Naomi Watts Signs To Da Vinci Prequel
November 21, 2007

The prequel to the mega-blockbuster The Da Vinci Code found a leading lady this week in Naomi Watts, even though production has mostly been halted because of the writer's strike and the impending actor's strike. That's not stopping casting directors or producers, even if most of Hollywood has been focused on the strike lately. The biggest casting news since the strike landed this week when The New York Post reported that Naomi Watts would star opposite Tom Hanks in Angels and Demons, the prequel by Dan Brown to The Da Vinci Code, and the film will once again be directed by Ron Howard.

Sadly, that's all the movement happening on Angels and Demons, which was scheduled to start shooting soon but was postponed this week because writer Akiva Goldsman needed to do more work to get it ready to go in front of the cameras and that, of course, can't happen with the strike. Reuters quoted Columbia spokesman Steve Elzer as saying, "while the filmmakers and the studio feel the screenplay is very strong, we do not believe it is the fully realized production draft required of this ambitious project. We do not expect any other film on our 2008 slate to be affected."

Angels and Demons was going to start filming early next year and be released on December 19th, 2008. That's already been delayed even with no firm start date for shooting. The date of release for Angels and Demons has already been moved to May 15th, 2009, a week before Avatar, the anticipated 3-D release from James Cameron.

Angels and Demons isn't the only project in limbo even though the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers agreed to sit down and start talking again on Monday. In fact, some projects may have been irreparably damaged by the strike already. Edwin A. Salt, a spy thriller with Tom Cruise has been delayed after director Terry George stepped off the project. Reuters reports that Michael Mann might pick that one up, but he wants a rewrite, which can't be done during the strike. Justice League of America has no script and potential actors with expiring options. That one will have to be postponed soon if the strike continues. Bruno, the Sacha Baron Cohen follow-up to Borat, could even be affected because writers work full time on a project like that, not just in pre-production.

Strike or not, the luminous Naomi Watts could also start shooting the remake of The Birds soon and will be seen in Funny Games and The International next year. You can catch Naomi Watts on DVD in The Painted Veil, King Kong, Stay, The Ring Two, I Heart Huckabees, We Don't Live Here Anymore, 21 Grams, Le Divorce, The Ring, and Mulholland Drive and her turn in Eastern Promises will hit DVD early next year.