Heather Matarazzo Checks
into Hostel: Part II
If Hostel didn't scare you out of taking a trip to Europe, the filmmakers remain committed to terrifying college backpackers into staying home with Hostel: Part II, set to go into production this month. Lesbian actress Heather Matarazzo ( Saved! ) joins Bijou Phillips and Lauren German as a trio of college students who learn the horrifying truth about an Eastern European hostel that doubles as a slaughterhouse where unsuspecting tourists are murdered by the evil rich who have paid for the privilege. Matarazzo and company will presumably get to enjoy a paid trip to the continent in between all the running and screaming and being covered with fake gore that generally accompanies this kind of gig. Look for the bloodbath to splatter theater screens sometime in 2007.
Aykroyd and Buscemi Marry Chuck and Larry
Romeo has already reported that Adam Sandler and Kevin James will play the leads in the currently in-production comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, about two hetero firemen who pretend to be a gay couple so they can qualify for the department's domestic-partner benefits. Now two more funnymen have joined the cast. The ever-reliable Steve Buscemi—who, after The Wedding Singer, Billy Madison, Big Daddy, and Mr. Deeds should name his summer home after Sandler—will play a city bureaucrat who's out to expose Chuck and Larry as straight frauds, while Dan Aykroyd plays the captain of the fire department. Should we start a pool as to which of these four characters will come out of the closet by the closing credits?
Nolte and Suvari Explore Pittsburgh
The long-awaited movie version of Michael Chabon's 1988 novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, keeps chugging along. Romeo told you that Rawson Marshall Thurber would write and direct and that Peter Sarsgaard and Sienna Miller had been cast. Now more actors have joined the project, including Jon Foster ( Stay Alive, TV's Windfall ) , who stars as Art Bechstein ( replacing the previously reported-on Max Minghella ) , as a young man who finds himself in a love triangle with Sarsgaard's and Miller's characters. Nick Nolte will play Art's dad, a mobster, while American Beauty star and erstwhile Six Feet Under lesbian Mena Suvari has signed on as Phlox, Art's bookstore boss and eccentric sometime-girlfriend. Cameras are finally rolling in Pittsburgh.
Tyler Perry's House of Payne
Coming to TBS
The Tyler Perry empire shows no sign of slowing down. After raking in a fortune with his sassy, Christian-oriented, Afro-centric stage comedies—often featuring Perry cross-dressing as no-nonsense senior citizen Madea—and wowing Hollywood with the box-office take for the low-budget movies Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion, the show-biz entrepreneur is taking his act to the small screen. TBS has signed a deal for the sitcom Tyler Perry's House of Payne, set to premiere in June. The cable network gets exclusive rights to the show for one year, and then it gets syndicated to local Fox-owned television stations. Given Perry's shrewd business sense, the deal will no doubt pay for lots and lots of grey Madea wigs and plus-size housedresses.
Romeo San Vicente visited a house of pain once and found he bruises much too easily. He can be reached care of this publication or at the Web site DeepInsideHollywood@qsyndicate.com .