Grey Owl

Genre: Biography/Drama.

Studio: Unknown.
Production Company: 7ieme Art.

Project Phase: In the Can.

Who's In It: Pierce Brosnan (The Grey Owl); Annie Gallipeau (Anahareo); Graham Greene.
Who's Making It: Richard Attenborough(Director); William Nicholson (Screenwriter); Jake Eberts, Claude Leger, Richard Attenborough (Producers); Anthony Pratt (Production Designer); Renee April (Costume Designer).

Premise: Unknown.

Release Date: Unknown.

Comments: Unknown.

Rumors: Unknown.

Scoop Feedback:

[Page draft submitted by 'Deadpool']

April 17, 1998... Shooting apparently began 3 days ago in Montreal. [Info repoerted by 'Plateau14' and 'Deadpool'.]

Brosnan agreed to star in this project in late October of 1997. The $30 million film is based on a true story about a fur trapper who lived with the Canadian Ojibway Indians in the 1930s and who fell in love with a Mohawk girl named Anahareo. A Reuters news article from last October said Attenborough had been fascinated by Grey Owl since he and his brother David (the famous anthropologist) were boys in London who stood in line for hours to hear the fur trapper speak.

Attenbouough also said his story was "the most marvelous love story between a man in his late 40s and a girl in her 20s. He was this hunter who lived to kill animals...and she persuaded him that the world wouldn't survive if he and others kept at it this way. Then the world took over, and the pressures of fame, ego, everything else got in the way." The director claims that Grey Owl (his Indian-given name) was the first well-known environmentalist celebrity.

"I offered Pierce the part," the acclaimed director said, "four years ago and, for various scheduling reasons, he couldn't do it." Attenbouough said he always had Brosnan in mind for the role. The film will be produced by Jake Eberts' Allied Filmmakers (in partnership with Largo Entertainment). Eberts was the executive producer of Dances with Wolves, Driving Miss Daisy and A River Runs Through It. He has previously worked with Attenborough in the Oscar-winning film Gandhi.

The previously-unknown 19-year-old Native American actress Annie Gallipean will play Grey Owl's love interest, Anahareo. [A cool scoop submitted by our friend William Wilson.]

[Additional thanks to 'klabowe' for helping to contribute to this page.]

July 1, 1998... Our scooper tells us about someone they know who was supposed to work on the film two years ago. At that time the picture was going to star Daniel Day-Lewis, but then he couldn't do it, so the producers wanted Kevin Kline. That was about the same time that Kline finished Fierce Creatures. [Scoop from 'Dreams'.]

We received this tidbit from another scooper: "I'm a student at University of Montreal, and I can tell you that a production crew for Grey Owl has been shooting all week-end here at the university (at the Pavillon principal - principal building with the famous tower). There are trucks, trailers and buses all around with 'Grey Owl' signs in the windows. I didn't see Brosnan, Attenborough or any of the cast tough, since they appeared to shoot interiors." [Scoop from Éric Bélanger.]

TV reports from the set have been seen all over Canada. This Toronto scooper tell us:

"I saw an entertainment report on one of the Canadian networks this weekend about the Grey Owl project. I don't recall much more than what is on the Coming Attractions website, except to say that Grey Owl was an Englishman who posed as an indian until he was found out. At that point, he apparently lost all credibility, which Richard Attenborough thought was a shame. The report also showed Pierce Brosnan wearing long pigtails." [Sent in by Peter Taylor - Sun Canada Mgr. Finance Projects.]

And yet another scooper writes to us this: "I'm not sure if you've heard about the Tom Green photo yet. In case you haven't, it was on the over of the Ottawa Sun a couple of weeks ago, and is in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER last week (p 12). Doesn't have much to do with the actual movie, but I laughed." [Sent in by ' Zeesy'.]

Finally this fellow boils down the entire movie in three sentences: "Pierce Bronsan play Grey Owl. He plays a Native American who has pigtails. Is now filming near Wakefield, Quebec May 30, 1998." It may not be grammatically correct, but we'll take it nonetheless. [Sent in by our good buddy Dustin Lathrop.]

Got Any Info on this Project?

Please send it to Coming Attractions' Montreal Spy, DeadPool.



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