The Oscar-winning American actress, Dianne Wiest, takes the leading role in the feature film, Not Afraid, Not Afraid, which starts shooting here on May 29th and will be directed by by the French writer-director, Annette Carducci. Wiest has won the best supporting actress Oscar twice, both times for Woody Allen movies - in 1986 for Hannah and Her Sisters and in 1994 for Bullets Over Broadway.
In Not Afraid, Not Afraid she will play a woman who summons her son (Jack Davenport from This Life and The Talented Mr Ripley) and his wife (Elsa Zylverstein from Metroland) to tell them she is dying. Going on a nostalgic journey to the homes of her ex-lovers, she inadvertently brings along her eight-year-old grandson who has Down's Syndrome. The boy will be played by Michael Weir, who is from Belfast.
The film, which will be shot over nine weeks, mostly in Co Wicklow, is a co-production involving World 2000, Metropolitan Films and Cinenever.
The prolific young Irish actor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, will be busier than ever this month as he moves back and forwards between two productions in Canada. He joins Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs in Prozac Nation, which is shooting in Vancouver, and co-stars with Rachael Leigh Cook in the thriller, Conspiracy of Weeds in Toronto. Coincidentally, in each of the two movies he plays a college student whose girlfriend catches him cheating on her.
Meanwhile, another young Irish actor, Hugh O'Conor, plays a young priest in Chocolat, an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Joanne Harris, now shooting in France with Lasse Halstrom, who made My Life As a Dog and The Cider House Rules, as director. The film features Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Lena Olin and Alfred Molina.
Landscapes and cinematography are the themes of this summer's season of open-air screenings, Ocean Movies on the Square, organised by Temple Bar Properties. The programme of free Saturday night screenings runs weekly from June 17th, when I Went Down will be shown, to September 2nd, when The Buena Vista Social Club closes the season. The very attractive line-up also promises such gems as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Big Wednesday, La Strada, North by Northwest, Cold Fever, Thelma & Louise, Fargo, Days of Heaven, Like Water For Chocolate and William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. In addition, a short season of black-and-white classics will be shown on Thursday nights in August: The Apartment, Key Largo, Jezebel and On the Waterfront.
Do you know a mischievous but adorable little boy? Then log on to www.HarryPotter.net where casting director Susie Figgis has posted a casting call for the leading role in the imminent movie based on JK Rowling's best-selling Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, which will be directed by Chris Columbus. The film's producers are looking for a boy between the ages of 9 and 11.
Annette Bening is the front-runner to play the late Judy Garland in Rainbow's End, which is going into production at 20th Century Fox. Based on a book by Variety journalist Steve Sanders, it will focus on the behind-the-scenes story of Garland's disastrous weekly CBS Television variety series in the early 1960s.
The film's executive producers, Oliver Stone and Garland's ex-husband Sid Luft, have hired the British film-maker Bronwen Hughes, who made Forces of Nature, to direct the project. Meanwhile, another Judy Garland project, Me and My Shadow, based on the book by her daughter Lorna Luft, will be made as a three-hour TV film with Australian actress Judy Davis as Garland.
Hollywood's penchant for remaking hit movie continues unabated, no matter how sacred the original. At least there is something amusing about the prospect of two-time Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey taking on the role of the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in MGM's long-in-the-works remake of The Pink Panther, to be directed by Ivan Reitman. MGM vice-chairman Chris McGurk has confirmed that the studio is in talks with Spacey to take the role originally played by Peter Sellers.
However, there is no apparent good reason for the planned remake of Alexander Mackendrick's riveting 1957 moral drama, Sweet Smell of Success, which starred Burt Lancaster as a vicious newspaper columnist and Tony Curtis as a fawning press agent. John Cusack is being tipped to play the Curtis role in the remake.
Another classic facing the remake treatment is High Noon, soon to be a TV movie in which the sheriff originally played by Gary Cooper will be played by Tom Selleck. Perish the thought.