Looks like Steven Spielberg won’t be launching Matt Helm on swinging missions after all, but neither will he send Lincoln to Gettysburg anytime soon. The bearded money machine will instead have us imagine a 6-foot bunny, the very same Jimmy Stewart met almost 60 years ago.
Variety reports that over the weekend Spielberg inked a deal with Fox 2000 who recently acquired the rights to HARVEY, Mary Chase’s Pulitzer-winning stage play about mild-mannered Elwood P. Dowd who converses with an imaginary giant rodent. Which I hope will be voiced by James Earl Jones. “I am your fath…Just kidding. Now build me a baseball field.”
For some reason, Stevie’s itching badly to get back behind cameras soon; pre-production and casting are said to be starting immediately for the Dreamworks co-production, so filming can begin early-2010. I recently made a joke about Hollywood having waited a whopping 36 years to remake JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR; in retrospect, maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut.