WB imports hit Brit mini
'Fatal Attraction'-like feature to star Zeta-Jones
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Zeta-Jones is just coming off another Brit mini transfer, the Steven Soderbergh-directed foray into the narcotics industry, "Traffic." David Foster will produce the film with Zeta-Jones and her brother, Lyndon Jones, along with Jill Green, producer of the original mini. WB exec veep Rob Guralnick set up the project at the studio.
The film is described as a sexy thriller in the vein of "Fatal Attraction," which starred Zeta-Jones' husband, Michael Douglas. She'll play a lawyer who discovers that her psychiatrist husband is having a torrid affair with one of his patients. Mini was scripted by Richard McBrien, and a scribe is being brought in to move the action from London to New York.
"It's a hugely commercial premise, with a great role for Catherine, as well as a terrific role for the husband and his best friend," said Lyndon Jones, who, after working for several years as his sister's assistant, started the Milkwood shingle with her last January.
The project came together when London-based rep Steve Kenis suggested that Foster watch the mini for a possible feature redo. Foster, who is producing the Arnold Schwarzenegger WB drama "Collateral Damage" (currently shooting) and the upcoming MGM Greg Hoblit-directed drama "Hart's War," liked what he saw. A longtime friend of the Jones family, Foster brought it to the actress and her brother, and they quickly signed on.
Zeta-Jones took time off to have a baby and marry Douglas, though she displayed a lack of vanity by working on "Traffic" up until her sixth month of pregnancy, playing the wife of a jailed drug trafficker who warms to the task of assuming control over his operation. Zeta-Jones returns to work in January, joining Julia Roberts, John Cusack and Billy Crystal in the Revolution comedy "America's Sweethearts."
While it seems unlikely that a "Trust" script and other elements can be mobilized swiftly enough to film before the projected summer WGA/SAG strikes, Jones and Foster said they'll move quickly, giving both Zeta-Jones and Douglas fast-moving pic projects at WB.
Douglas, currently toplining the Gary Fleder-directed New Regency thriller "Don't Say a Word," is in early discussions to topline "Till Death Do Us Part" for Donald Petrie. Pic's an update of the 1979 comedy "The In-Laws," with Billy Crystal a possible co-star for a film that has a good shot to be completed before the summer.
