Reel World: April 30, 1999

Slapped shot
Where in the world is Mystery, Alaska, the Hollywood Pictures hockey comedy starring Russell Crowe, cowritten by Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley, and directed by Jay Roach (the two Austin Powers films)? Originally slated for April, the film was recently cross-checked into October. ''We had snow all winter and hockey season's almost over, so we thought it would be better to come out when you had people craving both,'' says Roach, who's relieved that he didn't have to face The Matrix at the box office. Sci-fi fans should be heartened by Roach's upcoming project: the long-in-development adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The filmmaker, who's already sweating the cult classic's fanatical following, promises to ''find a balance between big-budget special-effects extravaganza and keeping it quirky.'' While Disney hasn't yet given the green light, Roach is confident that production on the interstellar travelogue can begin next year.

Burt offerings
How do you go from being a novice screenwriter with no agent to driving the Smokey and the Bandit franchise back onto the big screen? Call Zide Management, which specializes in scribes ''who spend their days asking 'Will you please just read my script?''' says president Warren Zide. ''We read anything.'' Zide's island of misfit writers has yielded Adam Herz, whose Universal teen sex comedy American Pie hits July 9. Pleased by Pie, Universal just signed a $900,000 deal for Herz's East Bound and Down, which has the Bandit playing mentor to a new generation of Trans Am-driving bootleggers. (Would Burt Reynolds reprise his Bandit role? The studio and his reps have no comment.) As far as mentors go, Zide got the best out of Herz by instructing him to abstain from sex and masturbation while writing Pie to get into the mind-set of a frustrated adolescent. Says Herz: ''I kept half the bargain.''