Canadian Walk Of Fame Gets Some New Names
TORONTO -- It's showtime for Peter Somoulias, the Toronto businessman behind the televised Canada's Walk Of Fame gala at Roy Thomson Hall tonight.
On his plate is organizing 11 Walk Of Fame inductees, among them country-pop superstar Shania Twain, actor Mike Myers, model Linda Evangelista and hundreds of high-profile guests including telecast host Andrea Martin and presenters Celine Dion and Dan Aykroyd.
'HUGE DEMAND FOR TICKETS'
"Everything's in place. It's just now a question of executing all the little details," Somoulias said yesterday. "When you have the number of national and international celebrities that we have coming and the media focus and the huge demand for tickets, it's challenging. And when you're producing a live show for two hours for the first time ..."
The gala portion of the Walk Of Fame induction will be broadcast live on Global TV from 9-11 p.m. Various presenters will introduce each Walk Of Fame inductee during the telecast. It's a first for the presentations.
Colin Mochrie is delivering a newscast during the show. Musical performers include Tom Cochrane and Sarah Harmer.
It's taken five years to get to this point -- as long as the Walk Of Fame has been around. Somoulias says when he started out he didn't consider that a live broadcast would ever be an element of the event.
"We didn't start out to be a television show," he said. "But the public interest surpassed anything we could have ever imagined.
"And this was the first year we've had all 11 inductees attending at the same time. We've never had that before. And given the national and international standing of a number of these inductees, as well as their presenters and performers, the presentation was made to us, 'Well, go live across the country.'
And we said, as we usually say, 'Why not?'"
More than 100 journalists will cover the event, from the Hollywood Reporter to Entertainment Tonight, and Somoulias suspects the SARS outbreak had something to do with increased interest outside Canada.
BARRED BY THEIR INSURERS
"I gotta imagine that perhaps a small part of that interest might also be about what's going on in Toronto," he said.
"I think SARS has affected everybody who is dealing with any kind of celebrity and show production. We're affected to a lesser extent, because we're Canadians and we don't rely on international celebrities."
Somoulias said some international guests had expressed interest in attending the event, but "their insurance companies prohibited them from travelling. These were guests of the inductees who were going to come up here and be part of this in support of their friends."
Somoulias says members of the public will get quite close to the celebrities (from 4 to 5 metres).
'South Park' Pair Pull Strings in Terror Pic
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - After ridiculing SaddamHussein in the animated feature "South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut," the cartoon's creators are taking on terrorism, marionette-style, in a new film project.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone are writing the untitled project, previously known as "American Heroes," which Paramount Pictures is expected to distribute. Parker and Stone will direct and voice the film as well.
According to several sources, the project in development is a marionette movie about superheroes on a mission to eradicate such things as terrorism and certain celebrities who have outworn their welcome in the public eye.
Neither Paramount nor the film's producer, Scott Rudin, would comment. But the "South Park" creators revealed in March that they were working with Rudin, an executive producer on "Uncut," on a "top secret movie."
"We are working with Scott Rudin," Parker said at that time. "We just got the deal for it. We're gonna write this movie for him this summer. That's how we're gonna spend our vacation time."
Added Stone: "It'll be animated ... but won't have anything to do with 'South Park."'
Parker and Stone most recently created an animated segment called "A Brief History about the United States of America," illustrating the role that violence has played in the country's history, which was featured in Michael Moore's Oscar-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine."
Greengrass to Helm BOURNE IDENTITY Sequel
Universal has tapped Paul Greengrass (BLOODY SUNDAY) to direct THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, the sequel to THE BOURNE IDENTITY. Greengrass will work from a script by Tony Gilroy, who adapted Robert Ludlum's second book in the Bourne series. In the second film, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is accused of assassinating a Chinese vice premiere. Bourne must then find out the real identity of the assassin. Frank Marshall, Paul Sandburg and Patrick Crowley are producing.
New Episode III Title?
Cinescape is reporting that the new title of the next STAR WARS movie is supposedly REVENGE OF THE SITH. However, Lucasfilm has already denied the rumor.
Pretty On DVD!
The holy grail of the cinema du John Hughes - Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science - is finally ready to be unleashed on September 2nd from Universal Studios Home Video.
As the disciples of the pied piper of 80's teen cinema already know all too well, the long hoped-for reissues of these flicks have already been announced once and then postponed, so will this time be the charm? Let's hope so, and although full specs have not yet been announced, each will be newly remastered in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround tracks, plus trailers.
Retail will be $19.95 each, or $39.95 for a 3-disc Brat Pack set.
Eminem Stuns U.K. Fan With $450K Necklace
LONDON - Eminem stunned tens of thousands of people attending a concert in England by giving a necklace estimated at $450,000 to one of his fans.
"I'm going to give this to the sexiest woman I see," Eminem said from the stage of the concert attended by 65,000 fans in Milton Keynes city on Monday night, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.
He then leaned over the stage into the crowd and gave his jewelry to a stunned girl standing at the front of the audience, the BBC said.
Spokesmen for Eminem in New York and Los Angeles were not able to confirm the gift. And officials traveling with the 30-year-old rapper in Britain during his Anger Management Tour were not immediately available Tuesday.
"It looked like a huge diamond-encrusted crucifix," said a nearby member of the audience, Toby Friedner. "The girl he gave it to was blond, pretty, wearing glasses and 18 to 20," he was quoted as saying.
"She was obviously shocked," Friedner said.
Rolling Stones to Rock SARS-Hit Toronto in July
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones vowed on Tuesday to "bring back the energy" to SARS-hit Toronto with an open-air concert next month for about 350,000 people.
The Toronto area was the only place outside Asia where people died from SARS, and tourists, convention-goers and business people postponed travel to Canada's financial hub.
The city responded with an appeal to the Stones' promoter, a Torontonian, to bring the band to the city.
"The greatest band in the world is going to play in the greatest city in the world," Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman told a news conference announcing the concert. "The people who live here know that Toronto is a safe city. After the Rolling Stones play here, the entire world is going to know it."
After weeks of scrounging for money to foot the C$10.5 million ($7.7 million) bill, organizers finally drew enough support from the government and the private sector to stage the concert, which had initially been touted as a free event.
The Stones will interrupt the European leg of their "40 Licks" tour to headline the show, which will also feature pop star Justin Timberlake, Australian hard rock band AC/DC and Canada's The Guess Who. It will be hosted by actors Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi.
"We're very happy to tell you that we're coming to play on July 30 in a great concert for the people and city of Toronto to help bring back the energy to our favorite city," Stones frontman Mick Jagger said in a taped message from Munich.
SARS killed 38 people in Toronto and, coupled with a brief World Health Organization advisory to avoid the city, took a devastating economic toll.
Tourists stayed away in droves, hotels faced gaping vacancy rates and restaurants and tour operators suffered and are still suffering.
The impact of SARS also spilled over into the broader economy and shoved the jobless rate higher in May.
The Rolling Stones show is the latest in a campaign to promote Canada's largest city. On Saturday, Canadian acts including Avril Lavigne and the Barenaked Ladies played at a Concert for Toronto.
"This is the day we tell the world, Toronto is back," Deputy Prime Minister John Manley said on Tuesday. "Let this be the biggest invasion of Canada from the United States since the War of 1812. Bring them on."
Manley said the government would kick in C$3.5 million to help stage the concert.
The Rolling Stones have long had ties with Toronto. They rehearsed in the city in 2002 for their current tour, as well as for the Voodoo Lounge tour in 1994 and for the Bridges to Babylon tour in 1997.
The veteran British rockers have a tradition of popping up to play secret gigs in the city during their stay. Earlier this year, the group canceled their first-ever tour to China because of the SARS outbreak.
The July 30 concert will be held at Downsview Park, a disused air base where Pope John Paul II held a mass for an estimated 800,000 people last July.
Tickets will cost C$21.50 ($16) and net proceeds will go to a fund for tourism and healthcare workers.
Organizers said they expect about 350,000 people at the eight-hour concert which starts on a weekday afternoon.
Miramax Goes to Bat with 'Damn Yankees' Remake
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Whatever Harvey wants, Harvey gets. And right now, Miramax Films co-chairman Harvey Weinstein wants to hit another one out of the park with a musical.
Basking in the razzle-dazzle success of "Chicago," Miramax's highest-grossing film ever, the studio has bought rights for the remake of another Broadway song-and-dance favorite, the baseball fable "Damn Yankees," the studio said on Tuesday.
And the Walt Disney Co.-owned distributor still has a deal in the works to develop an updated film version of the stage musical "Guys and Dolls," a studio source said.
The "Chicago" producing team of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron is on board for both projects, with Miramax planning to go to bat with "Damn Yankees" first, the studio said.
The Tony Award-winning musical, which opened on Broadway in 1955, centers on a fan who sells his soul to help his hapless team, the Washington Senators, win the American League pennant from the unbeatable Yankees.
Actor Ray Walston won a Tony for his performance as Mr. Applegate, the devil, and actress-dancer Gwen Verdon won the Tony as the seductress Lola ("Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets"), roles both performers re-created in the 1958 Warner Bros. film adaptation that co-starred Tab Hunter.
The show features music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, based on Wallop's novel "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." The original production was choreographed by the late Bob Fosse, who also arranged the dancing for "Chicago."
A 1994 stage revival of "Yankees," choreographed by Rob Marshall, the Oscar-nominated director of "Chicago," starred Bebe Neuwirth and Victor Garber (later replaced by Jerry Lewis).
"I see us updating 'Damn Yankees,' modernizing it, and really having fun with the role of the devil," Weinstein said in a statement. No decisions about casting for the Miramax remake have been made.
Meanwhile, Miramax is pursuing a deal to bring the stage musical "Guys and Doll" back to the big screen. Featuring such numbers as "Luck Be a Lady" and "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat," the Frank Loesser musical centers on the unlikely romance between a high-stakes gambler and a female missionary.
The show had a highly successful Broadway run in the 1950s and was made into a movie in 1955 starring Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons.
Miramax's newfound interest in musicals follows on the heels of the studio's success with its big-screen adaptation of "Chicago," which starred Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a pair of homicidal show girls.
Based on a stage production that debuted on Broadway in the 1970s, "Chicago" generated nearly $169 million in U.S. ticket sales alone, marking the biggest box-office success for Miramax to date, and won the Oscar as best picture.
The DVD release of the film is set for August, including an extra song-and-dance number cut from the original movie, but Miramax has decided against a renewed theatrical run as previously contemplated, the source said.