The latest movie news from around the world

Chicago Gere-Ing Up
Broadway hit to repeat its success on the big screen

RICHARD Gere will join Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger in Chicago, the film version of the hit 1977 Broadway musical directed by Rob Marshall. Based on the 1942 classic Roxie Hart, Gere will play Billy Flynn, a dashing and sleazy lawyer who makes stars out of two accused murderesses, Velma (Zeta-Jones) and Roxie (Zellweger), in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties. Flynn represents both women, who are charged with separate crimes, but shifts his loyalty when one of them becomes a more popular tabloid press item. Gere will sing the songs All I Care About, We Both Reached for the Gun and Razzle Dazzle — a talent at which he is more than proficient as anyone who saw him in the first West End production of Grease will know. Not only that, he also sang in The Cotton Club.

Give Pierce a Chance
Bond star takes on the Irish government

PIERCE Brosnan and Double Jeopardy director Bruce Beresford will team up to make the Ireland-set drama Evelyn in October, before Brosnan heads back to duty as James Bond in January. The drama is based on the true story of Desmond Doyle, who fought a protracted battle with the Irish government to overturn an arcane custody law and with the Catholic Church to recover his four children after his wife ran off and he lost his job. The film's title refers to Doyle's daughter. Brosnan would play Doyle, and also serve as a producer.

"The film has elements of Erin Brockovich, the little guy fighting the system against all odds," said Beau St Clair, Brosnan's production partner. The film has long been a passion project for Brosnan, who spent some time under the care of the Christian Brothers order as a child when his single mother went to England to try to find work as a nurse. She returned to reclaim him once she got settled.

Caine On Remakes
"Don't remake successful movies," says star

MICHAEL Caine has ruled out cameos in remakes of his old movies after Get Carter was universally panned. The British legend, who spent a couple of days filming for the Sylvester Stallone film, thinks people should only re-shoot films which were flops the first time around.

He said, "Don't remake a successful picture, because you're liable to be the flop. Steve Martin and I made a much better picture of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels than Marlon Brando and David Niven did. What I wouldn't do anymore is play any guest shots. I've given that up. I did it as some fun and it backfired in Get Carter so I'm not doing it again." But there's one film remake Caine is excited by. "Now I hear that they're going to remake The Italian Job. I would consider the Noel Coward part."

BUT WHERE'S HE BEEN?
Tarantino lays the ground for new projects

Quentin Tarantino, whose last film was the critically lauded Jackie Brown in 1997, has written the scripts for his next two projects. The first, Kill Bill, was written for Pulp Fiction actress Uma Thurman, and is described by Tarantino as "my female revenge movie". But the project has been put on hold until next spring to allow for Thurman's pregnancy rather than recast, and, in the resultant gap, Tarantino has found time to complete a script called Inglorious Bastards.

Despite the four-year wait for new Tarantino material, the director maintains he's under little pressure to churn out more. "Most directors have a 40-year career," he says, "and, almost to the man, there's that first great 20 years, and the second 20 years which isn't half as great. There are good movies, but also a lot of apologizing. And I want to avoid those last 20 years.

"I'm not doing it for money," he maintains. "By doing my own movie my own way I can be like Stanley Kubrick. He never did a movie to stay hot, and right up to his last movie, his fans were waiting for them." James Roper

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