Mcg’s new flight
Charlie’s Angels director McG is developing a new action project called Airshow, which will also mark his producing debut, he said.
McG (ne Joseph McGinty Nichol) will also shoot a sequel to Charlie’s Angels, the $92 million action-comedy that has soared past the $123 million mark domestically, as well as the military thriller Dreadnaught, for which he will be paid $2.5 million.

He is developing Airshow with Stephanie Savage, his newly hired producing partner at Wonderland, the nascent production shingle he named after his home near Wonderland Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

The picture follows two elite fighter pilots from the Gulf War: One becomes a regular Joe pilot for United Airlines, the other goes insane and becomes involved with an anti-government militia group. The two meet again at the world’s largest airshow in Chicago, culminating in a ‘High Noon’ showdown with F-18s roaring through the city’s concrete canyons. He and Savage will soon turn their Airshow outline over to full-time scribes he declined to identify.
“I make movies for the demographic I understand, and that’s Middle America”, McG said. “I like to keep them one part Grease, one part (1960s director) Russ Meyer, and one part Top Gun.”

Depp to star in Chuck’s bipoic
Johnny Depp is in final negotiations to star in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a biopic based on the autobiography of Chuck Barris, the host of The Gong Show who claimed to moonlight as a CIA spook.George Clooney is in negotiations to co-star opposite Depp, who will play Barris, with Clooney taking the role of CIA recruiting agent Jim Byrd. Bryan Singer (X-Men) will direct the Renaissance Films project, which is expected to go into production in the first quarter.

A deal with the actors will close the long saga of Confessions, a project that has spent a decade attracting admirers but no patrons willing to pull the trigger. The project gathered momentum four years ago when scribe Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich) came aboard to put his spin on the script.

The picture is budgeted in the $30 million-$35 million range, with Renaissance holding international rights. No domestic deal is in place. Depp is currently in theaters with Chocolat opposite Juliette Binoche.

Reunion of Costner, Shelton
Actor Kevin Costner and director Ron Shelton, who collaborated on sports comedies Bull Durham and Tin Cup, are set to reunite on Two Guys on the Job, an action thriller set in San Francisco.

The drama is being produced by Beacon Communications, which financed Costner’s current vehicle Thirteen Days, the critically acclaimed Cuban missile crisis drama that New Line opens wide this weeknd. Two Guys was written by Beacon chairman Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon, the duo who wrote The Hurricane for which star Denzel Washington received an Oscar nomination last year.

The picture is about two San Francisco cops who begin as partners and best friends but, in an environment of prostitution, drugs, temptation and police corruption, eventually become bitter enemies. The rivals are forced to confront their past to save their lives.

Costner will play one of the cops, and Beacon will look quickly to find another 40ish A-list actor to round out the duo.

The film crystallized quickly over the past week, and though deals for the director and star have yet to be hammered out, sources said Beacon will look to make a deal with a studio that wants a formidable drama on its slate.

Scheduling the film before possible writers’ and actors’ strikes next summer won’t be easy, though. Costner is currently starring for Universal in Dragonfly, a film that’s expected to wrap in late March.

Film nominations by producers guild
Film nominees announced for the Producers Guild of America’s Golden Laurel Awards — a key indicator for Academy Awards selections — skewed toward historic and coming-of-age dramas with Almost Famous, Billy Elliot, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich and Gladiator.

Winners of the PGA’s Daryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award have gone on to best picture Oscars eight times in 11 years with Driving Miss Daisy, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, The English Patient, Titanic and American Beauty taking the top Academy Award.

The PGA differed with the Academy on The Crying Game, Apollo 13 and Saving Private Ryan, with best picture Oscars going to, respectively, Unforgiven, Braveheart and Shakespeare in Love.

Winners will be announced March 3 at the 12th annual Golden Laurel Awards at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Nominees for the Norman Felton Producer of the Year Award in Episodic TV (Drama) are ER, Law and Order Oz, The Practice and The West Wing. Nominees in the episodic TV comedy category are Ally McBeal, Frasier, Friends, Sex and the City and Will and Grace.

The PGA decided previously to split its episodic TV kudos into the two categories. The Sopranos won the single episodic award last year. Nominees for the David L. Wolper Producer of the Year Award in Longform Television are Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Fail Safe, If These Walls Could Talk 2, Nuremberg and Walking with Dinosaurs.

George Clooney gets ‘Life’ sentence
George Clooney is in final talks to play the title role in The Life of David Gale, about a professor and capital punishment foe who’s convicted of murdering another activist and is put on death row.

Alan Parker, last in theaters with Angela’s Ashes, will direct the project. Nicolas Cage, who is producing with Parker, is in early talks to play a small but pivotal role. Universal will distribute domestically.

Clooney, who braved gale winds for his biggest career hit last year in The Perfect Storm is currently in theaters with the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? He will do Gale after he completes the Warner Bros. remake of Ocean’s Eleven. In that film, Clooney will star alongside a cast that includes Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.