If The Aviator wins the Oscar for best picture on Sunday fortnight, the coveted award will be collected not by director Martin Scorsese, but by Michael Mann, who originally planned on bringing the project to the screen.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has tightened up its rules and now allows a maximum of three producers on stage to receive the top prize. As so many producers are credited on The Aviator, and they did not supply the academy with a list of three producers as required, an executive committee of the academy determined that Mann and Graham King, who raised the movie's substantial budget, would be the only producers allowed to accept the award if the film wins.
Of the five films nominated for best picture, only two have had their directors officially recognised by the academy as producers of their films - Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) and Taylor Hackford (Ray).
Coppola's choice
Irish screenwriter and director Tom Cosgrove, who is based in Dublin, has had one of his screenplays shortlisted as one of the 10 finalists - from over 2,000 scripts submitted - for the second annual Zoetrope screenwriting award in the US. The contest is run and adjudicated by Zoetrope, Francis Ford Coppola's studio in California, and Coppola himself selected the 10 finalists. Cosgrove's screenplay, The Sea Devils, is an original story developed with funds and assistance provided by the Irish Film Board.
www.zoetrope.com/contests
For ageing stallions
With most of his recent movies going directly to video in most parts of the world, Sylvester Stallone is entering the publishing business with the magazine, Sly, and the first issue hits US newsstands on Monday. Sly, which is aiming for an initial circulation of 125,000, is described as a fitness and lifestyle guide for men in the 35-54 age group who "believe that life begins at 40". It will deal with "what has worked in my life, and what hasn't", Stallone said in an interview with Mediaweek. "I'm 58, so this is not the same as doing a magazine at 35 or 40. I've been through ups and downs like so many men and women my age. We're all trying to figure out what to do with the last act of our lives."
Running commentary
Roger Michell, the British director of Changing Lanes and Enduring Love, is turning producer with Marathon, a portmanteau picture about six people competing in the London Marathon. The writer-director is Tim Sullivan, who made Jack and Sarah. Michell describes the film as "a wonderfully pluralistic English movie with lots of stories meeting and mingling in that incredible stew of the marathon. It's very, very moving. It's all classes, all ages and all ethnicities." David Bedford, the director of the marathon, is working closely with the production and has agreed to provide the film-makers with unlimited access on the day of the race, and the movie will employ 15 cameras to shoot the film while the marathon itself is in progress.
Snide showdown
US comedian Rob Schneider has attacked Los Angeles Times journalist Patrick Goldstein for his remarks about Schneider's contribution to cinema, in which Goldstein had a go at Hollywood studios for churning out lacklustre sequels such as Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, which stars Schneider. The actor was so incensed that he took out a full-page ad in the trade paper, The Hollywood Reporter, in which he addressed Goldstein as follows: "Most of the world has no idea of your existence. Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for 'Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter'. I can honestly say that if I sat with your colleagues at a luncheon, afterwards they'd say, 'You know, that Rob Schneider is a pretty intelligent guy' . . . whereas, if you sat with my colleagues, after lunch, you would just be beaten beyond recognition."
