By Damara Popoola
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 8/19/07 — A race to the box office by two films about the famed 1976 blind wine tasting in Paris that put Napa Valley on the map appears to have a winner. “Bottle Shock,” about the winery family of the Napa White that beat the best of the French, looks to be many months ahead of “Judgment of Paris,” about the Napa Red that won the taste test.
Despite current jousting in the press that made headlines in America and Europe, “Bottle Shock” is currently being filmed in Napa with a January release target, while “Judgment” is wrapping its screenplay. No director or cast has been announced for the latter.
“Bottle Shock,” with Alan Rickman (“Harry Potter) as a charming British wine expert and Bill Pullman (“Independence Day”) as the down-on-his-luck vineyard owner, has rounded out its cast with the addition of Dennis Farina (“Snatch”), Miguel Sandoval (“ER”) and Bradley Whitford (“West Wing”). They join Rachael Taylor (“Transformers”), Freddy Rodriguez (“Six Feet Under”) and Chris Pine.
The film from director Randall Miller dramatizes the lives of Jim (Pullman) and Bo Barrett (Pine) of Chateau Montelena who won the top prize for their Chardonnay. It centers on the father-son interpersonal relationship, and the event that changed their relationship to each other and the world around them. Although the Barretts did not commission the film, they strongly support the filmmakers. “We make wine, not movies,” they say.
The script was originally written by Ross Schwartz in 2004, and rewritten by director Randall Miller and writing partner Jody Savin. It’s being filmed on location at Chateau Montelena, the Buena Vista vineyards and Kunde Vineyards.
The film is aiming at a January 2008 Sundance Film Fest premiere.
Inspired by a true story, this film portrays how California earned its renowned spot in the minds of international wine connoisseurs. It is set in 1976, when the French challenged the California wines to a “blind taste test,” an event that has come to be known as the Judgment of Paris. The French never imagined anything other than another confirmation of the supremacy of their wine. When the California wines won, it was a huge upset in France and the seminal moment for birth of the California wines as we know them today.
The red wine that won the tasting, Stag’s Leap is at the root of the film “Judgment in Paris,” based on the 2006 book by the man who conducted the tasting, journalist George Taber and the screenplay is being penned by Robert Mark Kamen (“Gladiator” plus the “Karate Kid” and “Transporter” films), who also owns a vineyard in Sonoma.
Kamen told the San Francisco Chronicle that he is undeterred by “Bottle Shock’s” head start and called that that film a “settling of scores” between the neighboring vineyards central characters. Kamen said “We’re making a much larger picture. It’s not as if ‘The Godfather’ was made and nobody ever made another Mafia movie after that.”
The “Judgement” camp also implied they were the official film, yet of course, historical events are viewed subjectively and thus have no official film.
If the dueling Wyatt Earp movies of 1994 or the battling Truman Capote films of 2005/06 are any indication, judgment may rule against the second to market. “Tombstone” with Kurt Russell had a budget of $25 million and made $56 million, while the later, larger picture starring Kevin Costner “Wyatt Earp” cost $63 mil and made back $25 in U.S. box office. First out of the gate “Capote” grossed $28 million while “Infamous” came out later and grossed a likewise infamous $1 million.