Doing the Monkey Business

Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes continues to evolve with the addition of more key cast members.

Oscar-nominee Michael Clarke Duncan (Green Mile, Armageddon) is to play an ape warrior, second in command to Tim Roth’s anti-human military commander; Paul Giamatti (Truman Show, Private Parts) will play Limbo, a pro-human slave-trading ape while Helena Bonham Carter (Fight Club, 1994’s Frankenstein) will portray a sympathetic simian ‘princess’.

Although the lead character, a human pilot played by Mark Wahlberg, has a traditional love interest in the form of Estella Warren, a controversial rumour suggests that Bonham Carter’s princess may put the ‘mate’ into primate as far as her relationship with Wahlberg is concerned.

This alleged inter-species fling is said to have upset Fox studio heads who see it as akin to bestiality and unsuitable for their planned PG-13 movie. If they only saw it as the kind of human-alien intermingling Captain Kirk used to get up to all the time, surely there’d be no problem?

Téa leaves for Jurassic Park

Téa Leoni (star of Deep Impact and a notable Scully double in The X-Files’ Hollywood AD episode written and directed by hubbie David Duchovny) is to appear in Jurassic Park III. It’s reported that her part is that of business and romantic partner to the wealthy businessman played by William H Macy. Trevor Morgan (ER, Sixth Sense, The Patriot) plays Macy’s son.

Outer Spacey

Double Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey is to star in K-PAX an SF drama directed by Iain Softley (Hackers, Wings of the Dove). Written by Charles Leavitt (The Mighty) from a novel by Gene Brewer, the story tells of a mental patient who believes so insistently that he’s an alien that even the psychiatrist treating him begins to doubt his diagnosis.

In the Minority

Ten-year-old Jake Thomas (Touched by an Angel, The Cell) has signed to play the main (human) child in Steven Spielberg’s AI. Haley Joel Osment will be the kid’s android ‘brother’...

Shorts

Monsters inked
Monsters, Inc, the next computer-animated feature from Toy Story studio Pixar, has signed a stellar voice cast in the form of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, James Coburn, Steve Buscemi, Jennifer Tilly and Bonnie Hunt. Crystal and Goodman play the lead monsters in a ‘scare factory’ which is unwittingly visited by a human child (Mary Gibbs). The film is due for a release in November 2001.

Monster linked
Indie director Hal Hartley (The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men), is to direct a ‘modern-day beauty and the beast’ tale, Monster, for producer Francis Ford Coppola. It features a young New York journalist who travels to Iceland to find her missing fiance and who instead encounters a mythical creature. The cast is yet to be announced.

Sting in the tail
The Roger Corman-produced superhero TV movie Black Scorpion has mutated into a 22-part series and been acquired by the US Sci-Fi Channel for broadcast early next year.

Newcomer Michelle Lintel plays the cop turned vigilante crimefighter while 1960s Batman TV stars Adam West and Frank Gorshin (The Riddler) have regular bad guy roles alongside Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk), veteran US TV host Soupy Sales, Charles Fleischer (voice of Roger Rabbit) and 17 Playboy playmates (and Penthouse pets, apparently - Web Ed). There’s no word of a UK transmission yet but we have a feeling it’s perfect for Channel 5...

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Feature © Visual Imagination 2000. Not for reproduction