New Line eyes Pacino

Companies pull off 'Road' to the Hollywood Project

By MICHAEL FLEMING

NEW YORK — New Line and Jersey Films are fast-tracking a project about the movie business scripted by Andrew Niccol, and the studio is negotiating with Al Pacino to star.

Niccol, the New Zealand native who wrote Par’s “The Truman Show” and directed his script “Gattaca” for Jersey and Columbia, had been expected to next helm “River Road,” a film he wrote for Jersey Films about a man who moves into a fictitious border town. New Line bought the script in a $3 million deal that covered Niccol’s writing, directing and producing fees.

Instead, New Line and Jersey are moving at full speed with a new Niccol script that’s being called the Hollywood Project. Financial deals of the new project are unknown and details of the script are scant. If talks with Pacino lead to a deal, the “Insider” star would play a down-and-out producer who attempts to make it big in Hollywood.

Pic will be produced by Jersey partners Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher, with Niccol likely serving in a producing capacity.

Pacino and Niccol are repped by CAA.

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117781955.html

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