The View from Abroad: Screen Daily in 60 Seconds

Posted Mar 10th 2006 8:00PM

Notable among American films debuting in foreign territories this weekend are The Pink Panther, bowing on hundreds of screen across France, Germany, and Australia, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is moving on to China after a tremendously successful release in Japan. Poor Tristan Isolde, meanwhile, will stagger into Spain and New Zealand, hoping that somewhere on earth, people won't have heard how bad it is.

Catalina Sandino Moreno, an Oscar nominee for Maria Full of Grace, will lead an multi-national cast in The Heart Of The Earth, a Spanish-UK-Portugal co-production set to begin shooting in Spain and Portugal later this month. The story is yet another of those inspired-by-real-events, this one about an uprising at a British-owned silver mine in 18th century Spain. Among Moreno's costars will be Brits Sienna Guillory and Hugh Dancy, as well as Cuba's Jorge Perugorría.

One of the increasingly rare children's book adaptation not being done by Walden Media is Aussie Unjoo Moon's version of The Wicked, Wicked Ladies In The Haunted House. Written by Pulitzer-winner Mary Close, the book, aimed at a grade-school audience, is "a suspenseful ghost story cum mystery in moody, atmospheric prose that blends dark magic and a dry wit occasionally reminiscent of Roald Dahl." Moon hopes that the film will be shot by Oscar winning Memoirs of a Geisha lensman Dion Beebe, to whom she happens to be married.

Canada's own Walk of Fame is exploding with stars: it was announced recently that Pamela Anderson, Brendan Fraser, Eugene Levy and Robert Goulet are 2006's honorees, and will be inducted at a June ceremony. Surely Eugene Levey never imagined he's be lucky enough to one day share a stage with both Pam Anderson AND Robert Goulet.

'Fone Finds