Lord of the Rings fans can now check out props and special effects from the film at London Science Museum's new exhibition. The show was opened yesterday by the blockbusting fantasy trilogy's special effects coordinator Richard Taylor. It cost £750,000 and opens to the public today, running until January next year. Highlights include the chance to see how the creature Gollum was created using a mixture of CG and motion capture.
Exorcist: The Beginning, Hollywood's planned prequel to the 1973 horror paradigm, has lost its second director. Paul Schrader took over the production after the late film-maker John Frankenheimer suffered a stroke. He completed principal photography in February, but according to the Hollywood Reporter has now left the movie over creative issues. It is likely his name will remain on the film, which is set to hit cinemas in early 2004.
Gisele BÜndchen, the Brazilian supermodel and on-off squeeze of Leonardo DiCaprio, is to make her film debut in the forthcoming Hollywood remake of the hair-raising 1998 French comedy Taxi. The new version will see Queen Latifah taking on the lead role of a charismatic cab driver who helps out a cop lacking the necessary skills behind the wheel to trap a gang of speedy thieves led by BÜndchen. The original's creator Luc Besson is producing the feature, with Tim Story in the directorial driving seat.
What Alice Found, a US drama about prostitution, has won the main prize at the Deauville film festival in France. It won the special prize at the annual Gallic celebration of American cinema, where the jury was chaired this year by Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski. The film was written and directed by relative newcomer A Dean Bell and tells the story of a poverty-stricken marine biologist who is drawn into the world of truck-stop prostitution.
