Danes goes 'Mod' for MGM film

Brings cachet to updated version of '60s TV drama

By MICHAEL FLEMING

LAS VEGAS -- Claire Danes has been set to star in "The Mod Squad," MGM's adaptation of the Aaron Spelling-created TV series. The film will be directed by Scott Silver from a script he wrote with Stephen Kay.

The series, which launched on ABC in 1968 and spanned 100 episodes, featured Michael Cole, Clarence Williams III and Peggy Lipton as three juvenile delinquents recruited to be undercover operatives and bust villains preying on underage kids. The film is a contempo version that will feature the same three prototype characters.

The pic is being produced by Ben Myron, Alan Riche and Tony Ludwig, with Spelling and David Ladd exec producing.

MGM president Michael Nathanson made it a high priority to land a top-tier actress to lend weight to the film, and the studio felt it scored a coup getting Danes to commit. The actress, who started with the acclaimed ABC series "My So-Called Life," is coming off "William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet," "The Rainmaker" and the upcoming Mandalay film "Les Miserables" and Fox Searchlight comedy "Polish Wedding."

The studio is now looking to match her with two main male thesps to play an undercover squad recruited to work in the L.A. club scene. Shooting will begin in Los Angeles on April 27. Danes is repped by Karen Friedman at CAA and managed by Rick Yorn at Addis-Wechsler.