Ryder Joins Sandler in Deeds

February 15, 2001 -- Adam Sandler, who played the spawn of Satan in the underperforming Little Nicky, and Winona Ryder, who battled the devil in the bomb Lost Souls, are hoping that good Deeds will redeem them from movie purgatory.

Sandler — whose stinker Nicky was singled out by its studio, New Line, as one of the reasons for its struggling bottom line — has already agreed to star in the remake of the 1936 Frank Capra film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

Now Ryder, whose last two films, Lost Souls and Autumn in New York, made several "worst of year" lists, is negotiating to join Sandler in the film.

The updated film version will follow a small-town bumpkin named Deeds (Sandler) who moves to New York after he inherits a multibillion-dollar international business from his dead uncle, today's issue of The Hollywood Reporter relates. Once in the Big Apple, he has a Pollyanna-like effect on the jaded big-city denizens.

Ryder would play Babe, a tabloid TV reporter who seeks to expose Deeds but instead falls in love with him.

Hmmph. Call us crazy, but we still prefer the stars of the original, Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur.

Filming on the remake, um, excuse us, "homage," is set to begin next month. Steven Brill, who directed Sandler in Little Nicky, takes the director's chair again.