The Aviator

MacGuffin · **on:** January 20, 2003, 01:29:35 PM

Screen idol Nicole Kidman has been approached by esteemed director Martin Scorsese to depict legendary star Ava Gardner in a new film about the life of Howard Hughes. The "Gangs Of New York" mastermind has already signed up Leonardo DiCaprio to portray the eccentric billionaire in upcoming movie "The Aviator." Hughes, aside from being head of RKO Pictures was a noted flyer, entrepreneur and lover of some of Hollywood's most glamorous women, including Gardner and Katharine Hepburn. Scorsese has also approached Gwyneth Paltrow to take the role of Hepburn, and wants Kidman to consider playing the sultry diva Gardner when he begins shooting the movie this June.

Miramax and Warner Bros will co-distribute the film, casting doubt on Jim Carrey's rival Hughes project. IEG will also be responsible for at least 60% of the film's budget, estimated at north of $100 million, and will handle foreign distribution. DreamWorks was the other studio angling to participate but Scorsese has a past with Warners ("GoodFellas," "Mean Streets") making that pairing more desirable. The script, which focuses less on Hughes's eccentric latter years and more on his early years as a director and innovative industrialist, was written by John Logan ("Gladiator"). At one time Michael Mann was expected to direct but he passed letting Scorsese take the reigns. Mann will remain a producer on the film. Carrey's project, with writer/director Chris Nolan ("Memento," "Insomnia"), may still go ahead and is expected to cover Hughes's rise and fall.

RegularKarate · **Reply #1 on:** January 20, 2003, 01:34:14 PM

I'm more of a fan of the later, Klenex box on the feet Hughes... that's what I want to see.

Burns: "We'll take the Spruce Goose, hop in Smithers!"
Smithers" "but it's only a model sir"
Burns (cocks gun): "I said 'hop in' Smithers"

Duck Sauce · **Reply #2 on:** January 20, 2003, 01:42:49 PM

Does ever project have a similar "rival" project now? Whos directing the other? I dont really like Jim Carrey outside of Dumb and Dumber.

Gold Trumpet · **Reply #3 on:** January 20, 2003, 03:13:09 PM

Christopher Nolan is directing the other.

~rougerum

Satcho9 · **Reply #4 on:** January 20, 2003, 04:03:30 PM

I would love to see Scorsese do Hughes final years. I think if he covered it like the coked out Ray Liotta scenes at the end of Goodfellas it would be great. Seeing all of those jars of urine! Ha!

budgie · **Reply #5 on:** January 20, 2003, 05:10:09 PM

God, does that sound dreary, or what? And not only the most boring actor in the world in there but Kidman trying to be Ava Gardner. Shit casting and too big a budget. Blah.

Go with Paltrow as Hepburn, though, if she doesn't try to imitate.

Duck Sauce · **Reply #6 on:** January 20, 2003, 08:11:19 PM

Quote from: budgie

God, does that sound dreary, or what? And not only the most boring actor in the world in there but Kidman trying to be Ava Gardner. Shit casting and too big a budget. Blah.

Budgie, it has come to my attention that you hate Nicole Kidman, first Panic Room and now this.

Duck Sauce · **Reply #7 on:** January 21, 2003, 01:28:08 AM

Which leads us to this...

Source: IMDB

Friends Concerned for Workaholic Kidman

Hollywood beauty Nicole Kidman walked away with a Golden Globe award at Sunday's ceremony - but friends fear her workaholic career will wear her out. The Eyes Wide Shut actress won a gong in the Best Performance By An Actress In A Motion Picture - Drama category for her role in the movie The Hours. But, despite this, friends close to the star fear she might be relying too strongly on her career. A source says, "Nicole's gone from strength to strength since she split from Tom Cruise, but there's a great pressure to maintain her success. She's been working tirelessly to promote her movie The Hours and there's a worry that if she doesn't get the recognition she deserves.....she will take it very badly." Kidman herself admitted that she feared directors would forget all about her after ending her marriage to the Minority Report star.
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She has been working a lot this year. Her and John C. Reilly

budgie · **Reply #8 on:** January 21, 2003, 09:35:30 AM

Quote from: Duck Sauce

Budgie, it has come to my attention that you hate Nicole Kidman, first Panic Room and now this.

No, babe, not at all. I think she's got great potential, which is sometimes realised, and she is one of the hottest chix around as I said once a long, long time ago in a far away galaxy. It's the idea of her as Ava Gardner I can't take to, and imagining how she'd have been in Panic Room makes me shudder because I think it would have resulted in one of her 'brittle' performances, that I find increasingly mannered. It's more the doomy feelings gathering over the idea of The Aviator too.

Hopefully she'll pull back a little now if the Globe makes her feel like she's not got to prove herself so frantically. Relax, choose her roles (and most importantly, directors) carefully and avoid shit like Bewitched.

oakmanc234 · **Reply #9 on:** February 16, 2003, 03:01:36 AM

I was kinda hoping that Scorcese would move on to 'Dino' after 'Gangs', not 'The Aviator'. It sounded so great-Late 99, Scorcese was said to adapt Nick Peliggi's script with Tom Hanks (as Dean Martin), John Travolta (as Frank Sinatra), Adam Sandler (as Joey Bishop) and Hugh Grant (as Peter Lawford). It wasn't just a rumour because Hanks and Travolta had mentioned their involvement in several interviews. Than it just kinda vanished. Gone.

Paul Schrader said in an early 2001 interview that he doesn't think Marty will ever make it.

Oh well.

MacGuffin · **Reply #10 on:** February 19, 2003, 10:26:58 AM

The first part I reported before, but this one gives some script details:

Nicole Kidman Joining The Aviator?

Gossip column PageSix.com is reporting that Nicole Kidman is said to be in talks with Martin Scorsese to co-star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator, the upcoming Howard Hughes biopic, as sexpot Ava Gardner. "They are in talks," says an insider, "but Marty is so busy trying to get an Oscar right now he hasn't made any final decisions."

The script begins as a young Hughes directs one of Scorsese's favorite films, Hell's Angels. Hughes was so obsessed with perfection in the aerial sequences that he waits forever for perfect conditions, right down to cloud formations. The Aviator ends in 1946, when Hughes was still a dashing young man and romancing actresses like Ava Gardner and Katharine Hepburn.

Shooting is set to start in June in Los Angeles for likely release in fall 2004.

MacGuffin · **Reply #11 on:** February 25, 2003, 01:54:42 AM

Quote from: budgie

Hopefully she'll pull back a little now if the Globe makes her feel like she's not got to prove herself so frantically. Relax, choose her roles (and most importantly, directors) carefully and avoid shit like Bewitched.

Nora Ephron has come on board to write Columbia Pictures' feature adaptation of the 1960s sitcom Bewitched, with Nicole Kidman attached to star. Ephron also has an eye to direct, says Variety.

The film, produced by Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher's Red Wagon Productions, is an adaptation of the ABC series that ran from 1964-1972.

The sitcom followed the exploits of Samantha, a witch who -- much to her mother's disdain -- marries a mortal. He discovers her lineage only after they're wed, and she promises to give up witchcraft and become an ordinary suburban housewife.

MacGuffin · **Reply #12 on:** March 09, 2003, 07:19:57 PM

Nicole Kidman Not Flying with The Aviator

Filmjerk tells us that Nicole Kidman will not star in The Aviator as previously thought but instead will concentrate on The Stepford Wives...

Nic Kidman is not going to be doing "The Aviator," according to casting notes obtained Friday-- most likely because the shooting date has been moved to an early July start.

According to casting documents obtained Friday by FilmJerk.com, the search has begun anew for the Ava Gardner role in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator." With this search, it appears that Nicole Kidman has exited the lead role in order to completely focus her time on “The Stepford Wives” this summer.

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Cusack Joins Kidman's Stepford Wives

John Cusack is in talks to star opposite Nicole Kidman in Paramount Pictures' The Stepford Wives for director Frank Oz and producer Scott Rudin. The project will begin shooting in June, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Cusack's sister Joan also stars in the project, marking the seventh time that the siblings have worked together.

"Stepford" is a remake of the 1975 thriller about a woman (Kidman) who moves into a neighborhood where husbands have transformed their wives into robots designed to cater to them. Cusack will play Kidman's husband. Joan Cusack plays Bobbie Markowitz, a hostile, sarcastic, cranky woman who is out of shape and enjoys drinking but gets transformed into a robot.

Paul Rudnick wrote "Stepford," which is based on Ira Levin's novel of the same name.

Duck Sauce · **Reply #13 on:** March 09, 2003, 08:38:22 PM

Gotta do at least one Scorsese movie

The Silver Bullet · **Reply #14 on:** March 15, 2003, 05:27:39 PM

I'm sure she'll wind up doing a Scorsese film, just maybe not this one...