Question is, what will Witherspoon and her team (i.e., manager Evelyn O'Neill of Talent Entertainment Group, Intermedia's Basil Iwanyk, Jennifer Simpson of Witherspoon's production company Type A Films, William Morris Agency's Steve Dontanville) do with this heat and opportunity? Will they indulge in an occasional risk or challenge, or will they just cash in and delay the smarter, artier stuff until Reese passes 30? (She's now 26.)

Her next film, for which she'll be paid $15 million (which will be her first major payday), will reportedly be a sequel to LEGALLY BLONDE for MGM, and there's a general suspicion that Witherspoon and O'Neill plan to go back to this well time and again over the next four or five years. The bottom line is that the shelf life of hot actressses in this town is short, and there's too much money to be made when the opportunity is there, even at the risk of boring her fans by pushing the same schpiel over and over.

An especially astute female journalist predicted during a phone conversation on Monday that the newly-hot Witherspoon "won't do another intelligent film for five years." (LEGALLY BLONDE and SWEET HOME ALABAMA aren't unintelligent as much as they're made for the girl who reads COSMOPOLITAN.) A respected talent manager confided more or less the same opinion when we spoke on Monday.

Another talent manager who's been around the block a few times feels that the remark by my journalist friend is "a very cynical thing to say. I really do think Reese is going to have a very diverse career...remember she did THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST right after the first LEGALLY BLONDE. I don't think ELECTION was a fluke. She's always had good instincts, and I think she knows what she's doing."

It's also been suggested that Witherspoon should think about working again with Alexander Payne, and that she should try to sit down with some top A-list directors -- Fernando Meirelles, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Steven Soderbergh, John Stockwell, Chris Nolan, et. al. -- as part of an effort to find her next "stretch" project. If O'Neill, Iwanyk and Dontanville are smart, they'll hook her up with the A-listers and for the most part avoid the Andy Tennants and Robert Luketics (i.e., the guy who directed LEGALLY BLONDE), who can only devalue her in the long run.

A director friend tells me Witherspoon is "supremely ambitious and wants to win an Academy Award. She sees herself as a producer-actress and always wants to know about all the nuts and bolts that go into a film, including the marketing budget."

If you boil down the Witherspoon formula, she always plays an underdog with a plan to better herself. (Tracy Flick was certainly this.) She doesn't play losers or layabouts or pregnant trailer-trash moms (although she played a low-rent type in FREEWAY)-- she's always a go-getter temporarily stymied by some social barrier or misconception about her true worth and/or abilities. And her relationships with guys are always fraught with concerns about money, class and social standing.

I'm told there's an interesting-sounding project Witherspoon and O'Neill are trying to whip together about a tennis player with a bad temper -- "a female John McEnroe" -- whose best years are seemingly behind her and who needs to fix herself and get her career back on track. It sounds like the same old stuff to me, except for the anger-problem thing, which Witherspoon could go to town and have fun with. The tennis project has no title; the original writer is Bruce Miller.

O'Neill, described by a well-connected source as headstrong and "a fucking nightmare [to deal with]," is said to be trying to line up a major A-list director to shoot the tennis movie. The source confided that at one recent juncture, O'Neill was trying to interest Martin Scorsese - I don't know if he was using Scorsese's name literally or figuratively.

My guess is that the upgrade approach won't be pursued as avidly as it should, since A-list projects often look scary at the outset and the temptation to keep those $15 million paychecks rolling in will be tremendous. In short, Reese and her team will most likely go for the dough and my journalist friend will be on the money. Bets? I'd love to be proved wrong.

Confidential No More

Praise God for allowing events to be so determined that this column is no longer called HOLLYWOOD CONFIDENTIAL. It's now HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE, and it doesn't matter if you can't figure what it means. I'm still sorting it out myself, but I know it sounds and feels cooler than the other moniker, which I've quietly loathed since the column began on Reel.com over three years ago. It always sounded doofus-y to me, like it was some kind of 1955 showbiz column in the NEW YORK DAILY MIRROR.

Very little of what I write in this thing could be even loosely described as "confidential" information, unless you view it as a personal diary of some kind. I've certainly never been a tipster or channeler of you-read it here first information -- I'm never been Earl Wilson or Army Archerd or Roger Friedman, even.

HOLLYWOOD CONFIDENTIAL was forced upon me in '99 by my Reel.com editors, who wanted it to sound like the Mr. Showbiz column SHOWBIZ CONFIDENTIAL, which itself was decided upon in '98 because Curtis Hanson's L.A. CONFIDENTIAL was a recent hit at the time and they wanted something generic and familiar-sounding. Leeza Gibbons has a syndicated radio show about Hollywood stuff that's also called HOLLYWOOD CONFIDENTIAL, and now it's hers alone.

I think HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE means a better form of escape. We'd all like to live in places in our heads apart from the moods, fantasies and assumptions mainstream Hollywood often tries to shove down our throats. We're all trying to find and create havens of solace and head trips that aren't rooted in the mundane, familiar, formulaic "here." I want to go elsewhere, over the hill. I want release and salvation.

Apparent Harmony

Neither DreamWorks nor Miramax will be blinking or backing off in their showdown over the release dates of their respective Leonardo DiCaprio films, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN and GANGS OF NEW YORK, which are both slated to open on 12.25. It's locked, it's firm, get used to it -- Christmas Day is going to be a Leo double-header.

Actually, the whole warring, eyeball-to-eyeball, Harvey Weinstein vs. Jeffrey Katzenberg dynamic that everyone has long assumed is behind the release-date standoff appears to be, practically speaking, yesterday's news, as the two studios are now said to be cooperating on their joint yuletide openings in terms of publicity, magazine covers, junket schedules, etc.

Things weren't always this harmonious, and there's still a little grumbling going on behind closed doors.

When Miramax announced their intention on 4.9.02 to open GANGS OF NEW YORK on Christmas Day (a decision which came roughly ten days after DreamWorks announced that CATCH ME IF YOU CAN would open on 12.25), a rumor got around that DiCaprio's people had told Miramax to move the GANGS release date -- that they didn't want both his films opening on the same day and that if push came to shove (or if any kind of either/or situation developed), his allegiance would be more with CATCH ME than GANGS.

DiCaprio's publicist Ken Sunshine and a Miramax spokesperson are both adamantly calling this story "complete garbage" and "complete bullshit," respectively.

"Leo will be promoting both movies," says the 27 year-old actor's spokesperson. "He's extraordinarily proud to have worked with arguably the two greatest directors of our time, (GANGS' Martin Scorsese and CATCH ME's Steven Spielberg) and will be doing a whole lot to promote both movies. It's a unique situation and we're all working together [and] the Leo team is rooting for both movies. It's not up to us, and certainly not up to Leo, when they open."

Miramax will be junketing GANGS OF NEW YORK in New York City on the weekend of December 6th. DreamWorks won't confirm a date for their CATCH ME IF YOU CAN junket, but a Broadcast Film Critics Association member tells me it's slated to happen in Manhattan on the weekend of November 22nd.

DiCaprio is said to be his usual reticent self as far as doing publicity chores ("He doesn't like [doing] it," according to a veteran publicist), but so far has gone along with a cover on DETAILS magazine and has apparently agreed to cooperate on a few other things.

Still, a DreamWorks insider yesterday confided a certain lingering displeasure about the whole magilla.

"I'm wondering how we got to this place," the insider began. "I just know the only person to whom justice has not been done is Leonardo DiCaprio...it's just not fair. We were on this date first...okay? If it had been me, I would never in a million years have decided to open a film on a date that somebody else had already occupied. Rick Yorn is a producer on GANGS and he doesn't like it, but none of these people seem to be able to get through to Harvey...there's nobody who can give you a rationale answer about why it has to be this way. There's no logic to it."

DiCaprio hasn't been mentioned by handicappers as having given an extraordinary or possible Oscar-level performance in either film. But then neither film has been seen, so why would they?

In CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, he plays '60s con man Frank Abagnale, who pretended to be other people and cashed all kinds of bad checks before the FBI caught up with him. Tom Hanks plays his FBI pursuer (and later friend and colleague) under Spielberg's direction. In GANGS OF NEW YORK, he plays a young Irish immigrant in pre-Civil War Manhattan consumed with avenging the death of his father (played by Liam Neeson) at the hands of Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day Lewis).

Another view passed along is that Miramax "has too many movies to deal with over this period -- all critic-driven, all media-driven, and all with Academy potential."

Indeed, Miramax has 10 prestige titles opening between 10.25 and 12.27 -- FRIDA (10.25), BLUE CAR (11.8), ARARAT (11.15), The QUIET AMERICAN (11.22), RABBIT-PROOF FENCE (11.29), GANGS OF NEW YORK (12.25), PINOCCHIO (12.25), CHICAGO (12.27), CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (12.27) and THE HOURS (12.27).

"Honest to God? My theory is that [this whole thing] is completely about CHICAGO," the insider remarks. "It's all about trying to surprise people...it's all about 'Oh my God, while all of you media people were focusing on GANGS, the real gem all along has been CHICAGO. I think it's all tied to positioning CHICAGO as an underdog thing."

It's not my theory - I'm just passing it along.

Jake

"I must tell you, I agree with you about Jake [Gyllenhaal]. Enough of that same character. Grow a little. Play someone self-assured, at least for ten minutes." -- Publicity guy

"You're not the only one with a Jake Gyllenhaal problem. Mine stems from the fact that he looks too much like Tobey Maguire. I noticed this back when PLEASANTVILLE and OCTOBER SKY came out weeks apart and Gyllenhaal and Maguire had the same late 50's wardrobe and haircut. The problem is that Maguire is a much better actor than Gyllenhaal, so now every time I see Jake Gyllenhaal in a movie, I'm wishing Tobey Maguire was in it instead." -- Paul Cox

"I saw where you were coming from in your Jake Gyllenhaal piece, but I've really liked him in the three films I've seen of his (DONNIE DARKO, LOVELY AND AMAZING, and THE GOOD GIRL). I think this is because, especially in the latter two, his 'inwardly damaged basset hound droopiness' has been played ironically, as a critique rather than as a romanticization of the overly sensitive, Holden Caulfield teen.

"By the same token, I've always had a hard time stomaching Tobey Maguire, the critics' darling, who often seems to portray (in movies like THE ICE STORM, PLEASANTVILLE and WONDER BOYS) characters who fit the screenwriter and/or director's idealized image of himself as a preternaturally sensitive, serious young man. That halting, cracking adenoidal voice of his...the way he bats his own drooping, puppy-dog eyes..." -- Mica Hilson

"I got where you were going with your riff on Jake Gyllenhaal., but did you really find those tendencies you dislike so much to be on display in LOVELY AND AMAZING? I thought his work in that film was fairly clean and sharp, in contrast to his performances in THE GOOD GIRL and MOONLIGHT MILE." -- Lee Shoquist

Wells to Shoquist: Okay, I'll give you that -- he was far less irksome in LOVELY AND AMAZING.

Smudge

"In your Word item about Mel Gibson's PASSION, you wrote, 'Who needs a Jesus flick from a Vietnam War-saluting, right-wing, Roman Catholic, cigarette-smoking Aussie auteur?' And what the hell is wrong with a film made by a Roman Catholic? Why don't you say who needs a film directed by an Islamic? Or a Jew? Of course you wouldn't do that. In my opinion, you are a coward." -- Bill Narducci

Wells to Narducci: You're right -- I would never write 'who needs a film by an Islamic or a Jew?' I was giving Roman Catholics my calloused backhand when I wrote that line. It's only that Gibson's staunch conservatism, which to my eyes has allowed for a certain oblique support of the Vietnam War and, as I recall, certain homophobic sentiments picked up in the press, indicates an odd fit with the story about the last hours of one of the gentlest and most loving men in recorded history. However, I was completely turned around by the news he plans to shoot the film in Aramaic and ancient Latin and with no subtititles. I loved Scorsese's LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, and I was feeling skeptical and mistrustful about a Jesus movie coming from Gibson....but I've changed my tune.

"I was fascinated by your Word item about the new Mel Gibson project. To answer your question about whether anyone's ever heard conversations in Aramaic or Latin, well, no...which makes taking a course in or speaking the language an interesting challenge. But there has been a film in which the dialogue is totally in Latin -- Derek Jarman's SEBASTIANE (1976), a homoerotic picture set in Rome in the year 300 A.D. While Gibson doesn't intend PASSION to have subtitles, the little-seen SEBASTIANE did. A little ironic that Gibson, so often accused of homophobia, is here picking up a precedent from a gay filmmaking icon." -- New York-based Journalist

Role Playing

Alex Jacobs of Los Angeles was first to identify Friday's cast. They appeared together in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990). The missing cast members are Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan and Sean Connery as Capt. Marco Ramius.

Today's cast: Howard Duff, Don Taylor, Barry Fitzgerald, Dorothy Hart, Ted DeCorsia.

What's That Line?

Joseph Kay was first to identify Friday's dialogue. It's from Mike Nichols THE GRADUATE (1967), with Dustin Hoffman and William Daniels playing the scene. Nichols directed and Buck Henry and Calder Willingham wrote the screenplay.

A military commander has just been informed, in a dry, matter-of-fact way, that his rival is dead. He asks the messenger to repeat the news.

Messenger: [Military rival] is dead.
Military commander: [Quietly, stunned] Is that how one says it? As simply as that? [Name] is dead. Lord [last name] is dead! The soup is hot, the soup is cold, [name] is living, [name] is dead.

[He suddenly turns and begins to shout.]

Shake with terror when such words pass your lips, for fear they be untrue! And [name] cut out your tongue for the lie, if true! For your lifetime boast that you were honored to speak his name even in death! The dying of such a man must be shouted, screamed...it must echo back from the corners of the universe. [Last name] is dead! [Full name] of [major city] lives no more!

Name the film, the year of release, the director, the screenwriter(s), and the actor who played the military commander.