Swimming in the initial box office glory...

Swimming in the initial box office glory of “Sea of Love,” Al Pacino is in discussions to star in “Damian,” the true story of a learning-impaired man befriended by students at an Ivy League school. William Mastrosimone wrote the screenplay; production is targeted for early 1990 via producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters at Warner Bros. . . .

Timothy Dalton and Nastassja Kinski star in the 17th-Century saga, “The King’s Whore,” filming in France in November. The historical drama, written by Frederic Raphael, centers on how an impoverished noblewoman captures the heart of a wealthy nobleman. Wieland-Schulz Keil produces and Austrian Axel Corti directs. . . .

Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren square off in Indie Prod./Carolco’s “Universal Soldiers,” a late fall start. The futuristic saga pits a flesh and blood warrior (Van Damme) against a robot (Lundgren) designed as the perfect fighting machine. Leslie Boehn and Richard Rothstein wrote the screenplay that Craig Baumgarten and Gary Adelson produce for Tri-Star. . . .

TV soap star Emma Samms breaks bread with Cheech Marin in Unity Pictures’ “Shrimp on the Barbie,” filming next month in New Zealand. Michael Gottlieb directs the fish out of water comedy, about the opening of the first Mexican restaurant in Australia. Ben Efraim produces the Grant Morris screenplay. . . .

MCEG’s “Convicts,” the long-delayed continuation of writer Horton Foote’s “Texas” family anthology (which includes “On Valentine’s Day”), goes before the cameras next month. Robert Duvall stars as the owner of a prison work farm whose obsession with death is observed and conveyed to a boy who becomes his charge. Lukas Haas and James Earl Jones co-star for director Peter Masterson. Sterling VanWaggenen produces. . . .

Documentarian Errol Morris (“The Thin Blue Line”) makes his dramatic feature debut with Northfork Production’s “Dark Wind” early next year in Santa Fe. It’s based on the novel by Tony Hillerman, which is part of his series about Native American Indian detective Jim Chee, who combines mystic and modern methods to solve a murder. Robert Redford is executive producer. . . .

Casting Around: Kevin Bacon, Billy Baldwin and Oliver Platt complete the cast of Columbia’s “Flatliners,” writer Peter Filardi’s dark yarn of five medical students exploring clinical death and resurrection. Kiefer Sutherland and Julia Roberts star for director Joel Schumacher. . . . Keith Carradine joins the cast of UA’s black comedy, “Daddy’s Dying,” as a bemused gas station owner who watches a family squabble over a will. Beau Bridges, Judge Reinhold and Beverly D’Angelo co-star for director Jack Fisk. . . . Lindsay Crouse plays an FBI agent and Elias Koteas is criminal Mickey Rourke’s brother in Pathe’s “The Desperate Hours.” Michael Cimino writes and directs new adaptation of Joseph Hayes’ play.