Rare Eastwood Book for Fans

I was happy to receive a rather rare book from America this morning. With approx. 60 books on Eastwood in my collection, ‘Directed by Clint Eastwood: Eighteen Films Analyzed’ (Hardcover) by professor of film studies Laurence F. Knapp is a very hard book to find at a reasonable price. Published by McFarland & Co Inc (20 Feb. 1997) and at 216 pages, the book is now long out of print. However, Amazon (U.S.) does currently have 3 used copies (all in ‘Good’ condition) listed, but prices for these do range from £47.30 to £79.95 and are more likely to be withdrawn library copies. If anyone is interested, it might be worth keeping a check on this title, as I was lucky enough to pick this particular copy up for an incredible 47p!

I wasn’t expecting too much for that price of course, but I have to say, it’s all very clean with pages white, crisp and still tightly bound. I couldn’t believe it actually. It was an ex library book, as there were a few stickers on the back and front, all of which came off cleanly when handled with a bit of TLC. As far as I’m aware, I don’t believe this book ever came with a dust cover or illustrated jacket, I certainly have never been able to find an image for it anywhere on the internet (and believe me I’ve looked high and low) – it is always represented by a generic or standard book icon. The book itself is written in a scholarly style consisting of formal study and analytical research, so it’s not particularly heavy on photographic material – so just be aware. Nevertheless, I’m glad to have finally found one and looking forward to giving it a full read. So if interesting to anyone – take a tip and keep em peeled… 

Rare High Plains Drifter / Joe Kidd Double Bill 1 Sheet Poster

I'm constantly amazed at what sometimes comes about from a general discussion among a couple of fellow Eastwood friends. After some 40 years of collecting Eastwood material, you tentatively begin to assume that you've pretty much covered most areas - until of course something new suddenly appears. For instance, I never had a clue that High Plains Drifter was released as a Double Bill with Joe Kidd in the U.S. - I'm still not sure if it was shown as a double bill in the UK? But last night myself, Davy Triumph and Steve Saragossi were discussing Eastwood double bills on Facebook when Davy mentioned this particular pairing. Thinking about it afterwards, it of course makes perfect sense - two westerns, both made by Universal - all completely logical...

Davy provided a picture from the U.S. Press book which enabled me to track down a picture of the Original 1 sheet poster - I carried out some digital restoration to it, in order to help show it in its best possible quality and as a result, I'm very pleased to add it here in the Archive. Thank you Davy and Steve - I guess there is always something new to be learnt in this business.

This poster has also been added to the dedicated High Plains Drifter page here

Clint wearing unused Tightrope Logo design T-shirt

I recently came across this image of the original sheet music for the T.G. Sheppard / Clint Eastwood single Make My Day. The novelty single was released to tie in with the media frenzy that came with the Fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact back in 1984. However, what makes this photo rather special is the T-shirt Clint is wearing. 

Clint’s next film was Tightrope, which must have been in pre-production stages when this photo was taken. Look closely at the Tightrope design logo and you will spot that the ‘r’ in Tightrope is in fact a gun. As far as I am aware this rare logo never made it to any of the later finished poster designs, making it a T-shirt I wouldn’t mind having at all… 

Clint and Maggie Eastwood donate 79 acres to Big Sur Land Trust

Gift will restore Carmel River Flood Plain. CARMEL, Calif. A land gift two decades in the making has come to fruition. On Tuesday, a ceremony was held to celebrate Clint and Maggie Eastwood's donation of 79 acres of their Odello East property to the Big Sur Land Trust. In 1997, the Eastwoods donated 49 acres of Odello East to the trust, but this second donation took a bit longer to organise.

"You think a gift would be easy. You'd think somebody would just snatch it up and say 'thank you,'" Eastwood said after the ceremony.

The gift will preserve the open space and restore the Carmel River Flood Plain. Big Sur Land Trust plans to remove the levee and add new flood channels. The project will benefit wildlife habitats in the lower Carmel River and Carmel River Lagoon.The trust will also put in a public trail going from Carmel River Beach all the way to Palo Corona Regional Park. Restoring the flood plain will also protect the Mission Fields neighbourhood and Rio Road area from flooding if the Central Coast ever sees a season with as much rainfall as it saw in 1995 and 1998.

"It took out the whole neighbourhood down there and across the intersection, millions of dollars in expenses," Eastwood said about past flooding.

As part of the deal, the California Department of Transportation has agreed to allow a section of Highway 1 to be replaced with a new causeway and bridge, allowing floodwaters to flow under Highway 1 and out to sea. Clint Eastwood and his former wife Maggie have a long history of protecting land from development on the Central Coast.

"That way, when I come back to it, it always looks the same," Eastwood said.

The Eastwoods sold hundreds of acres to the county in the Malpaso Creek deal, preserving the area as open space decades ago. The two then used funds from the sale to buy the Odello East property where there were plans to build a subdivision in the 1990s. Instead of moving forward with development plans, the Eastwoods have kept the land as is, while still making smart business decisions. Part of the reason it took almost 20 years to gift the second Odello parcel is because the water entitlements issue was being worked out at the state and local level. According to county supervisor Dave Potter, Malpaso Water Company was formed this year and Eastwood kept a portion of the water from Odello.

"I kept a certain amount for myself -- probably enough to cover the expenses," he said.

Potter said Malpaso Water Company will sell the water to people wanting to build on existing lots of record in the Carmel area. To do it, the State Water Resources Control Board had to give the okay, and Potter credits California Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird with pushing it through.

"He will still be making money, which is important, but then the property can go to the public, and he is compensated accordingly," Potter said.

Potter has helped work on the gift, which has involved multiple agencies, including the Monterey

County, California State Parks, CalTrans and the Big Sur Land Trust. Potter said Malpaso Water Company will also help people to build in places in which they haven't been able to build for years.

"If you look in Carmel, there are lots that have been sitting empty for years, and now all of a sudden there is a sold sign on it that's because they have water for it now," he said.

Potter has been working on the deal since his first term in office. He is leaving his seat as District 5 supervisor after 20 years of service and Odello will be part of the legacy he leaves.

"I am very proud of it. It is great to have something you can actually look back on and say, 'I participated in this,'" Potter said.

As with other gifts the Eastwoods have made, they will receive a tax break. According to newspaper articles written in the 1990s, the two received a $6 million write-off for the 49-acre gift. It is unclear what the break will be for the 79 acres. But for Eastwood, the real motivation for giving the land seems to be keeping the Central Coast as is.

"If I came along and saw a development there, that would break my heart, you know," Eastwood said.

Michael Cimino, Director of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate, Dies at 77

Michael Cimino, Director of ‘Thunderbolt and Lightfoot’, ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ Dies at 77 By DAVE ITZKOFF JULY 2, 2016, The New York Times

Michael Cimino, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker who earned a reputation as one of Hollywood’s boldest directors with the haunting 1978 Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter, and then all but squandered it two years later with Heaven’s Gate, died on Saturday. He was 77.

Eric Weissmann, a friend and former lawyer of Mr. Cimino’s, confirmed the death.He said Mr. Cimino’s body was found at his home in Los Angeles on Saturday by the police after friends were unable to reach him by phone. The cause of death had yet to be determined, Mr. Weissmann said.

The Deer Hunter, just the second feature directed by Mr. Cimino — a former painter, art student and commercial director — seemed to exemplify a decade’s worth of ground-breaking motion pictures by writers and directors who were given wide latitude to fulfil their visions by mainstream studios.

In the tradition of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973) and Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), The Deer Hunter cloaked a mood of existential uncertainty beneath layers of violence. The film, for which Mr. Cimino shared a story credit, chronicled a group of friends from a Pennsylvania town whose lives were scarred by their experiences in Vietnam. With a cast that included Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep and John Cazale, The Deer Hunter is perhaps best remembered for a nail-biting sequence in which Mr. De Niro and Mr. Walken’s characters, having been taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, are forced to play Russian roulette with one another.

The Deer Hunter received nine Oscar nominations and won five, including best picture (prevailing over “Coming Home,” another drama about the Vietnam War and its aftermath). Mr. Cimino, who won the Oscar for best director, seemed to have the film industry at his feet and the freedom to do what he wished. He had already leveraged the intense anticipation surrounding The Deer Hunter to reach a deal at United Artists to make a movie from a screenplay he had written, called The Johnson County War. It focused on a blood-soaked conflict between immigrant homesteaders, landed cattle ranchers, mercenaries and United States marshals in 1890s Wyoming. Mr. Cimino was given a budget of around $12 million and a timetable of about two and a half months to film a feature that the studio, with a schedule full of movies that were delivered late and over budget, had hoped to have ready in time for Christmas 1979.

Instead, Mr. Cimino’s film,renamed Heaven’s Gate, took almost a year and more than $40 million to make. Widely panned and a commercial failure, it entered theatres with a running time of more than three and a half hours and seemed to stand as a cautionary tale of an intemperate director permitted to indulge his every whim by timid executives who all but brought their studio to the ground. Though the reputations of Mr. Cimino and of Heaven’s Gate would improve to varying degrees, the saga surrounding the film ensured that Hollywood’s auteur period was effectively over. Variety, the industry trade publication, has cautioned that, where Mr. Cimino is concerned, many facts about his life are “shrouded in conflicting information.” Several sources give his birth date as Feb. 3, 1939, and he was raised on Long Island.

He attended college at Michigan State University, where, according to a Vanity Fair profile, he said he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in less than three years and went onto study at Yale, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1961 and a graduate degree two years later. After directing television commercials in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to work as a screen writer. He contributed to the scripts of the 1972 science-fiction film Silent Running and of  Magnum Force the 1973 action movie that starred Clint Eastwood in his second outing as Dirty Harry.

His first effort as a feature director was Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the 1974 comic crime caper starring Mr. Eastwood and Jeff Bridges as a pair of mismatched criminals. Mr. Cimino, who wrote the script, worked quickly — Mr. Eastwood was said to have never wanted to do more than three takes of any scene — and the movie was a hit, earning Mr. Bridges an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

The Deer Hunter drew widespread praise for Mr. Cimino. Vincent Canby, in The New York Times, called it “a big, awkward, crazily ambitious, sometimes breathtaking motion picture that comes as close to being a popular epic as any movie about this country since The Godfather.

But Mr. Cimino was criticized for playing fast and loose with factual details, both in the film and in his personal biography. Though Mr. Cimino seemed to suggest, in a 1978 Times interview, that he joined the Army in 1968 and was assigned as a medic to a Green Beret unit training in Texas, it emerged that he had enlisted in the Army Reserve in 1962, spending about six months on active duty, mostly at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

The making of Heaven’s Gate would quickly reduce these other controversies to mere footnotes. According to the memoir “Final Cut,” written by Steven Bach, a former United Artists executive who played a crucial role in courting Mr. Cimino to the studio, the director “was five days behind schedule and spent $900,000 for a minute and a half of usable film.” And that was after just first six days of shooting Heaven’s Gate in Montana.

“A week later,” Mr. Bach wrote, “he was 10 days and 15 pages behind. He had by then exposed two hours of film, less than three minutes of which he was willing to approve, at a rough cost of a million dollars per usable minute.”

Mr. Bach added: “The handwriting was on the wall from the beginning, and, even to the most denial-devoted insider, spelled ‘catastrophe.’ ”

Mr. Cimino went on to direct four more feature films: Year of the Dragon (1985), The Sicilian (1987), Desperate Hours (1990) and The Sunchaser (1996). He also contributed a short film to a 2007 anthology, To Each His Own Cinema, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival.

In a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair, he expressed hope that Heaven’s Gate would eventually be regarded as a masterpiece.

“Nobody lives without making mistakes,” Mr. Cimino said. “I never second-guess myself.” He added: “You can’t look back. I don’t believe in defeat. Everybody has bumps, but as Count Basie said, ‘it’s not how you handle the hills, it’s how you handle the valleys.’”

When “Heaven’s Gate” received a Criterion release on DVD and Blu-ray and presented at the New York Film Festival in 2013, Manohla Dargis reviewed it for The Times and suggested that a range of reactions was possible.

“The film’s scope, natural backdrops, massive sets, complex choreography and cinematography are seductive, at times stunning, and if you like watching swirling people and cameras, you may love it,” Ms. Dargis wrote.

She continued: “If you insist on strong narratives, white hats and black, uniform performances, audible dialogue and a happy ending, well, you will have history and consensus on your side.”

Mr. Weissmann said Mr. Cimino left behind no survivors.

Michael Cimino talks Clint and praises 'American Sniper' in his first Interview in 13 Years

Director Michael Cimino talks Clint and praises 'American Sniper' in his first Interview in 13 Years

By Seth Abramovitch - February 19, 2015

From genius auteur to Hollywood pariah in the space of two films: That is director Michael Cimino’s legacy to bear. Born in New York City in 1939 to a music-publisher father and costume-designer mother, the writer and Oscar-winning director and producer of the ground-breaking 1978 Vietnam War feature The Deer Hunter first made a name for himself on Madison Avenue, directing visually striking TV spots for the likes of Kodak, Pepsi and United Airlines. Cimino moved to Los Angeles in 1971, finding early success as a screenwriter with 1973’s Magnum Force, the sequel to Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. Impressed by the 33-year-old writer, Eastwood, then 41, agreed to produce and appear in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a heist script by Cimino that also would serve as his first directing gig. Thunderbolt was a hit, followed by Deer Hunter, with Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken playing soldiers captured by the North Vietnamese. The film took home five Oscars.

United Artists gave Cimino free rein on his next film, a sprawling Western set in 19th century Wyoming titled Heaven’s Gate. That 1980 feature would go down in infamy, ultimately bankrupting the studio with its ballooning $44 million budget, endless production delays (according to legend, Cimino shot more than 1 million feet of film), critical thrashing and stillborn reception at the box office. As film projects dried up (his last nonbomb was in 1985, with the Oliver Stone-penned Chinatown crime drama Year of the Dragon), Cimino withdrew, with rare public appearances suggesting he’d taken steps to alter his appearance, fuelling rumours that he had become a woman. Cimino, now 76, has not granted a major interview since 2002. A two-hour call with THR from his home in Los Angeles touched on everything from his profound admiration for Eastwood’s American Sniper (“Cancel the awards and give all the gold to Clint”) to his misunderstood politics (“In the first film, I was homophobic. Second film, I was a right-wing fascist. Third film, I was a left-wing Marxist, and fourth film, I was a racist”) to whispers about his personal life (unmarried, he has posited himself as a ladies’ man).

What did you think of American Sniper?

It’s Clint’s best work as a director. By far. For all the reasons that people like it. I don’t think other directors, including myself, could have gotten the same result given the same resources. Clint got an extraordinary result because he is an extraordinary man. There’s no pretension about him. He could be Bradley Cooper, he could be the character. Clint inspired Bradley by virtue of who he is, a principled guy. Clint has remained my friend for over 40 years.

How does Sniper compare with The Deer Hunter?

It’s not, in my view, much like Deer Hunter. Though it was characterized [as such], Sniper’s not a political movie. It’s not about the rightness or wrongness of the war. It deals with the impact of trauma on people who go to war and people who stay behind.

But both Deer Hunter and American Sniper confront the grief of war …

Yes, especially at the end, the way it ends with the flashback to the death of the real protagonist and the reaction of people with flags. It reminded me of [the ending of Deer Hunter, when De Niro, Meryl Streep and others break out and sing] “God Bless America,” which again was not meant to be a political statement. You know, when you’re overwhelmed with grief? You see women in Africa, Arabia, Indonesia wail. But in America, I think what people do is reach out for a common expression. The idea came from an experience in a restaurant in Pittsburgh, where people actually for no reason whatsoever broke into that song. It’s a way of relieving the grief and knitting back a family. I’d never seen that footage before in the ending of Sniper with the multitudes of people. It overwhelmed me.

Eastwood took a big chance on you with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, which you directed in 1974 with him and Jeff Bridges starring.

Huge. It was [Eastwood’s production company] Malpaso’s first picture. One of the great things about him is that he’s never been afraid to take a chance on new people. I remember we saw The Wild Bunch together in New York at a theater. It was myself, my producer, Joann Carelli, and Clint. We watched it and then walked down to P.J. Clarke’s and had a hamburger. No big deal. Jeff Bridges, the same way. I was unbelievably fortunate to have both of them in my first film. And never have I had such a good time making a movie. I would go to Clint every day and say, “Hey, boss, you happy with the dailies?” He said, “Michael, you just keep shooting what you’re shooting.” He said, “I’ve done so many films with great backgrounds, and it looks like it could have been shot in Burbank, but you have an eye for scope.” When I look back, given all of my experiences, it was by far the best. And I’m still collecting checks on that movie, if you can believe it. It’s still shown all over the world.

What was it like accepting the Oscar for Deer Hunter?

I feel very, very upset that when it came time for me to get an Academy Award that I didn’t especially thank Clint Eastwood. I never really had time to digest it. I was in the middle of preparing Heaven’s Gate, going back and forth to Montana. I was on the floor measuring somebody’s outfit at Western Costume Co., and the chauffeur had to come in and remind me, “Michael, you’ve got to go home and change.” I said, “For what?” I forgot that it was the awards that night. Clint should have been the first person I thanked, because without him, I would not have had the chance to make Deer Hunter. I took an ad out in the trades and tried to explain why I neglected to thank certain people and to make up for the shortfall of my dumb-ass acceptance speech. You know, you go out in front of thousands of people. And they are all in the business and all people who voted for you. It’s hard not to be moved.

How did you feel about the reaction to Deer Hunter?

It was shocking. I remember the very first screening. My assistant at that time was the daughter of the great English actor Robert Shaw, Penny Shaw. We were sitting in the back row in Westwood, and people were just driving up in a line of cars. Someone would run out and buy 12 tickets. Someone would run out and buy 20 tickets. This kept going and going. The screening began. Penny said, “Michael, you’ve got to come quick to the lobby.” The ladies room was filled with women who were weeping and wailing and breaking down. There were ex-vets who literally crawled up the aisle out of their seats. One letter I received in particular, I think it was from a black sergeant. He was a combat vet, and he said, “I don’t know, man, that was no movie. When those choppers came up the river, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, stood on end, I crawled out of the theater.”

But American Sniper is doing so well that I’m sure in certain parts of the country, in certain population mixes, there are similar emotional reactions. There’s got to be some extreme emotional reaction for the movie to be doing that well. It hasn’t happened since Deer Hunter. I mean, all the movies that have been made about war, from Platoon to the thing the girl made about the box …

The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

The Hurt Locker, right. (Laughs.) There’s been none of that.

So Platoon and The Hurt Locker fall short of that?

No, it’s just that they were made with a different sensibility. I mean, I love Oliver [Stone, Platoon director], we co-wrote Year of the Dragon together, and I think Oliver’s one of the most talented screenwriters in America, he and Jimmy Toback. It’s just that Clint has brought a special feeling to this, and those other films don’t do that because they are about one war. They’re about Vietnam or they’re about Iraq. Sniper could have been about any war in any country. And I believe that’s true of Deer Hunter. It’s about war, period.

But with Deer Hunter, you did the first film about the Vietnam War when people still hadn’t processed it. That had to turn out to be an anti-war film, no?

Every first-rate film about war is an anti-war movie. You think of All Quiet on the Western Front directed by Lewis Milestone. There’s nothing good that comes out of war. It’s simply hell on earth, and people survive and people don’t. Individuals emerge who become special, but it’s brutal. All one has to do is look at old footage of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II and think of the people beneath those bombs. It’s horrific. I think American Sniper is anti-war. It demonstrates the agony of the decision-making that goes on. When do I pull the trigger? Do I pull it on a 10-year-old kid picking up a bazooka or not? Do I shoot this woman or not? It’s agony.

Coming Home was up against Deer Hunter. Did you have any run-ins with Jane Fonda?

It was rather interesting because Coming Home was produced by Jane Fonda, who at that time had made films with Ho Chi Minh and was virulently anti-American. At the Academy Awards, she wouldn’t look at me because I had already been labelled a right-wing fascist. We were in the same elevator together. I wanted to say congratulations, but she turned away.

From what I know about the original script, it was honest, but I think because of her political stance at the time, she managed to turn it into American guilt. She’s the only one who had the power — she was the producer. The end of the movie is the American officer, Bruce Dern, who out of unspeakable guilt walks into the Pacific Ocean to drown himself. That’s not what the original script was. That character is so filled with rage that he strides the hillsides of Laurel Canyon onto the 101, as I recall, and he’s got a machine gun with him. He walks to the center of the freeway with oncoming traffic in both directions, and he’s just howling, just firing in a circle. Cars are blowing up all over the place. That was the real ending. You don’t have movie making to prove a point about your political conviction in American Sniper.

Have you spoken to her after that night?

Never had a chance to ever be in her presence since that night.

She apologised recently for that photograph of her with the tank.

Well, I don’t know how far that goes — an awful lot of guys died.

Your definitive cut for Heaven’s Gate made it to the screen and is available now. Are you happy with it?

I’m blown away. I’ve happily watched it several times now. And it just had overwhelming responses. It was at Venice [Film Festival] with a half-hour standing ovation, and New York Film Festival, same thing. At the Lumiere festival in France, the biggest film theater I know of in the world, 6,000 people filled it from top to bottom, gave a standing ovation. And no, I never needed vindication. I knew what I had done.

Is it you true that you changed the locks on the doors so that nobody could get in while you edited it?

No, I never put chained locks on any doors. That’s a silly story. I don’t personally like this idea of the attention that directors receive. Directors should be faceless.

But you didn’t need to parlay your “brand” into getting more films made like Quentin Tarantino.

Well, he’s a nut. He’s a great guy, funny as hell, I love him, but he’s totally crazy. Quentin knows every goddamned movie that’s ever been made because he worked in a video store. He can quote you lines from the most obscure movie that’s ever been made from 1920. And I have no idea what he’s talking about.

So what’s your life like these days?

It’s always a daily struggle to write. I’ve published a couple of short novels in France that I didn’t want to publish in English because I loved the characters too much to subject them to American critics who were not exactly favourable toward my work.

Are you still in a relationship with Joann Carelli?

Professional, yes. She has been involved with me in film production since the first movie.

There’s no one else?

No. You mean other girls? Oh yeah, of course, but I’m not gonna go into all that. I don’t want to get serious. Writing by nature is a fairly solitary occupation. I mean, I’ve got a room full of scripts. They go to the ceiling. I can’t even hardly walk into it anymore. Most are original, and there are some adaptations like Man’s Fate.

You spoke of Man’s Fate for your last interview, 13 years ago. Have you been avoiding the media?

In America, yes. I won’t do anything in America. There have been so many false things written about me by people who don’t know me.

Let’s set the record on whether you are transitioning between genders.

What?! Oh please. I don’t even want to go there, OK? I don’t know what that bullshit is all about. It’s worse than a rumor, it’s personal assassination. If you can’t stop somebody from working and making movies that you hate, what’s the next best thing? Destroy them personally.

But the culture has come around in the past couple of years where it’s not considered an insult.

What’s not an insult? No, look, it’s absurd. I don’t want to really go into it. It’s stupid how these things get going. But it seems to me that I am a fount of fodder. Because people don’t see me around a lot, I’m the source of all sorts of rumor. Look at the state of the media in America.

What do you see when you look at it? 

Do you think the Patriots deflated their balls?

Yes, probably. Am I naive? What do you think?

There was an awful lot made about it, wasn’t there? (Sighs.) Aaron Hernandez, who played for the Patriots in the last Super Bowl, is up for murder. And after that, two more murders. It seems to me that’s more of an issue than a pound or two in a ball. And besides which, if a ball is deflated when you kick it, it’s not going to go as far. And if you throw it, it’s not going to go as far.

So you think it’s a media conspiracy?

No, I don’t know what it is. I feel like I’m talking to Hillary Clinton talking about Benghazi! All you get is bullshit. I think Clint should be president.

Sofia Coppola's 'Beguiled' remake headed for Louisiana

Sofia Coppola's Universal-backed remake of the 1971 Civil War drama "The Beguiled" appears headed for a Louisiana shoot this fall. The film, which Coppola will write and direct, filed paperwork this week with the state film office revealing its intention to shoot in-state.

Kirsten Dunst, Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning are reportedly in talks to star in the project, about an injured Union soldier who, stranded behind enemy lines, seeks refuge in a Mississippi boarding school filled with initially wary -- and then beguiled -- Southern belles.

The original film, based on the 1966 Thomas P. Cullinan novel "A Painted Devil," starred Clint Eastwood and was directed by Don Siegel. It hasn't been announced who will play the Eastwood character in the new version.

It's unclear exactly where Coppola's "Beguiled" will shoot, but the original was shot at the Ashland-Belle Helene House, on the banks of the Mississippi River in Darrow, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The film's state filing shows the film expects to be in pre-production through September and October, suggesting a November-December shoot.

Coppola's "Beguiled" will be shot on a reported estimated budget of $10.5 million. Some $7.4 million of that will be spent in Louisiana, including $2.5 million on 225 temporary in-state jobs.