Spencer Lamm, a producer at the Wachowski Brothers' Redpill Productions, spoke on Friday about the forthcoming Matrix sequels, and explained why episodes two and three will be shot back to back.
"[Andy and Larry Wachowski] love the idea of action drawing you on to [where] the stakes get raised", Lamm explained. "They're also really conscious of a two-hour frame we all plug in to.
"They played with the genre conventions... in The Matrix and they now want to take that a little bit further and play with the whole structure of the story. You can't do that in a two-hour story, but if you [release the sequels] together you can play with the structure and totally screw with the audience."
The plan is to release the second movie at the beginning of the summer and the third movie at the end of the summer.
"It's going to be an Empire Strikes Back-type cliffhanger" says Lamm "Maybe a little bit more amped because the whole thing is going to rest on the fact that when you see them both it will be a lot bigger bang."
The Wachowskis are apparently still in negotiations with Warner Bros, and haven't yet written the sequel scripts, so a 2001 release seems doubtful. What does appear certain is that both Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss will be back for the next two films.
The absence of scripts also means that plot details remain hazy, but Lamm said he would be shocked if Zion - the secret human city - did not feature. He also dismissed an early plot rumour which has Keanu Reeves's character Neo facing an assassin with similar matrix manipulating abilities to his own, but said that the bad men in black were only a hint of things to come.
Hugh gets Mobbed
Although Hugh Grant's authenticity as a wannabe mafia mobster is far from crucial in Mickey Blue Eyes, Grant has told Entertainment Weekly how carefully he researched his role as an art auctioneer caught up in his prospective father-in-law's Mafia business.
During pre-production, Grant got a tip from Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell, who had recently shot Donnie Brasco, to talk to a good friend of the director's, Rocco the Butcher.
Rocco then introduced Grant, Liz Hurley (who co-produced Mickey Blue Eyes), and director Kelly Makin to another member of the family called Vinnie Seven Heads.
Through these charmingly named contacts, the trio got to know many of the New York mafiosi, and got along quite well, thanks to Hurley.
''Elizabeth did a lot of heavy flirting with them," Grant explains, and they did a lot of heavy flirting with her. I sort of sat in a corner - they weren't particularly interested in me. But Elizabeth they adored, and she became their princess.''
Grant's Mob connections did not end in pre-production. Heads of the Mafia would very often sit in chairs behind Makin as he worked, and one even asked the understandably nervous director to give his daughter a part. Her father was so delighted with her walk-on role that he promised to return the favour, but Makin's request - to make the film number one at the box office - was evidently beyond the capabilities of the Family: it failed to knock Sixth Sense off its top spot this weekend.
Get into Marilyn's wardrobe
Ever fancied wearing that skin-tight dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang Happy Birthday Mr President to John F Kennedy? Well, now's your chance - if you have a couple of hundred thousand dollars to spare.
Marilyn Monroe's personal property, including that dress, which was hand-sewn with more than 6,000 beads, will be auctioned in New York this autumn.
Also in the collection, which has been in storage since her death in 1962 is the ring with 35 diamonds that she received from Joe DiMaggio on their wedding day, a white baby grand piano, two Golden Globe awards, her cookbooks, her 1956 California driver's license, a gold Magnavox TV set, and scripts from Something's Got to Give, Misfits and Let's Make Love, complete with her hand-written annotations.
The items will be displayed at Christie's in London from 18-22 September before returning to New York for the auction on 27-28 October.
Stars talk to the Prince
Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt are among a number of Hollywood stars who will appear in a television documentary about the paparazzi, made by Prince Edward, and his production company Ardent.
Casting couch
• Christopher Lee is in final negotiations to play Saruman in Peter Jackson's first instalment of The Lord of the Rings.
• Elizabeth Hurley will join Sean Penn in Kathryn Bigelow's new film The Weight of the Water. Based on the bestselling novel by Anita Shreve, the film centres on two couples on a boat trip to a Scandinavian island. One member of the group is a journalist investigating a murder that took place a century before.
• Mel Gibson will star in an offbeat romantic comedy, What Women Want. Gibson will play a chauvinistic executive who acquires the ability to hear what every woman he meets is really thinking. Paramount is said to be interested in Helen Hunt and Tea Leoni to play opposite.
• Helen Hunt will star in Nice, a black comedy about a woman who decides it may be easier to bury boring boyfriends rather than dump them.
