Showbiz: Director remembers the real Alamo

Movie director Ron Howard is planning an epic movie based on the Battle of the Alamo, in which a group of besieged Texans battled a Mexican army to the death.

The film, to be penned by noted screenwriter John Sayles, will be the first major remake of the classic tale last depicted on film in a John Wayne star vehicle in 1960.

But in contrast to that patriotic rendering of the story, the new version will be a historically authentic account of the 13-day siege which ended with the death of folk hero Davy Crockett and everyone else in the compound, and an estimated 600 Mexican troops.

No time frame or budget for the production have been disclosed, but insiders say the production could be on the scale of another historical epic, Pearl Harbor, which cost a reported $US125 million ($309 million).

* * *

Winning the lead role of Anakin Skywalker in the next two Star Wars prequels has left newcomer Hayden Christensen humbled.

"I still live with my folks, who make me mow the grass and take the garbage out," he told People magazine.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones is due out next year.

Christensen says every nuance on the set was surreal.

"The outfit and the cloak? Mind-boggling. Meeting R2-D2? An out-of-body experience. The light sabre? A thrill," said Christensen, who also plays Kevin Kline's son in the new film Life as a House.

* * *

When director Michael Stevens wanted a Western look for his new film, he remembered Pyramid Lake, the desert lake north of Reno used by his grandfather for The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Stevens, who claims film-makers have lost the art of using landscapes for dramatic intensity, says he contrasts the beauty of the desert with urban Reno in Sin, a thriller starring Gary Oldman.

"What inspires me is the landscape," he said. "Everything here has size and cinematic weight."

His grandfather, George Stevens, used Pyramid Lake as a backdrop to his star-studded Biblical spectacular in 1965.

* * *

Quote: "The very phrase 'British film industry' depresses me. I don't think we've got a film industry and never have had. We've been making bloody awful films." - Emma Thompson.