Boxoffice-November.1999

Angela's Ashes
Oscar nominee Emily Watson
("Hilary and Jackie") and "The World Is
Not Enough's" Robert Carlyle star in this
adaptation of Frank McCourt's memoir
about his impoverished childhood in
1930s and '40s Ireland. Alan Parker
("Evita") directs a script by Laura Jones
("Oscar and Lucinda"); Scott Rudin
("Sleepy Hollow"), David Brown
("Deep Impact") and Parker produce.
(Paramount, 12/22 NY/LA, 1/7 exp)
Exploitips: McCourt's book won a
Pulitzer Prize and spent over two years
on the New York Times bestseller list.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
For the follow-up to his Oscar-sweeping
"The English Patient," Anthony
Minghella adapts Patricia Highsmith's
1955 cult novel about a young
American who, commissioned to fetch
an old school chum from his carefree;
ife as an expatriate in Italy, instead kills
him and assumes his identity. Matt
Damon ("Saving Private Ryan"),
Gwyneth Paltrow ("Shakespeare in
Love"), Gate Blanchett ("An Ideal
Husband") and Jude Law ("eXistenZ")
star. William Horberg ("Sliding Doors")
and Tom Sternberg ("Lost Highway")
produce. (Paramount, 1 2/24)
Exploitips: Minghella proved very clever by casting Damon:
before ''Good Will Hunting," Paltrow before ''Shakespeare in
Love" and Blanchett before "Elizabeth."
I
Man on the Moon
Oscar shut-out Jim Carrey
("The Truman Show") stars in this
biopic about Andy Kaufman, the
often hilarious, more often infuriating
comic of "Taxi" and
"Saturday Night Live" fame.
Milos Forman ("The People vs.
Larry Flynt") directs a script by
"Flynt" scribes Scott Alexander
and Larry Karaszewski; "Out of
Sight's" Danny DeVito, who also
plays Kaufman's manager George Shapiro, Michael ShambeTg
and Stacy Sher produce. (LIniversal, 12/25)
Exploitips: Carrey reportedly engaged in all kinds of shenanigans
to get into character for this film. On the first day of the shoot, he
showed up dressed as an ice cream man and handed out cones to
the cast and crew out of the back of an ice cream truck. Eventually
he insisted on having two trailers, one for Andy Kaufman and the
other for Kaufman's infamous alter ego Tony Clifton. Look for
Kaufman contemporaries Jerry Lawler and David Letterman.
("What Dreams May Come
General's Daughter") co-star,
scripts with producer Ron
Bass. "The Sixth Sense's"
Kathleen Kennedy and
Frank Marshall produce
with Harry Ufland ("One
True Thing") and Bass
("Stepmom"). (Universal,
12/22 ltd, 1/7 exp)
Exploitips: Hicks knew
he wanted to direct this
movie since reading
Guterson's book in 1995,
but he had to wait for the
domestic success of multiple
Oscar nominee
"Shine" in 1997 for the
opportunity. "Snow Falling
on Cedars" has been
in the can for a long
time, originally scheduled
for release last
February.
Snow Falling on Cedars
Part love story, part courtroom
drama, "Snow Falling on
Cedars" stars Ethan Hawke in a
big-screen adaptation of David
Guterson's best-selling novel as
a journalist reporting on a
Japanese man's trial for the murder
of a fisherman in a small
Pacific Northwest village.
Youki Koudo ("Heaven's
Burning"), Max Von Sydow
) and James Cromwell ("The
Shine's" Scott Hicks directs and
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