Casting is partly complete for "Lords of Dogtown *," the Columbia Pictures-based fictional take on Stacy Peralta *'s award-winning skateboard documentary * "Dogtown and Z-Boys *". "Lords of Dogtown" follows a group of California * surfers who were instrumental in starting the real skateboard movement in Venice/Santa Monica (Dogtown) in the 1970s.

Already on deck for the new "Lords" cast are Nikki Reed ("Thirteen"), Heath Ledger, Emile Hirsch ("The Girl Next Door") Victor Rasuk ("Raising Victor Vargas") and John Robinson ("Elephant"). Robinson will reportedly play former pro Stacy Peralta, who wrote the documentary and penned the feature's screenplay.

Emil Hirsch, who is to play Jay Adams * in the upcoming film, is a fairly skilled skateboarder, but says he'll have to learn some new tricks to be up-to-date for the 70's: "Like now I can kick flip stairs and do all these in grinds and boardslides and flip tricks, but now I'm going to have to learn how to do cutbacks and all kinds of ground-related tricks because back in the days in Dogtown, the Ollie wasn't even invented -- that's the most basic skateboard trick these days and they hadn't even invented it yet."

On meeting Jay Adams, Hirsch says, "I'm probably going to hang out him, yeah. He's an intense guy, I can't wait."

Peralta's original documentary, which was narrated by Sean Penn *, was apparently based on a 1999 * Spin magazine feature article that explored skateboard culture in the '70s. Peralta wrote the screenplay for "Lords", reportedly followed by a rewrite by Hardwicke. It appears that a copy of that original Spin magazine article by "G. Beato" can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/ca/alva3/spin.html

"Lords of Dogtown" will be directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who worked with Reed in "Thirteen". Peralta is one of the original Dogtown skaters and co-founded the skate company Powell Peralta * that launched Tony Hawk *.

This article was based on the author's knowledge and on the articles "Reed Goes To Dogtown" by Brian Linder at http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/496/496311p1.html, "Nikki Reed Rolls into 'Dogtown'" at http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml? type=entertainmentNews&storyID=4484893§ion=news, "Hirsh, Ledger Going to the Dogs" at http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---20462,00.html, and "Fred Durst No Longer Directing Skateboarder, Mob Flicks" from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/ 1485093/20040217/limp_bizkit.jhtml?headlines=true

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