was the odds-on favorite to take on the big role of psycho cop Junior Stemmons in Joe Carnahan's White Jazz. Carnahan has subsequently confirmed as much on his blog. The role is Pine's if he wants it, so why is he not signing on the dotted line? The reason, as I understand it, is that he's pretty much being forced to choose between a major, potentially star-making role in White Jazz or a very minor role as Captain Kirk in J.J. Abrams new Star Trek film. In today's Variety, we learn that Simon Pegg has landed the role of Scotty in that film and that Pine has been officially offered the captain's chair, but hasn't yet taken it. I can see how this would be a tough choice. Even though it's well known that the new Star Trek film is practically sans-Kirk, the prestige of getting to play Kirk could open all kinds of doors for this kid, and who knows -- White Jazz may not turn out as well as everyone hopes. He's between a rock and a hard place. In other Star Trek XI casting news, The Hollywood Reporter tells us that John Cho, of Harold and Kumar fame, has landed the role of Sulu.

In other White Jazz news, Smokin' Joe has put up some more awesome concept art on his blog. This time it's not quite as cool as the panoramic view of 1958 Los Angeles, but it does have a ring of high-class sleaze to it that's reminiscent of L.A. Confidential. The large piece of art has the story's anti-hero Dave Klein walking away, with head down, from some swank Hollywood home that looks like where Pierce Patchett would live. If Joe has any heart at all, he's going to let me onto the set of this movie!

You aren't anybody unless you're famous enough for rival biopics. I hope you all celebrated the holiday yesterday by watching both Gérard Depardieu and Georges Corraface in their respective, rival Columbus films. Coming in the future, we may also get competing movies about Harvey Milk, Philip K. Dick, Sammy Davis, Jr. and now Pablo Escobar. We've long followed news regarding Joe Carnahan's movie about the Colombian drug lord, who will be played there by Javier Bardem, but now Variety reports another Escobar pic in the works. This one will be produced by Oliver Stone, directed by Antoine Fuqua and is simply titled Escobar. It's based on the book "Mi Hermano Pablo", written by the cocaine king's brother, Roberto Escobar Gaviria, who worked as accountant and confidant to Pablo.

So, this looks like it will be more of a life-encompassing biopic. It also appears to be going into production ahead of Carnahan's film, Killing Pablo, since Carnahan is first working on White Jazz while Escobar is fully financed and ready to begin shooting in Colombia and Puerto Rico in early 2008. All that needs finishing is the script rewrite, which is being done by David McKenna, who already wrote a bit about Escobar in his screenplay for Blow (he was played by Cliff Curtis). Variety doesn't mention who Stone and Fuqua have or are casting in the title role of their film, which means it may not be secure. I'm sure some people would like to see Adrian Grenier play the part, as he does via his character Vinnie Chase on the show Entourage, but that would actually be a terrible idea. Personally, I'd like them to go back to Curtis, but for a long-term biopic they'll likely want someone younger, as well as someone more familiar to audiences.

I also wish that Stone was directing this himself -- even if he really annoyed the heck out of me recently -- because he seems to know the territory. And because he thanked "Ari Gold" (Jeremy Piven's character on Entourage) when talking to Variety about the project. But he should do just fine overseeing Fuqua's direction, a job he's sharing with former Malcolm in the Middle older brother Justin Berfield, Jason Felts and James Reach.

When Smokin' Joe Carnahan says he's gonna get someone for a part, you can usually take his word for it. Back in April, he spoke with Cinematical about prepping his two upcoming passion projects: an adaptation of White Jazz and a telling of the Pablo Escobar story, and during that interview he gave us the following dream casting choices. He said he wanted Javier Bardem to play Escobar, and we recently found out that's a done deal, and he said he wanted Charlize Theron to play Glenda Bledsoe, the female lead in White Jazz. He also said he was interested in having Ray Liotta play either Pete Bondurant or Welles Noonan in that film. Now, after half a year of waiting, Carnahan has let it be known to readers of his blog that the role of Bledsoe has been cast, although he's being coy about the name. He's also cast the role of Junior Stemmons, a young and crazy cop character. The Stemmons name came up during our interview, but he didn't have his sights set on anyone yet. The rumor mill tonight is saying that Chris Pine may have the role, but Joe isn't saying yay or nay.

Meanwhile, Joe is also fuming at the LA Times for writing that his movie Smokin' Aces was a turkey -- $150 worldwide from a $20 million budget -- and blogging about the fact that he just submitted the script for Smokin' Aces: Blowback to Universal Pictures. He says that with the anticipated strike on the horizon, Universal is anxious to ramp that one into production as soon as possible and he expects more news to develop as early as next week. Stay tuned for more.

While it's too early to tell if Matthew Carnahan's first script, The Kingdom, will be a hit, you can't help but admire a guy that seemed to come out of nowhere (although he is the brother of director Joe Carnahan). Carnahan has already sold three other scripts that have snagged some of the biggest names in the movie business; George Clooney, Tom Cruise, and Brad Pitt to name a few. Now, in an interview with Ropes of Silicon, the writer is already talking about his next project. Carnahan will be writing a crime thriller based on the infamous Zebra Murders that took place in San Francisco in the early 70's. There have already been a couple of books written on the subject, but I would guess that most people are not that familiar with the crimes that took place between 1973 and 1974.

Over the course of one year, a group of serial killers with connections to the nationalist group, The Nation of Islam, were responsible for the muders of 16 people; they called themselves 'The Death Angels.' It has been reported that the group "believed that they could earn "points" towards Paradise when they died if they killed as many whites as possible". Finally, in 1975, and after one of the longest trials in California history, Larry Green, J.C.X. Simon, Manuel Moore and Jessie Lee Cooks were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Carnahan is working with DreamWorks on Zebra, and told Ropes, "It's just such a little gem of a story. If I can put two sentences together I think hopefully people will want to be involved". Carnahan is planning on focusing the story on the racial tensions in the city at the time. But, it will ultimately revolve around the two African-American policemen who were instrumental in the capture of the Angels. There is no official word on the project yet, but judging by Carnahan's relatively short yet successful track record, I doubt it will take long until we hear something more definite.

It became obvious that I wasn't a total car buff when I read Joe Carnahan's latest blog title for Thursday -- "Tonight. Downtown. The '08 Caddy." Immediately, I thought: "Poor David Lynch. He does some great marketing with a cow, and now is getting competition from guys driving golf caddies around the streets of L.A." Half of me wishes that this was the case, even if golf caddies probably have nothing to do with Carnahan's upcoming film, White Jazz. But really, new Cadillacs are a great alternative.

In the blog, the director says that they're closing "a big chunk of downtown LA and running wild in the streets with the new Cadillac CTS. I'm personally hoping they let me wrap one of these beautiful f*ckers around a pole at some point." Hmm, I doubt it. Why are they doing all of this, especially since the film hasn't gone into production yet? According to Carnahan, it is a "wonderful opportunity to hone a look for White Jazz that [I] hope will allow us to shoot a lot of the traveling shots of Klein (and there's a FEW) in a manner that will save us the cost of having to dress block after block in period cars, etc." Why new Cadillacs were needed for this test, I can only assume for advertising and car fanboy dreams. Earlier this month, the first artwork for the movie was released, and I'm hoping everything works out, because it's looking shnazzy so far. If things continue on schedule, the film will head into production this December. Oh, and if any of you fine readers caught the wild Cadillac driving, pipe in and give us the run-down.

Finally, Smokin' Joe is back to talking about White Jazz. As he says on his blog, "Finished the last draft of the script and it's off to the forces that control its fate. It rocks but I'm worried that it's, at times, a fairly radical break from the book. Understanding that adapting that book straight is like trying to fly a kite in a firefight. What gives the novel it's brilliance is the endless, fevered-dream state." Carnahan goes on to say that since he's not legally allowed to use the Exley character, "my brother and I were forced to basically construct a doppelganger, giving him all of Exley's traits and speech patterns. We're hoping it works. On paper. It's fantastic." I was wondering how he was going to resolve that issue -- looks like we're just going to get Ted Texley, basically. And, having read the book, I agree that it can't possibly be adapted straight. It's too out-there for there not to be some radical changes, especially towards the end.

Carnahan has also dropped the first art from pre-production that gives us an idea of his vision of Los Angeles, 1958. This sprawling, high-res photoshopped pic -- click on the small image above to get the full-size -- is pure old Hollywood. Link back to the full interview I did with Carnahan in April to get a better idea of what kind of Los Angeles he's going to create for us. And also, check out the driver of the red sled on the center right-hand side of the picture -- no points for identifying him. I think I'm gonna have to parachute into this set once things get rolling, to get a good look at what's going on.

When Cinematical did an in-depth interview with Joe Carnahan back in early April, we discussed some ways that a potential sequel to Smokin' Aces might work, if he was inclined to go there. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I'm not going to spoil anything, but the ending does leave some wiggle room for a potential continuance of the original story. Then again, a sequel can create entirely new characters, or go the prequel-route, so there's actually a lot of wiggle room for a Smokin 2. And now a prequel is in fact moving forward, though not in the way you might expect -- it's going straight-to-DVD with Carnahan's good wishes, though apparently not his deep involvement. The director noted on his personal blog yesterday that "Universal wants to move ahead with a direct-to-video prequel of 'Smokin' and asked me if I wanted to Godfather the thing and make sure we did a really cool story."

Carnahan noted in his statement that the DVD numbers for Smokin' were "astounding" and encouraged the studio to go down this road, and to do the prequel in style. "Whatever reluctance I have is alleviated by the fact that we can really do this balls out, hardcore prequel and not be constrained by ratings or any other puritanical MPAA bullshit," he wrote. Of course, the biggest thing on Carnahan's plate right now is White Jazz, which is furiously prepping for a fall start. Last time we spoke with him, Carnahan was eyeballing Charlize Theron to star alongside George Clooney, but there's been nothing but silence on that front since then. There was also some talk of getting Ray Liotta into the mix, which is a move I fully support. Here's hoping that when he's ready to drop some more news on the Jazz ramp-up (or the Pablo Escobar biopic, or any of his other projects that are swirling around) Smokin' Joe will drop me an email.

This fall, writer/director Joe Carnahan will start production on one of the most talked-about properties in Hollywood -- the closing chapter of James Ellroy's famed 'L.A. Quartet,' White Jazz. Following The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential, Jazz is a work that's been described as 'unfilmable,' because of its frequent dips into stream-of-consciousness, its almost total lack of good-guy characters and its endless perversions, not to mention the Byzantine narrative, typical of Ellroy. But Carnahan is confident that he's going to crack it, and could hardly contain his enthusiasm for the project when I recently spoke with him -- the director is making himself available this week to promote the April 17 release of the Widescreen DVD Edition of Smokin' Aces. Among other things, we talked about the architectural and musical influences he's drawing on, how it will stand apart from L.A. Confidential, and who he's envisioning alongside George Clooney in the film's major roles.

Also on the agenda was his other major passion of the moment, a full-throated telling of the Pablo Escobar story, which he hopes to jump onto after Jazz is completed. His enthusiasm for that one is already so high and his knowledge of the main character so deep that when hearing him talk, it seems like he's ready to start shooting the picture next week. Throughout the course of the interview, we also talked about the recent media furor over Reese Witherspoon's departure from Bunny Lake is Missing, the current Hollywood rush to remake Sam Peckinpah, the spec script he's currently working on, and whether or not we could see more of the Smokin' Aces characters sometime in the future. My list of things to bring up also included MI:3 and how he managed to coax a decent performance out of acting novice Alicia Keys in Aces, but we didn't even have time to get into that stuff. If you're a Carnahan fan, as I am, it's a fun read, so enjoy.

Do you see the ending of Smokin' Aces as an ending or a beginning? It seems to me like Ryan Reynolds' character could go to jail and become a villain -- he'd just be swimming in a different pool of corruption.

JC: I saw it as the end of that particular bit of hypocrisy that he was kind of revolting against, I guess -- the idea that it's just better to just bring both of these situations into the ground than it is to kind of allow them to continue. I can never kind of fathom a character's journey beyond the moment when you go to black, any more than when people ask me what Jason Patric did with the tape recorder at the end of Narc, you know what I mean? Even in Blood, Guts, like, what happens down the road with these characters? I love the ambiguous kind of endings. I think often times, that's what life really is -- there's no concrete path for you to take. It's always kind of a jumble of variables. Behind this door could be a beautiful woman, and behind the same door could be a tiger, you know? You don't know. So I always look at it as the end of that particular journey, that particular story, but I certainly wouldn't preclude revisiting that.

The current road is not smooth for director Joe Carnahan. This morning, Erik reported that Reese Witherspoon backed out of Bunny Lake is Missing just over a month before production. However, the sudden disappearance of the lady Witherspoon isn't Carnahan's only pesky roadblock. Things aren't going smoothly for White Jazz either, although it isn't quite as bad as losing your lead, big-name actress. Due to the emergence of L.A. Confidential 2, which Christopher wrote about last week, Carnahan has to make some adjustments to his already-cooking Jazz.

IGN has reported that New Regency has the rights to the name Ed Exley (played by Guy Pearce in Confidential), so the name has to be changed for this adaptation. According to Carnahan: "Those familiar with the book also know that 'The Dud' Dudley Smith is also featured prominently in it. We took the original L.A. Confidential into account when writing White Jazz so we opted to remove him from the story. Now that Exley looks like he's out, it will really eliminate any incidental characters from White Jazz and allow it to be a stand alone and not dependent on the prior characters." Now, if any of you have read this, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like they're changing more than the director is letting on? If Dudley is featured prominently, how can he be an incidental character?

So, this means there will be no Pearce in Jazz, and that there's a chance D.A. Ellis Loew will be altered as well. It seems silly to me. Sure, there are those who don't read James Ellroy, but will still see the movie. However, is the name really that much of a concern? Many of the moviegoers will know the original story, so why make such efforts to change it? I would assume that they'll either remove him, or change everything about the character -- or maybe they'll just re-name him Ted Texley or something.