BBC - Movies -news article - High Noon

		Countdown To 24 It's official. 20th Century Fox have bought a movie version of hit TV series 24. After years of talk they've closed the deal with series creators Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow who will write the script. Star of the show Kiefer Sutherland hasn't signed the dotted line just yet, but he's already made it clear that he wants to play counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer on the big screen so it's only a matter of drawing up the papers. Apparently producers are toying with several locations for the film, including London. Insiders say a draft of the script should be completed by winter and once the execs have assessed US ratings for the first few episodes of season six (in January) they'll be able to make a decision on greenlighting the production. Cue the bleeps...

		Hatcher Takes On Champ One of TV's Desperate Housewives Teri Hatcher is headed to the big screen in Resurrecting The Champ. The project is also a change of format for director Rod Lurie who's been busy helming episodes of Commander In Chief in the last year. Josh Hartnett and Samuel L Jackson are headlining this sports drama based on the true story of a reporter who makes noise when he's led to believe that a homeless man he comes across was once a famous boxer. Hatcher will play the head of a TV network who shows Hartnett what it means to be thrust into the spotlight. Going by recent reports, we assume it means fighting over bikinis at a Vanity Fair photo shoot.

		Signs Good For Omen The devil rides high at the box office. Horror remake The Omen opened on 6/6/06 with $12.6m (£6.8m) in the US - the biggest Tuesday gross ever. It's traditionally one of the slowest movie-going days of the week, but a marketing gimmick that played up the satanic connotations of the date paid off in a big way. In the UK, the film took a similarly impressive $1.2m (£649,439). However industry watchers are wary that heavy promotion for the opening day could lead to a sharp drop-off by the weekend. Fox honcho Bruce Snyder counters this, saying, "People finding out it was a giant success helps to propel the weekend. I believe the grosses will look like a hammock that slumps Wednesday and Thursday and comes back by the weekend". Like Jesus, only really bad.

		Hurt & Harden Go Wild William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden have signed up for Into The Wild. Sean Penn has written and will direct this adaptation of Jon Krakauer's non-fiction book about a college graduate who abandoned his possessions in 1992 and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. He died four months later in an abandoned bus at a remote campsite. (That's another damning indictment on the state of public transport.) Emile Hirsch takes the role of the ill-fated trekker while Harden and Hurt play his concerned parents. Vince Vaughn and Catherine Keener are also on board.

		Harrelson & Liotta Gamble On Grand Woody Harrelson, Ray Liotta and German helmer Werner Herzog are joining the ensemble cast of The Grand. X-Men 3 scribe Zak Penn has just inked a deal to direct this so-called 'improvisational poker comedy' which he has roughly outlined. Basically it chronicles the dramas surrounding an international poker tournament. Cameras roll next month at The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. "A lot of actors were intrigued by this, because they are naturally competitive," says Penn. "And the fact that poker has become this crazy phenomenon isn't unhelpful to us." Perhaps, but someone should tell him there's no such thing as a safe bet.