| After a few low-profile years, James Woods is once again racking up the film projects. Following Straw Dogs and the recently completed Officer Down, he's signed for The Stone Pony and may also direct An American Girl. As if that wasn't plenty to be going on with, Woods has now joined the cast of Jamesy Boy, a true-life crime drama in which he'll co-star with Ving Rhames and Mary-Louise Parker. It sounds a bit like A Prophet (not to be confused with The Prophet, which appears elsewhere this morning), a bit like Felon, and a bit like any number of other prison movies. This one's about James Burns, a street-gang member who finds himself thrown in clink. There he forges an unlikely mentor-student relationship with a reformed murderer, who helps him see life from a new perspective. Hey, maybe it is like The Prophet after all. The roles earmarked for Woods, Rhames and Parker haven't yet been revealed, but Burns is being played by newcomer Spencer LoFranco. Trevor White is directing, making the transition from short films to feature-length, and he co-wrote the screenplay with Lane Shadgett, who has an unproduced screenplay of Brett Easton Ellis' Lunar Park to his name. Jamesy Boy's production gets underway in Baltimore on March 4. |
