'Jackpot' hits the Web

By ROGER W. HOSKINS
BEE STAFF WRITER
(Published in The Modesto Bee: Friday, November 03, 2000)

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The Cornerstone Studios movie "Jackpot" has its own Web site: www.jackpotthefilm.com.

The site for the film, made in Modesto, includes cast and production notes and promises to have a theatrical trailer by December.

Director Sean Stencil said designing the trailer was a challenge.

"It's almost like we need to shoot new scenes just for that," Stencil says. "The film has its own pacing, and some of the scenes don't work in the trailer."

But a lengthy promotional trailer, aimed at the film's investors, does show off a story people can care about, an attractive young cast and a big-screen musical score.

Producer Eric Raingruber is hopeful for a private December or January preview for a national distributor. If it's sold, a local "Jackpot" premiere will be held shortly thereafter.

Local phones home

Speaking of "Jackpot," 12-year-old Modestan Ben Dunn has wrapped up his work for Steven Spielberg. It wasn't the much ballyhooed "Artificial Intelligence" after all.

Ben's mom, Deanna Dunn, says it was "E.T."

"Ben was in front of a blue screen (at Skywalker Ranch) for three weeks," reports Deann Dunn. "When the special 20th anniversary edition is released theatrically, all of the 'bicycle in flight' scenes will be Ben."

And there are some additional scenes he will appear in, but Mom Dunn says she can't talk about them. Ben won't have a speaking part in a movie made six years before he was born.

"Ben loves being on the set and all of it," recalls Deanna Dunn. "But this was more of a job because they had to have the exact precise movements and he had to do the exact same thing 300 times in a row."

"E.T." will be rereleased theatrically sometime in 2002.

His work on "Jackpot" also earned Ben a Los Angeles agent. Ben will go to Hollywood for the TV pilot season (January-March). Ben's immediate prospects include a call back on a commercial for a dot-com company.