BBC - Films - High Noon - 5th March 2004

		Kevin Costner: Elephant Man Open Range star/director Kevin Costner will next helm an animal adventure based on Ralph Helfer's novel Modoc: The True Story Of The Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived. Described as a Black Stallion-style love story between man and beast, it follows the friendship of a circus boy and an elephant, both born on the same day in 1896. Costner may take a supporting role but not, disappointingly, as the elephant.

		Knowles It Pop superstar and sometime actress Beyoncé Knowles is in talks to star in Steve Martin's remake of The Pink Panther. She'll play a, ahem, pop star suspected of stealing a diamond from her freshly dead boyfriend. Leon actor Jean Reno has signed up to co-star as Ponton, an undercover cop assigned to shadow Martin's bumbling Inspector Clouseau. The role is likely to replace the original series' chopsocky sidekick, Cato.

		Singer Runs For It X-Men 2 director Bryan Singer is to remake cult 70s sci-fi Logan's Run. The original was set in a futuristic, youth-obsessed utopia, where people were executed on their 30th birthday, to solve an overpopulation problem. Michael York goes on the run to escape this fate. Singer's reworking will see the age of death revert to 21, as it is in William Nolan's source novel, while the presence of The Matrix producer Joel Silver suggests an action-heavy effort. Expect to see it in 2005.

		Sky High Daldry The Hours director Stephen Daldry is ascending Everest, to prepare for a feature about a true-life climbing disaster on the world's tallest peak. The research trip will include some filming, capturing landscapes of the massive mountain for inclusion in the drama, which will be shot at a yet-to-be-disclosed location. The film will focus on eight climbers killed when a storm hit Everest on May 10th, 1996. Touching The Void meets The Perfect Storm, then?

		Hairspray Again John Waters' coming-of-age comedy Hairspray is being remade, a mere 16 years after the Rikki Lake-starring original. Building on the success of its Broadway stage adaptation, Hairspray will become a big screen musical, with stage adapters Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan writing a script for a 2006 release. It's the second Broadway hit of a movie to spawn a remake: a new version of The Producers will be released next year.

		Comics, Cakes And Cretins Another day, another adaptation of a comic book we've never heard of: Sword Of Dracula, a modern-day actioner about military forces trying to harness the power of the mighty bloodsucker... Secretary star Maggie Gyllenhaal has signed for The Great New Wonderful, a New York-set drama about competiting cake designers... This year's decision to hold the Academy Awards early had the desired effect of cutting out months of bitchy campaigning. Show producer Joe Roth is so stoked he wants the Oscars even earlier next year, with the organisers set to vote on a mid-February ceremony date... It's being reported (by us, for a start) that the stars of Scooby-Doo 2: Monster's Unleashed don't want to talk to online journalists. So Uncle High Noon won't be able to fulfill a lifetime ambition to meet Freddie Prinze Jr and punch him in the face. Shame.