Summer's Hottest Flicks
From the moment the first frame of celluloid began rolling more than 100 years ago in Los Angeles, Hollywood became known as the illusion factory.
Five years ago Hollywood decided to work magic on the seasons, turning spring into summer.
Five years ago, Universal took a gamble when it decided to release its $120-million US special effects adventure The Mummy in the first week of May, a full month before the other potential summer blockbusters were scheduled to unspool.
The plan worked with The Mummy grossing a whopping $426 million worldwide.
The summer of 2004 began with the release of Universal's Van Helsing the $200-million special effects romp from Stephen Sommers, the man who exhumed the mummy.
This weekend, Brad Pitt and hordes of Greek and Trojan soldiers are poised to end Van Helsing's short reign as box-office king and begin a summer domino effect.
Each week a new potential blockbuster backed by a massive advertising campaign will most likely dethrone the ruling champ.
Troy will have to stave off that jolliest of green giants in Shrek 2 which, in turn, will do battle with Harry Potter and his wizard friends in their third adventure Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, a stranded Tom Hanks in Terminal, a leather-clad Halle Berry in Catwoman and Tom Cruise as a villain in the thriller Collateral.
MAY 19
* SHREK 2: If the hired assassin Puss In Boots (Antonio Banderas) has his way, marriage won't be bliss for Shrek (Mike Myers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz). Julie Andrews and John Cleese make cameo appearances as Fiona's parents and Rupert Everett is a scheming Prince Charming.
MAY 28
* THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW: Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal battle to save Earth from the effects of global warming when a tidal wave hits New York, tornados ravage Los Angeles and hail pummels Tokyo.
* SOUL PLANE: Rapper Snoop Dogg is in the pilot's seat.
* RAISING HELEN: Socialite Kate Hudson gets a rude awakening when her sister dies leaving her to raise three kids.
* SAVED!: Jenna Malone discovers that her classmates at a Christian high school are not about to forgive her when she becomes pregnant.
JUNE 4
* HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN: Gary Oldman as infamous murderer Sirius Black is the latest villain that aspiring wizards Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) must do battle with.
JUNE 11
* GARFIELD: Bill Murray gives voice to that sly, overweight, comic strip feline for his big-screen adventure.
* THE STEPFORD WIVES: Nicole Kidman discovers that her hubby Matthew Broderick is planning to have her programmed into a perfect subservient wife.
* THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: Thandie Newton and Judi Dench join Vin Diesel in this galactic battle between the Necromongers and the Elementals.
JUNE 16
* AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS: Jules Verne's intrepid duo inventor Phileas Fogg tries to circumnavigate the world in 80 days.
JUNE 18
* THE TERMINAL: Tom Hanks plays an immigrant who finds himself stranded in an airport when his country ceases to exist. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the stewardess who becomes the love of his life whenever she touches down.
* DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY: Vince Vaughn and his dodgeball team defend their turf when the evil Ben Stiller's gang tries to muscle in.
JUNE 23
* WHITE CHICKS: Shawn and Marlon Wayans are a pair of FBI agents who must disguise themselves as white women to protect a pair of hotel heiresses.
* THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR: Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger try to cope with the death of their teenage sons in a freak car accident.
JUNE 25
* TWO BROTHERS: A live-action adventure from Jean-Jacques Annaud who directed The Bear follows a pair of tiger cubs separated as infants who find each other a year later.
* THE NOTEBOOK: James Garner plays a retired salesman who visits a woman suffering from Alzheimer and reads to her from her diary bringing those memories to life for the audience.
* DE-LOVELY: Kevin Kline plays American composer Cole Porter and Ashley Judd is his wife in this musical.
JUNE 30
* SPIDER-MAN 2: The action picks up two years after Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) vanquished the Green Goblin and already he has to protect lady love Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) from the villainous Doc Ock (Alfred Molina).
JULY 2:
* THE CLEARING: A businessman (Robert Redford) is kidnapped by one of his disgruntled employees (Willem Dafoe) and must wait for his wife (Helen Mirren) to follow clues to rescue him.
JULY 7:
* KING ARTHUR: Clive Owen is King Arthur, Keira Knightly is Queen Guinevere and Ioan Gruffudd is Lancelot in Jerry Bruckheimer's re-telling of the famous Arthurian legend of a king who unites a kingdom but loses his lady love.
JULY 9:
* ANCHORMAN: Will Ferrell is a popular anchorman who will do anything to thwart the career of his arch-rival Christina Applegate.
* SLEEPOVER: Four teen girls challenge their school's most popular quartet to an all-night scavenger hunt.
JULY 16:
* I, ROBOT: Call this one Planet of the Machines as futuristic policeman Will Smith is out to prove robots are plotting to take over the world.
* A CINDERELLA STORY: Jennifer Coolidge is the evil stepmother who tries to prevent Hilary Duff from getting a date with a princely guy at her California high school.
JULY 23
* THE BOURNE SUPREMACY: Matt Damon returns as the spy whose bouts of amnesia make him prey to all his former enemies.
* CATWOMAN: By day Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) works as a graphic artist in a cosmetic factory. By night she's the leather-clad crime-fighter Catwoman.
JULY 30:
* THE VILLAGE: Joaquin Phoenix and Sigourney Weaver star in the thriller from M. Night Shyamalan about a village in 19th century Pennsylvania whose adjacent forest is home to a race of creatures.
* THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Denzel Washington takes over the Frank Sinatra role about soldiers who unwittingly have become programmed assassins.
AUG. 6:
* COLLATERAL: In this Michael Mann thriller, Tom Cruise plays an assassin sent to New York to kill five witnesses of a major drug deal.
* THUNDERBIRDS: Bill Paxton and Ben Kingsley give life to the heroes and villains of the animated 1960s British TV series come to life.
* AT HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD: Colin Ferrell and Dallas Roberts are childhood friends who reunite in New York when they are both attracted to the free-spirited Robin Wright Penn.
AUG. 11:
* THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2: ROYAL ENGAGEMENT: In this sequel to the 2002 hit, Anne Hathaway, now a queen, has two prince charmings to choose from.
AUG. 13:
* ALIEN VS PREDATOR: Earth becomes the battleground for two galactic monsters who are long-time foes.
AUG. 20:
* WITHOUT A PADDLE: A comic spin on Deliverance as buddies Seth Green and Matthew Lliard meet mountain man Burt Reynolds as they all search for buried treasure.
* EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING: In this much-delayed, much-revamped sequel to the 1973 horror classic, Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgaard) unleashes Satan while doing missionary work in Africa.
AUG. 27:
* ANACONDA: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD RED ORCHID: A group of scientists in the jungles of Borneo encounter a very hungry giant snake.
Alanis' Chaos theory
There is one aspect of performing that has scared Alanis Morissette for years.
And when it comes to personal growth and challenging herself, two things the 29-year-old Ottawa-born singer clearly believes in, she mostly takes the "baby steps" approach.
But there are times, and lately she started to believe this particular problem was one of them, which require a "quantum leap."
And that is how, in a recent performance, she found herself shooting a quick glance at a concert-goer in the front row.
It was only a millisecond, she says, but it was still longer than she's ever spent meeting the eyes of such close-proximity fans while belting out her hits on stage.
"I'll look people in the eye if they're not in the front row," laughs Morissette, who admits she has long found the concept terrifying. "I'll stare at them for five minutes!"
It's an interesting admission from a singer/songwriter who has chronicled her journey from Canadian pop singer to angry young woman to self-possessed, well-rounded artist who seems, at last, to have found a comfortable peace.
She's no longer hiding behind that mess of hair that was so unique when she broke through with her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill. It had grown tired nine years later, and she hacked most of it off herself on a whim this winter.
OPEN ABOUT RELATIONSHIP
She's open about her relationship with Vancouver-born actor Ryan Reynolds (last month, while Morissette prepared to perform and then introduce the Dalai Lama at the Ottawa Civic Centre in front of 9,000 fans, Reynolds trotted around backstage with their newly-adopted dog, a white chihuahua-terrier mix named Boogs) singing about their relationship in the eastern-influenced Bees of My Knees, one of 10 pretty happy songs on her fourth studio album, So-Called Chaos, due out on Tuesday.
And on the cusp of turning a landmark 30 next month, a birthday she swears she is looking forward to, and with it marriage and motherhood, Morissette seems unworried about where the music world is going to take her.
When she says, "I'll be making records when I'm 103," somehow, you believe her.
Almost a decade after Jagged Little Pill, the heat seems to be off Morissette, or at least the weight of expectation that she will never be able to measure up to its 30-million-selling-album success.
And though it's sort of obvious to an outsider what So-Called Chaos is all about -- joy! love! acceptance! -- when the songwriter herself is asked to explain it, she's at a bit of a loss. "I don't have objectivity on it until a few years later," says Morissette, during a recent phone interview with the Sun. "Similar to if you take a photo of yourself, in the moment you can appreciate it, but it's 10 years later when you look at it that you have a sense of where you were at that time."
The album, a lighthearted, soft-tongued snapshot of Morissette right now, is worlds away from the angst that made her so famous all those years ago. She's deeply in love, good, non-jagged love, a state which is palpable and more than a little inspiring in the simple, repetitive first single Everything.
"You see all my light/and you love my dark," goes the radio hit's oft-repeated refrain.
"It's such an epitomy of what true love is," says Morissette, stressing the song refers to both loving others and our fractured selves. "Ever since I was a very young girl I was always obsessed with, at one point, loving all parts of myself, the part that is greedy, and generous, and stupid, and smart. It's like a dream come true in that way."
And in loving yourself, perhaps, comes the realization that there are things about you that have to go. And Morissette does just that on This Grudge, a ballad about the deeply hurtful past relationship she's held on to for, as the opening lines indicate "fourteen years, thirty minutes, fifteen seconds."
"You've been villified/Used as fodder/You deserve a piece of every record," she sings. "But who's it hurting now?/Who's the one that stuck?!/Who's it torturing now?/With an empty knot in her stomach."
Morissette knows people love her for all that angry resentment which sparked her to use her past heartbreak as "fodder" for all these years. But she says, these days, she's realized it's really just a lot more fun to write about infatuation.
"As long as there is passion," says Morissette. "I can be passionately infatuated or passionately enraged or passionately bored ... as long as there's a passion I'll continue to write."
It's Time For Jerry Orbach's Last 'Law and Order'
AS Detective Lenny Briscoe, Jerry Orbach has anchored the entire "L&O" franchise since its premiere 12 years ago. And though the original installment has suffered from cast defections - Chris Noth and Benjamin Bratt are alumni, and who misses them? - fans have gone into near-apoplexy at the thought of an episode without the peerlessly droll Orbach, whose last episode airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. Not to worry: He's leaving to star in Dick Wolf's 38th addition to the franchise, "Law and Order: Trial by Jury."
Rush Returns To Roots On 'Feedback'
Canadian rock trio Rush's next release will feature covers of classics popularized by the Who, Cream, Buffalo Springfield and the Yardbirds, Billboard.com has learned. Due June 29 via Atlantic, the eight-track "Feedback" marks the first time the group has ever recorded material by other artists.
The album kicks off with a new take on Blue Cheer's cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues." The track list is rounded out by the Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul" and "Shapes of Things," the Who's "The Seeker," Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" and "Mr. Soul," Love's "Seven and Seven Is" and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads," famously covered by Cream.
"[Bassist] Geddy [Lee], [guitarist] Alex [Lifeson] and I were channeling back to 1966 and 1967, when we were 13- and 14-year-old beginners," drummer Neil Peart writes in the album's liner notes. "We thought it would be a fitting symbol to commemorate our 30 years together if we returned to our roots and paid tribute to those we had learned from and were inspired by. We thought we might record some of the songs we used to listen to, the ones we painstakingly learned the chords, notes and drum parts for, and even played in our earliest bands."
As previously reported, Rush's 30th anniversary tour begins May 26 in Nashville and will wrap its North American portion with an Aug. 22 show in the group's Toronto home town. A European swing kicks off Sept. 8 in London.
"Feedback" is Rush's first studio release since 2002's "Vapor Trails," which debuted at No. 6 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 320,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Lee recently told Billboard the group may begin work on a new album next year.
In Toon with Shrek 2
Call it twice upon a time. Shrek 2 once more indulges in fairy-tale foolery as its lime-hued newlywed ogre grapples with a truly Grimm situation: a visit with his royally chagrined in-laws.
The hip-and-flip cultural zingers still flit by in the follow-up to DreamWorks' 2001 smash, which collected the first animated-movie Oscar plus $480 million in worldwide box office.
A sample taste of the second helping that arrives Wednesday: a poster of a certain "Sir Justin" hangs in the childhood bedroom of Shrek's bride, Fiona, voiced by Cameron Diaz — a reference to Diaz's beau, pop idol Justin Timberlake.
But as the candy-colored computerized action shifts to Far Far Away, with its glitzy boutiques (Joust instead of Polo) and enchanted estates, the comedy also wickedly mocks the skin-deep values of Beverly Hills.
Which means the Fairy Godmother isn't just some wing-flapping, wish-granting yenta. Like Mary Kay with a flight plan, the matronly meddler (voiced by Absolutely Fabulous funny lady Jennifer Saunders) delivers extreme makeovers with a whoosh of her wand and stocks enough potent beauty potions to put most Botox clinics to shame.
"With a flick of the wrist and just a flash, you'll land a prince with a ton of cash," she brags in a Bibbity-bobbity-boo-ish ditty.
Actually, the very studio that changed the face of animated features with Shrek, whose 3-D visual punch helped erase the popularity of traditionally drawn cartoons, is giving itself a makeover.
As far as landing a prince goes, tell the Fairy Godmother never mind. The 10-year-old DreamWorks already has a cartoon ruler — co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who previously oversaw Disney's animation revival, from 1989's The Little Mermaid to 1994's The Lion King. As Shrek 2 director Kelly Asbury puts it, "What Tom Landry was to the Dallas Cowboys, Jeffrey is to DreamWorks."
But the ton of cash? That would do nicely, especially since the studio hasn't had an animated success since the original Shrek. Heck, it hasn't even had a modest live-action hit since its aged frat-boy frolic Old School more than a year ago.
Also at issue: The company may offer shares in its animation unit to the public later this year.
A new day is about to dawn, and Shrek 2 signals a confident switch in style. Out is 2003's old-fashioned horse opera Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and last year's creaky shipwreck Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. In is Shrek-ian humor and a more contemporary sensibility.
"They are chapters in our past," Katzenberg says of Spirit and Sinbad. Since animated features take about four years to complete, "Those films were well into production when Shrek came out. We knew it would take a couple of years to achieve a new direction."
That time has arrived. "This is a defining moment for DreamWorks animation," he says. "Shrek really did answer the question of how we could find that place to be unique and popular with moviegoers."
The Shrek effect is very apparent in the studio's upcoming slate, including the undersea Mob comedy Shark Tale (Oct. 1), the zooey romp Madagascar (May 2005), the stop-motion Wallace & Gromit Movie (September 2005) from the team that did Chicken Run, and the suburbia spoof Over the Hedge (2006). All feature animals. All save Wallace & Gromit have major stars doing voice work, from Shark Tale's Will Smith to Hedge's Jim Carrey. And, most important, all are funny.
"Some are parodies, but all of them are a bit subversive and sophisticated," Katzenberg says. "They're told from an adult point of view but made to work for kids, rather than the other way around."
Cartoon lovers who have been sweating out Disney's severe cutbacks, its probable split with partner Pixar as well as the DreamWorks slump can at least breathe a qualified sigh of relief.
"They've figured out a formula that works for them," says animation expert Jerry Beck. "It's not so much a change at DreamWorks but a change in audience tastes and attitudes. The Disney style that Katzenberg honed so well and revitalized is not in fashion."
Many things went right for Shrek 2. That includes luring back its dream cast of voice actors — Mike Myers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as sassy sidekick Donkey, as well as Diaz — with a $10 million payday each.
"There was no question I wouldn't come back," Diaz says. "I feel oddly possessive about Fiona. I never thought of myself as a person who would do a voice of an animated character, and to be able to do it and see how it has impacted people is a gift."
And it's one that keeps on giving. The animators have topped the hilarious motormouth banter of Murphy's Donkey with a rival for Shrek's, as well as the audience's, affections: Puss In Boots, a killer cat swashbuckler who speaks with the Spanish-accented bravado of Zorro himself, Antonio Banderas.
"I have cats, and his performance is so dead-on," says Diaz, a rabid Puss fan. "I literally laughed so hard I fell on the floor."
Never mind his sword. Puss disarms his foes when he puts on his sad little kitty act with dewy eyes the size of saucers.
Even Banderas was smitten with his feline alter ego. When he first visited the studio, "Jeffrey showed me walls filled with drawings of the cat," he says. "I stopped when I saw his eyes all watery and his ears down. It was love at first sight."
Shrek's kingdom of tie-ins and planned sequels keeps expanding, including a possible theatrical production. Says Katzenberg, "Sam Mendes (director of American Beauty) approached me a year or so ago and was very passionate about trying to adapt it for Broadway. It's really guided by his interest, and it's his idea to turn it into an out-and-out musical. It will probably be the story of the first film with parts of the second."
As for Shrek 3, "We started six months ago," he says.
A bouncing baby ogre is a likely addition. It seems to be the natural progression to director Andrew Adamson, who worked on the original and the sequel. "In the first Shrek, he learned to love. In the second, he learns to love himself. So thematically, and having just had one myself, a child would require him to say, 'I'm comfortable enough to be a mentor.' " And a Shrek 4 is in the offing, as well.
DreamWorks is not just focusing its identity on its storytelling. Shrek 2 marks the debut of a customized animation logo, which flashes onscreen before the film while strains of the big green guy's theme song are heard. While that kid in the moon is the studio's official symbol, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that the grouchy ogre is the studio's real mascot, representing its future aspirations in animation.
As Asbury says, "Shrek is the Mickey Mouse of DreamWorks."
Besides, in Hollywood, green goes with everything.
Who?
According to SkyNews, the BBC will launch the new DR. WHO series on Christmas Day, 2004.
APPLE OF HER EYE
Gwyneth Paltrow giving birth Friday to a baby girl named Apple Blythe Alison Martin. The 9-pound, 11-ounce infant is the first child for the Oscar winner and her husband, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who said the couple was "over the moon" with the arrival.
Murray Gets Jacksonville Festival Award
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Bill Murray, who won a Golden Globe earlier this year for his role in "Lost in Translation," received a lifetime achievement award at the Jacksonville Film Festival. Murray, 53, kissed the award — a glass-and-wood turtle — then made a face.
"It smells like the ocean," Murray said at the ceremony Saturday night. "It's the only award I have that does."
The Golden Globe was the first major acting prize for Murray, who gained fame in the 1970s as a goofball on TV's "Saturday Night Live" and continued that schtick in movies such as "Caddyshack" and "Meatballs."
"Lost in Translation," about two lonely Americans who find friendship in a Tokyo hotel, earned Murray an Oscar nomination.
He told a packed auditorium at the Florida Theatre that his latest honor proves "that I'm not in it just for the awards."
"It's just an accident I'm receiving this," Murray said. "I happen to know Patrick Swayze left unexpectedly, and I happened to be here."
Murray's latest film, "Coffee and Cigarettes," is a compilation of 11 vignettes featuring actors and musicians playing versions of themselves as they sit down for coffee, cigarettes and banter. The film opened Friday in select theaters.
'Troy' Slays Box Office Competition
LOS ANGELES - Muscle-bound Brad Pitt fought his way through scrawnier competition to help the Greek epic "Troy" claim the top spot at the box office with $45.6 million.
A handful of older movies aimed at teenagers continued to dominate the top 10.
Lindsay Lohan's high school comedy "Mean Girls" continued its strong run with $10.1 million for third place, dropping only 26 percent in its third week. "13 Going on 30" fell only 28 percent to earn $4.2 million for sixth place. Even the Olsen twins bomb "New York Minute" fell by a relatively small 37 percent to earn $3.7 million in seventh place.
Most movies this time of year see earnings drop 50 percent or more each week.
"These are very minimal drops, which shows that the most consistent audience right now is young girls," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. "There are teen guys in the theaters, too. But I'll bet you it's the female in the couple deciding which movie they go to see."
That may also have been a factor with "Troy," which boasted hunky stars Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana.
The film's audience was split equally between male and female viewers, according to Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released the movie. "Males liked it because of the action and epic adventure of the movie. The females liked it because of Brad, Orlando and Eric," he said.
Meanwhile, the Dracula, Wolf Man and Frankenstein action-adventure "Van Helsing" saw 61 percent of its audience turn to dust in its second week, falling to No. 2 with $20.1 million for a cumulative total of $84.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Despite the apparently strong earnings for "Troy" and "Van Helsing," their massive budgets and the intensity of the summer movie competition suggest they will have a hard time earning their money back in North American theaters.
"Troy" cost a reported $175 million to $200 million to produce, while "Van Helsing" was in the $160 million range. Add to each about $50 million in marketing costs, and they will likely rely on international ticket sales and home video releases to show a profit.
Warner Bros. expressed satisfaction with "Troy" earnings, saying its debut compared favorably with 2000's R-rated "Gladiator," which earned $34.8 million in its opening weekend and rode strong word-of-mouth praise to a $187.6 million total, even before winning the Oscar for best picture.
The only other new movie to open in wide release was Jamie Foxx's anti-romantic comedy "Breakin' All the Rules," in which he played the author of a manual on how to leave your lover. It ranked in fourth place with $5.3 million.
Many bombastic movies like "Troy" open with a handful of smaller films aimed at niche viewers. Studio heads think like this: Black audiences who may be bored with armies of ancient white guys hacking each other in "Troy" had the option of "Breakin' All the Rules." On Memorial Day weekend, sensitive women who don't want to see the world end in "The Day After Tomorrow" can see perky Kate Hudson in "Raising Helen" instead.
The weekend's total box-office earnings were down 35 percent from last year, coming in at $100.2 million. One movie made up most of the total $154.6 million from the same time in 2003: "The Matrix Reloaded," which was No. 1 with $97.1 million.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Troy," $45.6 million
2. "Van Helsing," $20.1 million.
3. "Mean Girls," $10.1 million.
4. "Breakin' All the Rules," $5.3 million.
5. "Man on Fire," $5.2 million.
6. "13 Going on 30," $4.2 million.
7. "New York Minute," $3.7 million.
8. "Laws of Attraction," $2 million.
9. "Kill Bill — Vol. 2," $1.6 million.
10. "Godsend," $1 million.
Quentin Tarantino Wants to Tackle James Bond
CANNES, France (Reuters) - After four years of filming and editing his "Kill Bill" revenge saga, American director Quentin Tarantino feels like he's climbed a cinematic mountain but instead of a much-desired rest he wants to tackle the Everest of film genres: James Bond.
Once Tarantino finishes worldwide promotion for his "Kill Bill - Volume 2" sequel, which stars Uma Thurman as a bride bent on finding the man who tried to kill her, he plans to approach the producers of the big-budget Bond series.
"I've always wanted to do it. I bumped into Pierce Brosnan and we talked about it. He liked the idea," he said.
Tarantino is a lifelong fan of the British spy saga, now starring the Irish actor Brosnan.
"I would like to do the original book 'Casino Royale' and do it more or less the way the Ian Fleming book is," Tarantino told Reuters in an interview in Cannes, where he is president of this year's film festival jury.
"Casino Royale" was made in 1967 as an ill-fated spoof starring David Niven as an aging 007.
"I don't know if they're going to go for it or not, but I'm letting them know I'm interested," he said.
Only weeks ago, an exhausted Tarantino said he felt like he had already climbed the world's highest peak and would probably pick a smaller-scale production for his next picture.
That was before he received some words of advice from Eleanor Coppola, wife of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola and mother of Sofia Coppola ("Lost in Translation"), who is rumored to be dating Tarantino.
Eleanor Coppola, who documented the disaster-ridden making of her husband's 1979 classic "Apocalypse Now," told Tarantino to tackle ambitious projects while he still had youth and energy on his side.
"It was actually quite profound advice that she gave. Not to say that you can't make a small movie in between, but now is not the time to do a left-handed project," Tarantino said. "Now is the time to climb Mount Everest."
The "Reservoir Dogs" director sounds like he has no intention of slowing down. He has completed a script for a World War II project and is also toying with plans for a horror film.
Though he is handing out the honors this year, Tarantino has every intention of returning to Cannes, where he won the Palme d'Or best film award in 1994 with "Pulp Fiction."
"I guess at the end of the day it would be nice if my crowning achievement was the fact that I won more Palme d'Ors than any filmmaker who ever lived. That would be great, that's something to aspire to," he said.
CBS Renews Sitcom 'Raymond' for Final Season
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The CBS television network announced on Sunday it has struck a deal with the producers of its top-rated comedy, "Everybody Loves Raymond," to bring the show back in the fall for a ninth and final season.
With NBC's megahit "Friends" having ended its 10-year run on prime time two weeks ago, the Emmy-winning "Raymond" will return to the airwaves in September as the No. 1 sitcom on U.S. television.
But following in the footsteps of "Friends," "Raymond" will conclude its network run with fewer than the usual 22 episodes that make up a complete sitcom season, airing just 16 fresh shows for its ninth and final year, CBS said.
The announcement comes days before CBS is due to unveil its fall schedule as the major networks kick off their "upfront" sales of commercial time to advertisers this week in New York.
The future of "Raymond" had been in doubt since series star Ray Romano indicated publicly last year that he was leaning toward calling it quits once the show's eighth season drew to a close in May, saying he wanted the show to end on a creative high note.
Romano is believed to be the highest-paid sitcom star on television, reportedly earning between $1.7 million and $2 million per episode this past season for his role as a sports writer and harried family man Ray Barone.
"The decision about coming back was always about maintaining the quality, and not feeling like we've overstayed our welcome," Romano said in a statement. "I look forward to being a hapless, sexless husband once again in year nine."
Series creator and executive producer Phil Rosenthal said he, Romano and the show's writers met a few months ago and decided they could come up with enough new material to keep the comedy on the air for one more season.
"Our decision had nothing to do with money for Ray or me," Rosenthal said. "Emotionally, we never want the show to end, but everything must."
The series won the Emmy Award last year as television's best comedy. It currently ranks 10th in viewership among all prime-time programs, averaging 17.4 million viewers each week.