peter lefcourt Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Macy and Kudrow Seal The Deal
Filed under: Casting », Deals », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand »
Prior to shooting his directorial debut, Keep Coming Back, William H. Macy (who, I'm convinced, has found a way to duplicate himself, seeing as he shows up in every freaking movie) has signed on to star opposite Lisa Kudrow in a romantic comedy called The Deal. (Yeah, I'm thinking the same exact thing: Macy and Kudrow in a romantic comedy? That doesn't seem right.)
Based on the novel by Peter Lefcourt (and a script co-written by Macy), pic revolves around a suicidal movie producer (Macy) who, while down in the dumps, attempts to throw together a big-budget biopic on the life of Benjamin Disraeli, starring a popular African-American action star. When the lead actor is abducted and the production falls into chaos, this doomed producer teams up with a "beleaguered creative head" to "concoct a radical new scheme to make their own picture on their own terms -- a bootleg production that could win them an Oscar -- or a prison term."
Heck, it sounds like a lot of fun, though I've never been crazy about Lisa Kudrow. (Don't ask me why, but I think it has something to do with her annoying voice.) The Deal starts filming this October in Bucharest, and will be directed by Steven Schacter, who teamed up with Macy on the TV movies Door to Door and The Wool Cap.
Hollywood is so totally gay
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Romance », Deals », New Line », Newsstand »
The success of Brokeback
Mountain seems to have everyone in Hollywood scrambling to find the next Big Gay Hit. Hot on the heels of
yesterday's news
about Adam
Sandler and Kevin
James pretending to fall in love comes word that The Dreyfus
Affair - a novel by Peter
Lefcourt - has been optioned by producer Andrew
Lang, who has hired Lefcourt to write the adaptation. The novel tells the story not of the French military scandal but of two baseball players (one of them
married to a beauty queen) who fall in love, and what happens with the relationship goes public. Much like I Now
Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, the story has been knocking around for a long time (the book was first optioned in
1992), but due at least in part to its subject matter, it never quite made it into production. According to Lefcourt,
the movie was almost made at New Line with Ben
Affleck and Don
Cheadle, but things fell apart when Affleck ran off to make Pearl
Harbor and further dismantle his career.The Dreyfus Affair is a truly wonderful book, filled with romance, humor, and optimism. Unlike Brokeback Mountain, it's much more interested in the positive elements of its central relationship - at times, it has an almost fairy tale tone akin to that found in the indie gay flick Beautiful Thing - than on the Pain and Lonliness of Being Gay. Because of that, it's likely that the movie will be much, much harder for mainstream America to handle; it'll be fascinating to watch how this project is viewed as/if it goes forward.
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