Baz Luhrmann has pulled the plug on his big-budget epic treatment of Alexander the Great, according to a Daily Telegraph report. The blockbuster, which was to star Leonardo DiCaprio as the Macedonian conqueror and Nicole Kidman as his mother, is said to be temporarily suspended. The Moulin Rouge director reportedly would like to spend more time with his family after the birth of his daughter, Lillian. Oliver Stone's Alexander, starring Colin Farrell, is scheduled to open later this year.
The Ten Commandments could be remade for a third time. Paramount Pictures is contemplating a third go after the two films by Cecil B DeMille in 1923 and 1956, perhaps prompted by the staggering box-office success of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. There is no date for production yet, but a producer has already been picked and screenwriter Charles Randolph (who scripted The Life of David Gale) is rumoured to be interested.
Basic Instinct 2 is in the pipeline now that a long-running legal dispute has been settled, reveals Sharon Stone. The 46-year-old star, whose leg-uncrossing scene in the original erotic thriller has become an iconic screen moment, had launched a $14m (£7.5m) lawsuit against the producers for allegedly delaying production. "We are putting it together," she said. "We don't have a production schedule yet." Let's hope the film does not suffer the same fate as Love in Paris, the sequel to 9 1/2 weeks, which deservedly bombed when it was released in 1997.
The Deauville festival of American cinema has announced a September lineup heavily oriented towards second world war films - not surprising given that the beach town is in Normandy and that this year saw the 60th anniversary of the D-day landing. There will also be a Steven Spielberg retrospective. His TV series Band of Brothers will also be on show. French director Claude Lelouch, author of A Man and A Woman, will head up a jury panel composed exclusively of women.
Next year's Directors Guild Awards are set for January 29, four days after the Oscars nominations are announced, while the Writers Guild Awards are set for February 19. Both events have traditionally been seen as indicators in the run-up to the Oscars. The ceremonies will take place in Los Angeles.
