MOVIES: As they race to be ready for next year's 500th anniversary
of the discovery of America, two rival movies about Christopher
Columbus have sailed into troubled waters. Director Ridley Scott(Black Rain), whose Christopher Columbus starts filming in Spain this
August with Gérard Depardieu (Green Card) in the title role, is being
sued by producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind for allegedly pirating
their idea. The Salkinds' version, much of which is still under
wraps, also bears the name of the Italian explorer and was scripted
by Godfather trilogist Mario Puzo. The producers are looking at
Gabriel Byrne (Miller's Crossing) for the lead She who slaps last
slaps best: Notorious cop-bopper Zsa Zsa Gabor may be seeking her
celluloid revenge. She is considering playing policewoman Harla
Zsaru, the lead in Queen of Justice, a low-budget action comedy.
Filming begins later this month, and producer- director James Dodson claims, ''She's chomping at the bit to play a cop — she thinks it's a
gas.'' Going way against type, Tom Cruise will play a working- class
bloke in turn-of-the-century Ireland — with wife Nicole Kidman as the
daughter of a wealthy landowner — in Ron Howard's romantic immigrant
saga, Sure As the Moon, which starts shooting in Montana this June
before going on location in Ireland. ''I think,'' says Howard, ''Cruise
is going to be appealing in a pretty untraditional way.''
BOOKS: The numbers are in: According to Publishers Weekly, the
top-selling novel of 1990 was Jean M. Auel's The Plains of Passage (1,686,589 copies), while Charles Kuralt's A Life on the Road took
the nonfiction honors (602,371 copies). — Melina Gerosa, James Greenberg, Tina Jordan
You Might Also Like
- Video Review Far and Away | Ty Burr
- Movie Review Far And Away (1992) | Owen Gleiberman
- Mail Mail from our readers (1992)
- Photo Gallery Staff Confessions: The ''bad'' movie I love (May 11, 2001)
- Features At Home On The Range (Dec 21, 2001) | Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
- Movie News News on Hollywood's upcoming films and projects (1992) | Christopher Henrikson
