Miramax Primes Passion for Paltrow

March 25, 1999
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/news/Todays_Stories/990325/Paltrow032599.html


Not wanting to rest on its laurels, Miramax already has a project in
development for its award-winning Shakespeare in Love leading lady,
Gwyneth Paltrow.

USA Today says the studio bought the rights to Jeanette Winterson's
1987 novel The Passion. Paltrow could fill the pants — yes, the
pants — of the book's cross-dressing heroine Villanelle. Set in the
Napoleonic era (about 300 years after Shakespeare entertained the
likes of Queen Elizabeth), The Passion tells the tale of Villanelle
and Henri, an enamoured cook who watches as his love picks pockets
and loses her own heart to another woman. And to top it off,
Winterson's Villanelle has webbed feet.

Now that I'd pay to see.

Whereas it owns the movie rights to The Passion free and clear,
questions of originality continue to plague Miramax's Shakespeare.
The New York Post says writer-producer-director Richard Haase may
add "plaintiff" to his list of titles. Haase claims Shakespeare
borrowed elements from his off-Broadway musical Star-Crossed Lovers,
which ran in various incarnations starting in 1981. Based on Miramax's
comment that they had received no complaint from Haase, the Post hints
that he might just be jumping on the legal bandwagon for publicity's
sake.

Author Faye Kellerman recently filed suit against Miramax, Universal
Pictures, Hyperion Press, and Shakespeare writers Tom Stoppard and
Marc Norman, claiming the movie was based upon her 1989 novel The
Quality of Mercy. Perhaps William S.'s estate should file a suit of
its own …

And to round out today's Paltrow-related news, fellow Best Actress
nominee Fernanda Montenegro accused Hollywood of favoritism during a
televised interview Tuesday.

"[Paltrow is] this romantic figure, thin, pure, virginal," Montenegro
said, according to the Associated Press. "They don't have much of this
type of actress in America. [The award was] an investment."

Montenegro, the 69-year-old star of the Brazilian picture Central
Station, had nothing nicer to say about Best Foreign Film winner Life
Is Beautiful.

"It didn't deserve to win. I thought that it was just [director and
star Roberto Benigni] that won, not the film itself."