News & Notes

McRacket
Kids may love McDonald's new Dick Tracy ''Crimestoppers'' scratch-off game, but a New York lawyer is charging both the fast-food corporation and the hit movie's producer, the Walt Disney Company, with breaking the law. ''I'm accusing the Crimestoppers of racketeering,'' says attorney Carl Person, who argues in a suit filed with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the promotion is an illegal lottery. Customers who play the game can win McDonald's discounts, cash, and other prizes. Person contends that the game encourages young children to gamble, and says his own 6-year-old son's repeated visits to the restaurant made him realize that the boy had developed an appetite for more than a Big Mac and fries. Disney had no comment.

Hudson's Heavies
Die Hard 2 supercop Bruce Willis samples life on the wrong side of the law in an upcoming movie, Hudson Hawk, an adventure-comedy that's set to film in Rome, Budapest, London, New York, and Los Angeles. As an art thief sprung from jail, Willis' character pulls off heists at various European galleries. The cast includes Danny Aiello, James Coburn, and Sandra Bernhard, fresh from the film version of her one-woman Off-Broadway show, Without You I'm Nothing, who plays a wealthy eccentric.

Paradise Found
Fourteen-year-old Russian-born supermodel Milla Jovovich, whose face has adorned fashion magazine covers since she was 11, has been chosen after an extensive cast- ing search to fill Brooke Shields' barefootprints in Return to the Blue Lagoon, the sequel to the 1980 tale of two shipwrecked teenagers. The new adventure, currently shooting on location in Fiji, begins with the rescue of the now deceased couple's young son. But an outbreak of cholera wipes out the crew of the savio savio, and the child is marooned yet again — this time with an infant girl and her mother. Once Mom dies, the stage is set for another exploration of budding adolescent sexuality. Actor Brian Krause is the lucky guy who plays Milla's island heartthrob.

Park Shot
Summertime strollers in New York's Central Park were treated to a preview performance by noted French actor Gérard Depardieu, who is making his U.S. film debut in Green Card. Director Peter Weir also wrote throte tht for the romantic comedy costarring sex, lies, and videotape's Andie MacDowell. It's scheduled for release later this year.

Bank Breaker
In April, when screenwriter Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) sold his new script, The Last Boy Scout, for a record-breaking $1.75 million, many jealous eyebrows in film circles were raised. Now Carolco Pictures — which produced Total Recall — has seriously raised the Hollywood envy factor by paying Joe Eszterhas (Jagged Edge, Music Box) a staggering $3 million for his latest thriller, Basic Instinct.