Owen to give Marlowe a shot
Clive Owen is set to star as iconic gumshoe Phillip Marlowe in a film he also will produce.
No licence to kill? No problem, as Clive Owen continues to prove with his hard-boiled, bullet-ridden resume.
Case in point: Following in the powder burns of next month’s explosively violent Shoot ‘Em Up and 2006’s live-action comic book Sin City, he’s planning to star as Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe, the iconic gumshoe previously embodied by such screen legends as Robert Mitchum and Humphrey Bogart. Owen will also produce.
“So no,” he says when asked if playing noirish anti-heroes is wearing thin, “I’m not stepping away from it.”
Frank Miller, the graphic novelist behind Sin City and 300, will pen the Marlowe project.
Prior to that, Owen will star in The International, an action thriller with Naomi Watts that casts the one-time Bond contender as a federal agent trying to expose a corrupt European bank. Thomas Tykwer (Run Lola Run) is directing.
Still, Owen is not all about gun play and leather dusters, either. He’ll attend this year’s Toronto International Film Festival for the premiere of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, in which he portrays Sir Walter Raleigh.
DREAM ROLE: Owen’s Shoot ‘Em Up co-star Paul Giamatti wants to play influential science fiction author Philip K. Dick in a biopic, he told journalists last weekend in New York City.
Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which the 1982 classic Blade Runner was based on, as well as the short stories Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly.
OSCAR KICKS THE BUCKET: The L.A. Times reports that Warner Bros. has slotted a Dec. 25 bow for The Bucket List, a tearjerker about two geezers going on a last hoorah before they croak.
Given that it stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, it’s safe to assume the studio believes the Rob Reiner project has a lively shot at multiple Oscar nominations.
BARBARIAN INVASIONS: By Crom! Did 300 do what even a god couldn’t — namely, inspire Hollywood to resurrect Conan The Barbarian?
Apparently.
You can add a Conan remake to the litany of sword-and-sorcery epics inspired by 300’s global success. Among them, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and a re-imagining of 1981’s Clash of the Titans (penned by no less than Lawrence Kasdan, director of Body Heat and The Big Chill, as well as writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back).
Don’t look for California’s guvenator to don the fur diaper and iron crown again, though.
The new Conan, ramping up to go into production by spring, will be sans Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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