Lights, camera, musical

Michael Dwyeron film

It used to be the other way round, but more and more theatre productions are now based on movies. Following the lucrative reworking of The Producers and Hairspray for the stage, the inane screen musical Xanadu, which already seemed dated when first released in 1980, is the latest Broadway hit.

The film, which featured ELO tunes and starred Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck and Gene Kelly, was directed by Robert Greenwald, a visitor to the Dublin International Film Festival last year with Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, one of many hard-edged documentaries he made subsequently.

In London, the Old Vic production based on Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother, starring Diana Rigg and Lesley Manville, has started previews.

London openings in October include Swimming With Sharks, with Christian Slater as the abrasive film producer played by Kevin Spacey in the 1994 film; Jonathan Pryce and Aidan Gillen in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, which was a play before it was turned into a 1992 movie; the West End debut of Hairspray, with Michael Ball in drag and fatsuit for the role played on screen by Divine and John Travolta; and a musical based on Desperately Seeking Susan, featuring songs by Blondie rather than Madonna, who co-starred with Rosanna Arquette and Aidan Quinn in the original 1985 film.

Wilson suicide attempt confirmed

Los Angeles police have confirmed reports that Owen Wilson attempted suicide at his Santa Monica home last Sunday. He was taken by ambulance to the emergency room of a hospital, where he is said to be in good condition.

Wilson, who is 38, shared a 2002 Oscar nomination with Wes Anderson for their Royal Tenenbaums screenplay, and he co-stars with Adrien Brody and Jason Schartzman in Anderson's new India-set film, The Darjeeling Limited, which has its world premiere at the Venice festival next week and opens here in November.

Wilson was set to join Bill Hader, Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder, directed by Stiller and now shooting in Hawaii. However, Wilson withdrew from the project during the week.

News of Evans' death greatly exaggerated

Just as Mark Twain famously remarked that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated, producer Robert Evans has dismissed rumours of his own demise, circulated by e-mail to, among others, one of his seven ex-wives, Phyllis George, and columnist Liz Smith. "I'm not dead," he told Smith. "I have to laugh. I've never been so alive."

Now 77, Evans is working on The Fat Lady Sings, the sequel to his biographical book The Kid Stays in the Picture, which was turned into an absorbing documentary. Having started out as an actor, Evans oversaw the production of such hits as The Godfather and Love Story when he ran Paramount Pictures. He went on to produce over a dozen films, most notably Chinatown and Marathon Man. Dustin Hoffman parodied Evans in Wag the Dog (below), about which Evans declared: "I'm magnificent in this movie."

Swedish censor resigned to absurdity

After 26 years as head of Sweden's Board of Film Censors, Gunnel Arrback has resigned, having long advocated ending censorship of films for adults in Sweden.

"Censorship of films for adults is absurd," she said, suggesting that only films meant for the under-15 crowd be examined, as is the practice in Denmark.

"During the years, I have become more and more convinced that film does not have a negative effect on the audience and there has been no research that proves the opposite."

Dallas gets new diva

Betty Thomas, whose credits include TV spin-offs I Spy and The Brady Bunch Movie, has taken over from Gurinder Chadna to direct the long-planned cinema treatment of 1980s TV hit Dallas.

From the many actors mooted to feature in the film, only John Travolta remains attached, in the pivotal role of duplicitous oil baron JR Ewing.

Shooting is scheduled for January, and after numerous script rewrites, it has been decided that the movie will be played for laughs. Only right, too.

An embarrassment of riches

Director Lenny Abrahamson and screenwriter Mark O'Halloran will dominate our screens, large and small, over the next two months. Their four-part TV series, Prosperity, starts on RTÉ 2 next Monday, and their feature film, Garage, an award-winner at Cannes this year, will go on Irish cinema release from October 5th. The pair previously collaborated on the critically acclaimed Adam & Paul.

The title of Prosperity is "completely ironic", Abrahamson tells Reel News. "It's not a knockdown," he says, "but it deals with four people who did not experience the Celtic Tiger joys of modern Dublin. It's very tender as well as being dark and humorous. Mark's scripts for the series are beautiful."

O'Halloran explains that all four stories take place over a 12-hour time period on the same day.

"Each episode is an intense character study, although there is some overlap between the characters from the different episodes," he says.