SNIPPETS 

Spielberg and Hanks cut costs
Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic Saving Private Ryan is the story of a U.S. Army Squad, led by Hanks’ Miller, that goes behind enemy lines to rescue Matt Damon’s Ryan. But the missing private has become a celebrity back home, where Mrs. Ryan has already grieved the loss of her three other soldier sons, and the squad feels they are more on a PR mission than a military assignment. Hanks plays the squad leader, and is mighty thrilled about the role since it was his boyhood dream to play a soldier in a World War II film. In fact, he and Spielberg, to keep costs down, waived their fees in lieu of sifnificant cuts of the box-office gross. As Hanks said, “I would do this role for free,” and he actually is. This $60 million production is Spielberg’s third film as a director in less than two years. He recently completed the editing for Amistad.

Battle of space rocks
A comet might not have collided with the earth for at least 65 million years, but two space rocks are hurtling towards next summer’s box-office. Though the plots of DreamWorks’ Deep Impact and Disney’s Armageddon sound similar, the only difference being the former involves a meteor, and the latter an asteroid, each director claims to be taking an entirely different approach. Armageddon director Michael Bay (who earlier directed The Rock), has got the guy who did the special effects for Twister. Bruce Willis plays the lead in Armageddon, the budget of which is $100 million. Deep Impact stars Tea Leoni, the action diva, in the lead and is directed by Mimi Leder (The Peacemaker). According to her, this $75 million film, co-starring Robert Duvall, Jon Favreau and Ron Eldrad, is more “character-driven.” Let’s see who comes out tops.