Lane Back in Broadway's Butley
Films come and go for Nathan Lane, but it's Broadway that loves him best. And it could be argued that he's the Great White Way's biggest male star. Even his most recent film role—in the upcoming Producers—was one he played on Broadway first. So it makes perfect sense for him to return to New York in a queer role that seems written just for him—even if it wasn't. A revival of Simon Gray's Butley is in the works for Broadway's 2005-2006 season; Lane had a successful Boston run in the show during the fall of 2003. Originally produced in 1972, the show concerns a literature professor who loses both his wife and his male lover in one day. Back then, Alan Bates won a Tony for his performance and went on to star in the film version. The talented Lane should have little trouble repeating that success.
Kleiser Lovewrecked with Lance
Now that boy band 'N Sync is over, Lance Bass knows better than to go the 'hey-listen-to-my-solo-album' route. Instead, he's gotten into the movie-making business.
Bass' production company, Bacon and Eggs, is co-producing a new film called Lovewrecked, a family comedy from Grease's gay helmer, Randal Kleiser, who also made the 1996 indie AIDS dramedy It's My Party and the forthcoming Red Riding Hood (which, coincidentally, stars 'N Sync alum Joey Fatone as the Big Bad Wolf). The script, written by Stephen Langford (TV's Family Matters), follows an 18-year-old girl who works at a Caribbean resort and gets stranded on a remote beach with her favorite rock star. One small, stalker-ish lie: she fails to tell him they're not really stranded at all. Sounds like Bass knows from this sort of fan behavior. The movie begins production in June, and casting is happening now—though after On the Line, Bass will probably opt to stay behind the scenes. Either way, girls, send in those headshots!
The Singing Porn Star
Where do aging porn stars go? If you're Colton Ford, the handsome star of countless gay adult videos, you head to the recording studio. Romeo knows what you're thinking: 'Oh good, another porn star who wants to cross over.' Well, like it or not, Ford's entry into the music business has not only happened, it's also been captured by documentarian Christopher Long in a movie called Naked Fame. The film, which will work its crowd-pleasing way around the gay and lesbian film-festival circuit this summer before some quick-witted indie picks it up for theatrical distribution, follows the career turn of the popular skin-flick performer as he dips his, um, foot in the dance music pool, signs a record deal, records his first single with established dance music diva Pepper Mashay, and watches it climb Billboard's Dance Charts. Move over, Traci Lords!
Almodovar and the Lady Oil-Rigger
Pedro Almodovar is drilling for oil. Well, his production company is, in the form of director Isabel Coixet's next feature, The Secret Life of Words. The English-language film is under the banner of Almodovar's El Deseo production house and will star Canadian actor Sarah Polley, who also starred in Coixet's first film, the award-winning independent My Life Without Me. Polley's star is rising in Hollywood, thanks to her turn in Dawn of the Dead, so this project is set to be seen by a larger audience than the mournful My Life. And its subject matter—a woman holding her own on an oil rig full of men—is definitely in line with Polley's steadfastly independent, feminist approach to acting. A tentative fall start date for production is all that's known right now, so file this one under 'coming sooner or later.'
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