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FILM/TV BITS: Denzel taps Peter Jackson; Snoop’s ‘Horror’ picked up; Depp may join Smith’s ‘Legend;’ Film Critic Ebert has emergency surgery.
*Denzel Washington is hoping “Lord of the Rings” helmer Peter Jackson will provide special effects for a film he’s planning to direct for 2008. New Zealand’s Dominion-Post newspaper reported Friday that the actor met with Jackson to discuss the project during a four-day visit to Willington, New Zealand last week. Washington refused to reveal any further details about the film. Jackson – who won an Oscar for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and is working on a movie adaptation of Alice Sebold's best-selling novel "The Lovely Bones" – founded the companies Weta Workshop and Weta Digital, which provides special effects services for major movies.
*The U.S. theatrical rights to Snoop Dogg’s film “Hood of Horror” was picked up by Spanish-language distributor Xenon Pictures Thursday during the Los Angeles Film Festival, reports Variety. The film features three Snoop-narrated tales about residents of an inner-city neighborhood whose actions determine where they will go in the afterlife. The ensemble cast includes Ernie Hudson, Danny Trejo, Method Man, Jason Alexander, Anson Mount, Daniella Alonso and Brande Roderick. BloodWorks and Social Capital Films teamed with the Long Beach rapper in producing the movie, directed by Oscar-nominated helmer Stacy Title ("The Last Supper") from a screenplay by Jonathan McHugh, Tim Sullivan, Chris Kobin and Jacob Hair.
*Everyone’s favorite Pirate of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp, is currently in talks to join Will Smith in “I am Legend,” which stars the rapper/actor as the lone survivor of a biological terrorist attack on Los Angeles. According to Blackfilm.com, Francis Lawrence will direct the film, which begins production this Sept. in New York City.
*64-year-old film critic Roger Ebert had emergency surgery Saturday in Chicago after a blood vessel burst near the site of a previous cancer surgery. Ebert's co-host Richard Roeper told the Chicago Sun-Times his vital signs appeared to be good after the lengthy operation and he's expected to make a full recovery. Spokespersons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he had the surgery, declined to comment. The film critic has undergone cancer surgery three times before -- once in 2002 to remove a malignant tumor on his thyroid gland and twice on his salivary gland the following year.
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