Twenty-one years ago, he launched a leading man career spoofing "Star Wars." Now, Bill Pullman's shooting his newest film with one of the sci-fi film's actors - albeit a much, much smaller version of him.
From the "I Can't Believe This Just Happened" department: At 10:43 am Sunday morning, yours truly was standing on Main Street, walking out of a Sundance interview and trying to figure out where the next one was.
Looking down the busy street, I spied a man walking up the sidewalk with a video camera in one hand, holding an action figure in front of it. I thought: "Oh, it's another goofy wannabe filmmaker, shooting some dumb video for his blog." Read more...
Reporting by Sharon Hong
In films like "Hustle & Flow," "8 Mile" and "Crossroads," Taryn Manning always seems to play morally-tenuous women finding drama through sex and drugs. For her recently-wrapped flick, Your Name Here," however, she traded tears for tech.
"It's being submitted to Sundance," she said excitedly when she stopped by MTV's Los Angeles studio last week. "It's a movie that me and Bill Pullman did, and I play Victoria Principal."
Portraying the sexpot "Dallas" star, Manning plays opposite Pullman as a doppleganger version of eccentric sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, whose novels about time travel, androids and alternate universes have yielded such classics as "Minority Report," "Total Recall," and "Blade Runner." Read more...
Actor Bill Pullman is bringing the whirlwind life of visionary science-fiction author Philip K. Dick to the big screen...sort of. The film "Your Name Here" -- previously known as "Panasonic -- will tell the story of an enigmatic writer named "William J. Frick" in the non-libel, unsanctioned biopic of the classic storyteller.
In a role that the "Independence Day" star says is one of his favorite projects, Pullman will portray a slightly modified version of the man whose vast collection of futuristic short stories have fueled such Hollywood adaptations as "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," "Minority Report" and "A Scanner Darkly" (as well as less-than-stellar efforts like "Paycheck" and "Next").
According to Pullman, the film will focus on Frick as he arrives at the end of his life. "It's about a kind of a 'Fantasia' about his last days," he revealed. "You're seeing a writer who's starting to spin a little bit out of control and wondering what's real and what isn't real. Has he really written the most brilliant book that's ever been written or hasn't he? Has someone stolen the last chapter, or is he just insane?"
"Your Name Here" is currently in post-production, with hopes of premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in mid-September.
After a leave of absence from the big screen to concentrate on her since-cancelled Fox series "Tru Calling," Eliza Dushku is primed for her upcoming project, "The Alphabet Killer." The pic, which reteams Dushku with "Wrong Turn" director Rob Schmidt, is based on a series of real-life murders in Rochester, New York during the early-1970s.
While focused on the swath of killings, the film will take some liberties with Dushku's character, a police investigator assigned to the headline-generating crime. "It mixes in true events about a young detective who actually developed adult-onset schizophrenia while she opened up this case," Dushku says of her alter-ego. Considering the murders are still unsolved, some may take issue with modified story. The actress is unfazed, however. "It's meant only to be respectful," proclaims the ex-"Buffy" star. "There might be some controversy, but who knows."
"The Alphabet Killer" will hit theaters in Fall 2007. Dushku's "Nobel Son," co-starring Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman and Bryan Greenberg, recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is awaiting theatrical distribution.
