Chances are better than average when you workshop a screenplay at the one of Sundance’s yearly director and screen writing labs that eventually things will pan out and your passion project will get made. How’s this for perseverance -Variety reports that final casting has been completed for Derick and Steven Martini’s Lymelife (a 2001-Sundance lab project that first came to my attention while watching some screener at Sundance that showed the lab process in intimate detail – sorta like the workshopping DVD extra on Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs). The trade announced that the long attached Alec Baldwin is confirmed to star in the dramedy and Emma Roberts (Nancy Drew) is taking on her first role outside the usual studio-made flicks. Others to join or already confirmed a while back are Cynthia Nixon, Rory and Kieran Culkin, Jill Hennessy and Timothy Hutton. Shooting beings next week in Jersey.
Set in late ’70s Long Island, the coming-of-age story follows two
families who fall apart when precarious relationships, real estate
problems and Lyme disease converge in the heart of suburbia.
Martin Scorsese and Leonard Loventhal exec produce the project, and
Baldwin is producing alongside Jon Cornick, Barbara De Fina, Angela
Somerville and Michele Tayler. I guess we can expect the royal red carpet treatment at the 09′ edition of the festival. In the meantime, here is a 1999 Moviemaker article that explains how the brothers got the chance to meet up and then hook up with Marty Scorsese.