More stars shooting movies in Hawai'i

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

'The Untitled John Hamburg Project'

Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston star in "The Untitled John Hamburg Project," which starts a week of filming tomorrow.

Plot: Stiller plays risk-averse Reuben Feffer, whose wife (Debra Messing) dumps him on their honeymoon for a scuba instructor (Hank Azaria); humiliated but not totally out of it, he has a chance meeting with a friend from middle-school. Polly Prince (Aniston) helps him find some new joy in life.

The Universal Pictures-Jersey Films release was written and directed by Hamburg, who worked with Stiller on the "Meet the Parents" and "Zoolander."

Stiller, Aniston and co-stars Messing ("Will and Grace") and Azaria ("Godzilla," "The Birdcage," "Mad About You") will be here; others in the cast include Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bryan Brown, Jsu Garcia and Alec Baldwin.

Even the production team on this film has star appeal: Danny DeVito heads up a trio including Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher.

'Fifty First Kisses'

A romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, "Fifty First Kisses," still has its filming schedule pending, but it's expected to roll within weeks. Sandler has been in Hawai'i on and off ever since his Honolulu scenes for "Punch Drunk Love." Seems the island locations may have been an incentive to bring him back for another film, and as producer, he is calling the shots. This one reunites Sandler and Barrymore for the first time since "The Wedding Singer" (1998).

Plotline: A man (Sandler) falls in love with a woman (Barrymore), following what he considers an unforgettable encounter, only to find that she suffers from severe short-term memory loss and continuously has no clue who he is. That makes his mission to get her to fall in love again and again, every day.

The Columbia Pictures release co-stars Drew Barrymore ("Charlie's Angels"). It's directed by Peter Segal and produced by Sandler; screenplay by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, George Wing.