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KATRINA BITS: Universal picks up first post-Katrina film; Wynton Marsalis to produce TV special; Mayor Ray Nagin sworn in.
*Universal Pictures has picked up the film "Hurricane Season," a post-Hurricane Katrina drama based on an upcoming documentary "Walking on Dead Fish."
Both projects will highlight the football team at East St. John High School, located just outside New Orleans. The team had a difficult time with the integration of displaced students from surrounding high school teams and tried to help rebuild their community following Katrina.
Franklin Martin, a former NBA agent, wrote, directed and produced the documentary, and will produce “Season” along with Mark Gordon. Martin read about the team and decided to spend past five months filming their story for a documentary. When he showed his agents some rough footage, it was decided that he would turn it into a feature pitch. Mark Gordon took to the story and brought it to Universal.
*In other Katrina related news, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis is returning to New Orleans to produce a television special marking the hurricane’s anniversary.
Marsalis and his production partner Lisa Marie Hoggs will team with producers John Cossette and Don Mischer to helm “New Orleans: Rebuilding the Soul of America One Year Later,” a live television special taking place at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center.
Marsalis is expected to announce the venture during a June 6 taping of the Food Network’s “Emeril Live,” where he will also perform with the show’s house band.
The trumpeter is also planning a three-day tribute to New Orleans, from August 27 through the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, to include in the television special. The event will feature the Ambassador of Swing Talent Search at Harrah’s New Orleans Theater, including performances by Marsalis, jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson and some of the hottest local talent in Louisiana and Mississippi; and Cooking with Music, an event featuring Lagasse and Marsalis to welcome back New Orleans school children.
*And finally, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sworn into office Thursday to start his second term, ironically, on the first day of the 2006 hurricane season. The 49-year-old won the seat in a May 20 election dominated by discussions of Hurricane Katrina. His term actually began Wednesday, but Nagin was to take the oath of office Thursday afternoon at the Convention Center, a facility that housed thousands of displaced residents without food or water in increasingly squalid conditions once flooding began.
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