MOVIES:
Mel Gibson follows Lethal Weapon 3, currently in
production, with Warner Bros.' The Rest of Daniel, which starts
shooting next February. The science-fiction romance casts Gibson as
the forgotten subject of a 1939 suspended-animation experiment who
accidentally gets revived more than 50 years later. It's then a mad
dash, a la Late for Dinner, to find his girlfriend before the aging
process kicks in.
Eighteen years after his death, martial arts master Bruce Lee returns as the subject of Universal's screen bio, Dragon. The film, written and to be directed by Rob Cohen (who produced The Hard Way), gets under way next March in the U.S. and Hong Kong. The Kung Fu king will be played by Hawaiian-Chinese actor Jason Scott Lee, no relation, who is being trained in martial arts. Lee makes his screen debut as a Canadian Eskimo in Miramax's upcoming Map of the Human Heart.
MUSIC:
The most star-clotted soundtrack of the season might be the
one made for Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, a film starring
William Hurt, Sam Neill, Max VonSydow, and Jeanne Moreau that opens
in December. Featured on the Warner track are original songs by Elvis
Costello, R.E.M., U2, Lou Reed, Julee Cruise, Neneh Cherry, Patti
Smith, Daniel Lanois, and Talking Heads. The first single will be the
Heads' ''Sax and Violins.''
BOOKS:
''I set out to write about the inner workings of the
game-not the Michael Jordan story,'' says Chicago Tribune reporter Sam
Smith of his new book about the Bulls, The Jordan Rules. But his
description of the superstar — imperious, temperamental-has set the
sports world abuzz. ''Taken out of context, his behavior looks mean,''
concedes Smith, ''but I think it shows him as a thinking, feeling
human being instead of a Coke commercial.'' Smith says he'll send
Jordan the book: ''He said he wouldn't read it unless someone gave him
a free copy, so I guess I will.''
At $1,000 a pop, The Sistine Chapel — a detailed look at the recently restored frescoes of Michelangelo — is Knopf's priciest book ever. But that's no deterrent. Buyers have snapped up almost all of the limited-edition print run of 2,500 copies. Of course, some customers demand a lot for their money. ''One man called me,'' reports editor Susan Ralston, ''and said that he had been expecting a signed copy.''
— Leonard Klady, Jeffrey Wells, Tina Jordan
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