BBC - Films - High Noon - 20th February 2004

		Depp Dives Deep Johnny Depp is in negotiations to star in The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, an adaptation of the Jean-Dominique Bauby autobiography. Bauby suffered a stroke that left his body completely paralysed, except for his left eye, which he used to 'blink out' a memoir. In it he shares the anguish of being imprisoned inside his own body and the flights of fancy that made his days more bearable. He died two days after it was published. (FYI: This is not a comedy.) Indie filmmaker Julian Schnabel (Before Night Falls) will direct the story from a script by Ron Harwood, the Oscar-winning writer of The Pianist.

		Rowan Atkinson: Correction On 30 December 2003, we reported on claims that Rowan Atkinson, following the release of his spy spoof Johnny English, had fallen into a deep depression for which he had received therapy. These claims were untrue. We apologise to Rowan Atkinson and are happy to set the record straight.

		McG Takes Flying Leap Director McG is to helm a biopic of 70s stunt icon Evel Knievel. The evil behind Charlie's Angels is the latest in a long line of directors to be attached to this project, but with Se7en scribe Andrew Walker on the case, this looks like the nearest Knievel has come to leaving the ground since about 1975... "This is a guy who was a bank robber," says McG. "This is a guy who carried Wild Turkey in a cane. This is a guy who painted his name on his Lear jet and then bought a second one to fly alongside so he could look at it from the air." It's thought the movie will focus on the height of Knievel's fame and his subsequent fall from motorbike/grace. McG puts it like this: "The picture is about a man and that which made him great will also be his undoing. I want to tell darker stories. This will be a dramatic piece." Who knows? It might fly.

		Favreau Sinks Lower Sometime Swinger/now Hollywood sell-out Jon Favreau has inked to direct Zathura, the sequel to kiddie flick Jumanji. The follow-up to the inexplicably successful 1995 movie has been languishing in development hell for years, but the powers-that-get-paid-too-much-for-faffing have finally settled on a script by David Koepp, the key-tapper behind Spider-Man and Mission: Impossible. Zathura, based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg, will be set within the confines of an intergalactic board game that becomes "terrifyingly real". Yup. We're definitely feeling that.

		Daddy Gibbo Gabs Garbage While concerns about anti-Semitism build around the imminent release of Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ, his 85-year-old father, Hutton Gibson, has told a New York radio station that the Holocaust was hyped up. "It's all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," he blabbed. He went on to explain that he believes many of the six million Jews who perished in Nazi death camps weren't actually killed at all, but fled to Australia and the USA where they are now trying to create "one world religion and one world government". (Oi vay, the guy's meshuggeneh...)

		The Inside Track Just when you thought it was safe to keep reading, High Noon brings you news that Herbie The Love Bug is being slated for a remake. Fresh from the Sundance Film Festival premiere of her directorial debut D.E.B.S., helmer Angela Robinson has signed to shoot the film in June. The updated version finds Herbie in the world of NASCAR... For those of you who watch the Paramount Comedy Channel, US sitcom kings Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Kevin James (King Of Queens) are teaming up for Men Don't Quit, a comedy about door-to-door salesman who only have a day to offload a bulk quantity of frozen meat. It's like Death Of A Salesman meets 24, meets... meat...