PRODUCTION UPDATE



  Twenty-five-year-old Josh Evans follows his Inside the Gold Mine with the genre-busting Glam, a parable about a dreamer from the Midwest who takes Hollywood by storm until he goes for a mobster's girl. Evans says he set out to skewer conventional perceptions of glamour, art, fame, and power. Billy McNamara - Copy Cat's baby-faced killer - plays Sonny Day, an elusive writer and possible prophet who may actually be scripting the movie we're watching. "He says nothing and he does nothing but it's clear he has some answers, and everyone falls over themselves trying to get them," says Evans. Tony Danza's the mob thug, Natasha Wagner's the girl, and Frank Whaley's Sonny's desperate cousin. Glam's cast also includes Valerie Kaprisky, Jon Cryer, and Ali MacGraw, Evans' mother (his father is producer Robert Evans).

Evans grew up in L.A. and side-stepped into filmmaking as an actor, most notably as Tom Cruise's hippie kid brother in Born on the Fourth of July and John Lithgow's psycho sidekick in Ricochet. He made Goldmine on the cheap with Cineville, the six-year-old indie production company best known for Gas Food Lodging, and the film did well enough at the Seattle and Montreal festivals for the company to back Glam to the tune of a reported seven figures. Glam producer Zachary Matz, whose association with Cineville began with its first film, Delusion, and who most recently produced the company's French Exit, says Glam was financed by banking Storm Entertainment's foreign presale contracts (based on cast commitment) for most Cineville projects. "It's a cookie-cutter arrangement where we can do ten films a year," Matz says. "What Storm brings to the party is turn-key collateral with relatively little hassle through Michael Heuser's relationships in overseas markets; Cineville adds value through cast to what would otherwise be 'risky' projects because we have a good track record with first- and second-time directors."

The 35mm Glam shot all over L.A. for five weeks in May and June. Evans locked picture in July and flew to Europe to work on Glam's score with German techno/ambient music artists Mouse on Mars; Matz says a soundtrack deal with a major independent record label is already in place. Although Cineville recently established a domestic distribution arm scheduled to kick off this fall with French Exit and Cafe Society, Matz says Glam's domestic rights will be offered on the festival circuit; Storm is handling foreign sales.

Cast: William McNamara, Frank Whaley, Natasha Wagner, Valerie Kaprisky, Tony Danza, Jon Cryer, Ali MacGraw. Crew: Producers, Zachary Matz, Carl Colpaert, Josh Evans; Executive Producers, H. Michael Heuser, Tom Garvin; Screenwriters, Evans and Uri Zighelboim; Director, Evans; Cinematographer, Fernando Arguelles; Production Designer, Karin Haase. Contact: Zachary Matz, Filmsmith, c/o Cineville, Inc., 225 Santa Monica Blvd., 7th floor, Santa Monica, California 90401. Tel: (310) 260-8866, Fax: (310) 260-8867.



 
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