Films going into production: CELLAR...

Films going into production: CELLAR DWELLER (Dove Corporation Ltd.). Shooting in Rome. Horror comedy concerning a comic book artist whose wild imagination comes to life in the form of a horrific presence located in the basement of his gothic mansion. Producer Bob Wynn. Director John Buechler. Screenwriter Don Mancini. Stars Deborah Mullowney, Pamela Bellwood, Vince Edwards, Jeffrey Combs and Yvonne De Carlo. Distributor Empire. Late ’87 release.

EMPIRE OF THE SUN (Warner Bros.). Shooting in Shanghai and London. Steven Spielberg directs from J. G. Ballard’s novel about an English schoolboy who is interned (as Ballard himself was) in a World War II Japanese war camp. Executive producer Robert Shapiro. Producer/director Spielberg. Screenwriters Tom Stoppard and Menno Meyjes. Stars John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Nigel Havers and Christian Bale. Late ’87 release.

REVENGE OF THE NERDS II (NERDS IN PARADISE) (Interscope Communications Productions). Shooting in Fort Lauderdale. Those bespectacled buffoons are back; the setting this time is a Lauderdale frat convention where they lock horn-rims with their arch rival frat foes the Alphas. Executive producer Joe Roth. Producers Ted Field, Robert Cort and Peter Bart. Director Roth. Screenwriters Dan Guntzelman and Steve Marshall. Stars Robert Carradine, Curtis Armstrong, Timothy Busfield and Larry B. Scott. Distributor 20th Century Fox. Summer release.

SUSPECT (Tri-Star). Shooting in Washington. Thriller with Cher portraying an attorney alongside Dennis Quaid from director Peter Yates. Executive producer John Veitch. Producer Dan Sherkow. Director Yates. Screenwriter Eric Roth. Release date undetermined.