Posted: Wed., Feb. 12, 2003, 9:20pm PT

'Martha' reheated for Kasdan

Teuton pic to be re-made for U.S. auds

By Michael Fleming

Kasdan

Castle Rock has bought the remake rights to the German gourmet cooking comedy "Mostly Martha," and hired director Lawrence Kasdan and screenwriter Terri Minsky ("Lizzie Maguire") to turn it into an Americanized dish.

The remake buy was made by Castle Rock chairman-CEO Martin Shafer and prexy Liz Glotzer. Sergio Aguero ("Y tu mama tambien") will produce, with Susan Cartsonis ("What Women Want") exec producing.

"Martha" is about a top-notch female chef who's a whiz in the kitchen but a mess elsewhere. Her life is turned upside-down when her sister is killed and she must take care of her orphaned niece. Romance blossoms when she hires a charming male chef. Pic was written and directed by Sandra Nettelbeck.

Appetite for art

"It's a terrific love story that is often very funny, and has one of the best roles for a woman that I've seen in a long time," Kasdan said. "She is very prickly, disciplined and set in her ways, not unlike a high-strung artist. She has to adapt by necessity, and food provides wonderful metaphors for life issues."

Kasdan wanted Minsky to write it because of her unproduced script "Anchor Women," which Kasdan once considered directing at Imagine.

"There were a bunch of women-in-TV projects, and that was by far the smartest," he said. "This film will work if it retains the sophisticated, tough-minded European edge of the original, and Terry seemed the right person to preserve that."

Castle Rock will preview the Kasdan-directed adaptation of Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher" at ShoWest, with Warner Bros. releasing it March 21. The pic combines the spectacle of Kasdan-scripted films like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the relationship focus of films he's directed like "The Big Chill."

If Minsky can adapt "Mostly Martha" to an American setting quickly, Kasdan would direct it as his next project. He also is developing the Castle Rock comedy "Pet Therapy" with scribe Rebecca Belfield, about a couple drawn together through group counseling for those with dead or lost pets.