Spiner Flies To 'Aviator'

Brent Spiner (Data) this week joined the cast of the Howard Hughes biopic, Aviator.

Spiner will play Robert Gross, president of the Lockheed aircraft company, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The film was written by John Logan, who penned the script for Star Trek Nemesis based on a story he developed with Spiner and Rick Berman.

Howard Hughes, a millionaire playboy and movie director, was completely obsessed with flying. In 1930 he made Hell's Angels, a film about World War I fighter pilots which cost $4 million to make, an astronomical sum for the time. Hughes had a long relationship with Robert Gross: he flew around the world in a Lockeed plane and later commissioned the company to build a new type of aircraft for him.

Aviator will be directed by Academy Award-nominee Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York), with Titanic's Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes. The all-star cast also includes Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) and Kate Beckinsale (Pearl Harbor) as film stars Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, respectively.

The film is currently in production in Montreal, Canada, and is expected to be released in 2004. The original Hollywood Reporter article can be found here at Yahoo! News. Thanks to 'Theta' for this!

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