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NEW YORK --- Director
John Avildsen has landed Jason Raize, star
of the
Broadway hit "The Lion King," to topline
an untitled film he'll shoot
this summer about New Jersey high school
kids who complete in annual
fashion competitions between local
schools.
Raize, the 22-year-old actor who opened
the Broadway run as Simba, will
take a short leave from his starring role
to make his feature debut and
then return in the fall. A theater
veteran, he has starred in the
national company of "Jesus Christ
Superstar" and regional companies of
"Gypsy" and "The King and I."
The film is being produced by Gene
Kirkwood and Norman Stephens, who
said they have financing together and will
set up distribution during
the shoot.
Avildsen, the director of such films as
"Rocky" and "The Karate Kid,"
said he was attracted to the underdog
nature consistent with the
fashion film. "I'm calling it the untitled
'Romeo and Juliet' in
Hoboken," the director said. "It's kids
and their dreams to be in the
fashion industry. There are these modeling
clubs where kids who are not
affluent get a sense of worth and
self-esteem trying to realize their
dreams of breaking out of their
eight-block world by making their own
clothes or modeling them."
Raize plays an aspiring Hispanic model who
bonds with an Italian girl
who works in her father's tailor shop and
puts together her own
clothing creations. The wannabe model has
romantic designs on the girl,
even though both families don't approve of
the romance because of the
ethnic differences. The script is by
Virginia Clark and Marjorie Short.
"When we were looking for a new Hispanic
face, we saw Jason's 'Lion
King' reviews and when we saw the show, he
just lit the place up," said
Avildsen, who cast Raize that night and
now is looking for the girl
character and a title for the film.
Raize said he was eager to move into film,
but that he is not yet ready
to leave the lion's den permanently. "The
whole 'Lion King' experience
has been overwhelming, starting with
Michael Eisner sitting there at
the first run-through with his jaw on the
floor as (director) Julie
Taymor laid out what we were going to do,"
Raize said.
"Disney signed me to quite a long contract
and they're doing me a favor
letting me out temporarily to do this
film. Doing the show each night
has become more fun because there was so
much information to process,
so much practice we needed. Now that we're
relaxed and the pressure's
off, we're actually improving."
Raize, who called Simba a dream role, said
he wasn't looking for
outside work, but found a kinship between
the film's storyline and his
own Broadway quest. "I grew up on top of a
mountain in the Catskills,
where my parents didn't let me watch TV
and we didn't see theater,"
Raize said. "I didn't have any real access
to films, TV or pop culture
until I was 16. When this became a dream,
I went after it as hard as I
could. I saw a lot of that in the
characters in this film."
Raize was repped by Harry Gold and Doreen
Eliassen of Gold, Marshak,
Liedtke.
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