BBC - Movies -news article - High Noon

		Double Fare It's official: Hollywood really has gone barmy. Fresh after his success on lavish Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, Martin Scorsese is planning to go back to his roots by making a sequel to his classic urban vigilante tale Taxi Driver. According to reports on The Internet Movie Database, the diminutive helmer is thinking of teaming up with star De Niro to pick up the story of gun-toting Vietnam vet turned New York cabbie Travis Bickle. "I was talking with Martin Scorsese about doing what I guess you'd call a sequel to Taxi Driver, where he is older," confirmed 62-year-old De Niro, who refused to say whether he'd be getting a mohican haircut again. Details are currently sketchy, but reports are that Scorsese and the star are currently "mulling over script ideas". Noooooooo!

		Fincher's Horoscope The story of America's most elusive serial killer has snagged the attention of helmer David Fincher. Zodiac, a thriller about three people who tried to bring the San Francisco slasher to justice, is being eyed by the Panic Room director. Based on Robert Graysmith's 1986 true-crime book, the screenplay, by Basic writer Jamie Vanderbilt, documents the story of the notorious serial killer who terrorised San Francisco from 1966-78 without ever being apprehended. Fincher, who shot to fame with visceral serial killer flick Se7en, is desperate for a new project after his planned movie The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button was shelved due to a spiralling special effects budget. It won't be the first time the Zodiac case has been lensed: it also inspired Dirty Harry as well as the rather less well-known 1971 B movie The Zodiac Killer.

		And The Nominees Are... Michael Moore is just one of the documentary directors to be nominated for a coveted Directors Guild of America award. Two years after the burly Bush-baiter's Bowling For Columbine was snubbed, Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is one of the favourites to pick up a prize in the Best Documentary Director category at the DGA's 57th Annual Awards Dinner in Los Angeles. The other finalists are: Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falnori for The Story Of The Weeping Camel; Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski for Born Into Brothels; Ross McElwee for Bright Leaves; and Jehane Noujaim for Control Room. The winners will be announced on 29th January.

		Sundance Kicks Off Staying with the gongs, indie film festival Sundance opens tonight in Park City, Utah with a screening of a Lisa Kudrow/Tom Arnold comedy-drama called Happy Endings (the programmers obviously had their irony caps on). Other films already generating a buzz include a documentary about classic 70s porn flick Deep Throat (Inside Deep Throat), Reefer Madness, a comedy-musical based on the infamous anti-drugs movie, and Kevin Bacon's directorial debut Loverboy. Celebs expected on the red carpet include Kevin Costner, Sandra Bullock and, of course, Robert Redford. Expect more news from the festival as we get it...

		In The Lion's Den Filmmaker Ed Zwick (The Last Samurai) has signed up to direct period epic The Lions Of Al-Rassan, a historical fantasy about the clash of civilizations in medieval Europe. Based on a part-fact, part-fiction novel by Guy Gavriel Kay, Lions follows two warrior princes and a female doctor during the Christian re-conquest of Moorish Spain. While the theme of Christians fighting Muslims may sound controversial, Zwick is quick to disagree, pointing to the story's unique blend of history and fantasy: "[Kay] has done something remarkable in imagining a very compelling world, which has some basis in history, and yet departs in a way that adds a kind of magical realism." Well, that's all right then.