Denver is about to score a Hollywood knockout.
Our town will be the setting for a major motion picture – starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Alan Alda, Teri Hatcher and Kathryn Morris – which begins filming June 17.
Of course, Hollywood being Hollywood, the movie will largely be shot in Calgary, but key scenes will film here in July, including one with John Elway playing himself opposite Hartnett, with Elway’s restaurant as the backdrop.
The flick, “Resurrecting the Champ,” is based on an acclaimed 1997 magazine piece written by L.A. Times Denver correspondent J.R. Moehringer. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the piece was also anthologized in “Best American Sports Writing of the Century.” (Hartnett plays a Moehringeresque reporter for the fictional Denver Times.)
Director Rod Lurie (“Commander in Chief,” “Line of Fire,” “The Contender”) sounds eager to yell “Action!” in the Mile High milieu.
“The story is fantastic,” he told me. “We just hope we can do justice to the poetry of the writing. And we wanted to set it in Denver because it’s such a great journalist community.”
Among screenwriters to have worked on the project is Michael Bortman, who spent time with me years ago, to get the feel of the local newspaper scene. Poor guy. He left Denver with quite a headache, as I recall.
Moehringer, author of last year’s N.Y. Times best seller “The Tender Bar,” thinks Lurie is the perfect guy to bring “Champ” to the screen. “Rod’s got a great feel for the story, and he’s a writer as well as a director, so he’s showing tremendous care for the words, ideas, and themes, particularly the theme of fathers and sons.”
Getting really real
MTV’s “Real World” kids were partying all over town – Hush, Monarch, Tabu – and at the Basement at Brix last week, where the four female cast members arrived in a white stretch limo and partied hard with about 25 new friends. It was an off-night and the club was not actually open, but when Brix customers saw the four smoking dames head downstairs with the camera crew, they followed.
Owner Charles Master wants to organize a charity event with the Real Worlders.
Feeling Moody
Greg Moody’s video goodbye to Larry Green was the hit of Green’s goodbye party last week at the Denver Press Club.
Sloshing his eyes with Visine so it looked like he was crying, Moody said, “On my first day here … (Larry) said, ‘It’s going to be great working with you.’ No, actually he said that to Stephanie Riggs. To me he said, ‘Oh God, another piece of crap on the set with me.”‘
The crowd included Mike Nelson, Aimee Sporer and Dan Caplis, Jim Benemann and Molly Hughes, Riggs and other media types.
City spirit
I hear the W Hotel that’s coming to town will have four (count ’em) restaurants. I bet one of them will be from Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who just entered into a big deal with the hotel group … Sketch is open for lunch starting Monday … Sez who: “Never date a woman you can hear ticking.” Mark Patinkin
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Husted also appears Tuesdays and Fridays on “Good Day Colorado” on Fox 31. You can reach him at 303-820-1486 or at bhusted@denverpost.com.
