Second monarch movie in the works

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

A California film company has plans to make another Kamehameha feature film, this one starring a Hawaiian actor who is yet to be named.

The filmmakers say they want to start production in October on O'ahu, for a movie that would be released in summer 2003.

In June, The Rock (real name, Dwayne Johnson), a wrestler who has emerged as a Hollywood action picture star, said he would play the king for Columbia Pictures in a still-untitled version, from a screenplay by former Maui resident Greg Poirier. The casting of Johnson, who is part-Samoan, caused some in the Hawaiian community to raise their eyebrows.

North Shore Pictures Entertainment Inc. of Glendale, Calif., is playing up its differences from the Columbia Pictures project. It says its movie will be titled "Kamehameha," with a budget of $35 million to $45 million.

"We are looking at two actors of Hawaiian descent who will make a great Kamehameha," said Gary German, a principal with North Shore Pictures. "It would be a great taboo for the part of Kamehameha to go to a nationality that was a fierce enemy of the Hawaiians during that time."

German and Peter Kahalani, who is producing from a screenplay based on Kahalani's novel, are in Hawai'i now to scout and do some networking.

The script will present "Kamehameha as a negotiator and a war strategist, focusing on his younger years and not his love life," said Kahalani.

Local casting for extras is planned for mid-August. Principal photography will be on O'ahu, but second-unit work is planned on Maui and the Big Island.

A prequel to "Kamehameha" also will be developed, said Kahalani, from his unpublished novel. He has copyrighted three names for the project: "Hawai'i," "The Dolphin King" and "Waikiki."