I must say, I hate when you get a cast list of newly-signed actors, and only some of the roles are described. That being said, I'm going to take assumption and run with it. In February, I confirmed Ryan's post that Kate Beckinsale was gearing up for Dominic Sena's upcoming, and quite literally chilling thriller, Whiteout. With Beckinsale signed on to play Carrie Stetko, the woman rushing to find a killer before winter strikes Antarctica, Variety reports that the other cast is slowly falling into place.

First, we've got Columbus Short. Star of Stomp the Yard and the upcoming The Great Debaters, Short will play Lt. Delfy, according to IMDb. Then there is modelizer-turned-Because I Said So love interest, Gabriel Macht. He's playing a U.N. operative who is investigating the murder with Beckinsale. And then... Then, there is Tom Skerritt. There is no word on who he's playing, so my over-active and hopeful imagination is crossing its metaphorical fingers that Skerritt will play the deranged killer, although I fear that he'll be playing some stodgy man in charge. Please, powers-that-be. The man from Ice Castles, The Dead Zone and Poison Ivy deserves a great part!

Now this is a musical biopic I can get behind -- Miles Davis. One of the greatest jazz musicians, the man rocked the trumpet. He delighted in bebop and jazz -- cool, modal, fusion. He played with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. He even opened up for bands like Grateful Dead and the Steve Miller Band. Unfortunately, there is also the classic struggle with drugs, which in his case was heroin and cocaine, but with the right man, the cinematic version will be great. That man is Don Cheadle, and I have this funny feeling he can pull this off, probably because he's all sorts of fabulous. Christopher Campbell shared rumors of this in December, and now we have official confirmation.

The film will, however, be challenging, as the actor plans to produce, make his directorial debut and star as Davis. Along with Crescendo Productions, they've secured the life and music rights, which Stephen J. Rivele and Chris Wilkinson will pen into a screenplay. The pair aren't strangers to music and biopics -- they've previously written Nixon, Ali and Copying Beethoven. So far, so good! We'll have to see how it pans out once things fall into place. I'm not sure how soon it will be, since Cheadle has a whole slew of projects coming up to produce and star in. There is a political drama called Traitor, a comedy about a lawyer-turned-ref called Quest to Ref, the drama Broken Adonis that places Cheadle as an ex-con and Marching Powder the story of a drug dealer who spent years as a tour guide in a Bolivian prison.

I wish that I could say that the following is just a rumor. Or that this is a bad dream. However, if it's the latter, I've got to start dreaming about more exciting things than blogging. Over the last few months, I've brought you a number of possible movie biopics, one of which was Kirsten Dunst hinting that she would be taking on the role of a "well-known" singer for Michel Gondry's next film. Now we've got it straight from the horse's mouth, and I can't find my duct tape to make it not so. Dunst will portray Blondie front-woman Debbie Harry in an upcoming movie. Whether Gondry is still involved, I don't know.

The cries of people questioning Kirsten as the famous punk goddess of the 80's must've gotten back to Ms. Dunst. Variety has a quote from the actress, who is very firm about her role and possible naysayers: "She chose me, so anyone who disputes that choice can take it up with her." Sorry, but that's not enough to calm my fears. People make mistakes, and have questionable judgment at times. Remember when Anne Rice approved the quite-terrible Queen of the Damned? Hell, the movie wasn't only bad, but it massacred the novel's story. The only thing that could change my mind about this choice is an amazing, shocking performance from Dunst. However, is it in her? When she was having her own days with Rice's material, I might have gotten behind the choice as a future prospect, now, it seems like a gloominous rocker doom.

Fun bits:

• If you missed The Animation Show, which I covered in November, Cartoon Brew says that the animated shorts are not being sold on iTunes. The tour is being treated like a television show, and the shorts are packaged as episodes, 6 of which are currently available for downloading and housed in the Comedy part of their TV Shows section. The short packages include a Bill Plympton compilation, a pairing of Ward 13 and Overtime and yet another has Tomek Baginski's CG shorts. They're on the site at $1.99 per ep, which isn't too shabby at all.
• Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was amazing, and Julie Newmar... not so much. But maybe that's because a similar story wasn't tried in a country where color is rich and vibrant. If you think it might translate into Thai, and you love a little middle-aged "Tubby Thai Tranny Terror," head over to Twitch to read a review of Haunting Me. The Thai horror/comedy has the older men in technicolor clothing, fighting ghosts and evil spirits. Definitely tranny, and definitely campy.
• Lastly, we're heading to the other side of the planet for a little British psychological horror. Daddy's Girl, a debut written and directed by D.J. Evans, has just been picked up for distribution by Contender Enter-tainment in the U.K. The horror flick, which stars Richard Harrington and Ray Winstone's daughter Jaime, is about mourning psychiatrist who comes across a teen girl who lusts for blood. I'm not quite sure how this will factor into the film, but I can't get the scene from The Lost Boys out of my head -- the part where Laddie becomes a crazy vampiric child fiend.

While it might have seemed like Georgia Rule was going to fall under the whims of La Lohan, it's actually all wrapped up in a pretty trailer bow that has just been released exclusively to Moviefone. If you kept even half an eye on movies news and gossip last summer, you should remember all the troubles that Lindsay Lohan had with the Garry Marshall film. First, cavorting around as a big-city nymphette in the film made the poor redhead collapse with heatstroke. Or rather, partying like a wild child did, sending producer James Robinson into outrage, inspiring him to write a letter that said: "We are well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so called 'exhaustion'. We refuse to accept bogus excuses for your behavior."

Nevertheless, the movie wrapped and we get to see Jane Fonda on the screen once again. The premise sounds typical for a movie, but man, I wish it was true. Rule follows Rachel (Lohan), an uncontrollable teen who is brought to her grandmother's house by her dysfunctional mother Lilly, played by Felicity Huffman. There, she has to live under Grandma Georgia's rules, and exist in a small, Mormon Idaho town. If only movies were real, and Lindsay actually had to do this! The trailer has all the key bits of comedic melodrama -- the love interests, finding the error of your ways, so on and so forth. If you watch carefully, you'll even see that the thicker-in-the-face blonde man who gets beaten with the bat is none other than Cary Elwes, so if Lohan getting paid to be herself is not enough for you, at least there is some Wesley in the mix!

The ol' Dirty Harry is taking a break from his heavy material to get his jazz on. Clint Eastwood has taken the lead to produce a documentary about U.S. jazz pianist Dave Brubeck. He's topping that by chairing an honorary board for the musician's legacy, which also holds the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, Quincy Jones and even Mr. Star Wars George Lucas. Brubeck, who is in his 80s, used improvisational and classical roots to influence his jazz style, which has resulted in a number of standards that include "The Duke." In the words of Eastwood himself, "Dave Brubeck is an American legend."

The jazz legend's story, currently titled Dave Brubeck -- In His Own Sweet Way, will be documented by Bruce Ricker, who will direct and produce the doc. The film will cover the musician's career from its starts to his recent work that premiered at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2006. If you're not familiar with Eastwood's music-oriented projects, he's already paired with Ricker for docs on Thelonius Monk and the Blue Devils. But have no fear, if those aren't to your liking, there's one more already in the works by the doc duo. You can "Put on a Happy Face," because they've also got Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends on the way. If Eastwood and Ricker keep this up, they'll become the Time Life of music biopics. Maybe they'll even have their own collector's series!

It's only been a month since Jennifer Hudson won an Oscar for her first performance in front of the cinematic cameras. Since then, she's been embroiled in a bit of Idol drama over whether or not she should be thanking the show for her success -- a drama that at least got her free hamburgers. She's also faced with her share of naysayers who are already making bets on how quickly she'll fade into obscurity. While the Academy Awards aren't the end-all of talent and continuing success, I don't think it's time to plan her demise yet. Especially since she might just become Aretha Franklin.

According to MSNBC, Ms. Franklin has chatted with Access Hollywood about a number of studios who have expressed interest in her life story. While talking about the possibilities, she confirmed that Hudson was one of the names suggested, but she wasn't particularly excited or set on the idea. She's quoted as saying: "Well, I don't know. I'm not sure. The producers want to know how I feel about it, about her playing [me]. What I'd like to see is three different people playing [me]." While Aretha also expressed interest in some other talented singers, I don't see one of them nabbing a spot over Hudson, who has the vocal chops and acclaim to boot. Then again, Aretha says they might find someone who will only lip synch her material. Still, I think it's safe to assume that if this gets made, chances are Hudson will be involved.

I love Danny Trejo. Really, what's not to love? He offered to cut vatos for Bubble Boy, he's flown on Con Air and he's been in practically everything Robert Rodriguez has done, from Desperado to Spy Kids. Hell, you can even be him in the video game Def Jam Fight for NY. Seeing him as Machete in one of Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's faux trailers for their Grindhouse double feature is just the manly, latin cherry to a tasty blood sundae. And now it might be a teasing bit to more.

Depending on how much you can believe Rodriguez, Trejo's machete-wielding character might make it to a straight-to-DVD release. Cinema Blend seems to think so, while our Jette Kernion thinks he was less than serious. She's got a point. Would Rodriguez busy himself with a movie that wouldn't even get a wide-release? That being said, maybe a huge fan rush will miraculously change his mind and make his joke something serious. I mean, it's worked before. Right? Right? If Trejo does get a deal out of SXSW, he'd be one of the few -- this year's festival has so far been quite lackluster in terms of actual deal-making, news-making or any other kind of making. Here's hoping things pick up in the homestretch.

What do you do when you want to fight the complicated web of copyrights and try to change the system? Give your ideas away! Okay, so Jonathan Lethem isn't giving them away per-say, but it's close enough. The novelist, whose short story "Five F*cks" was adapted into the upcoming New York drama Tonight at Noon (starring everyone from Joan Chen to Rutger Hauer), has decided to take a different approach with his latest novel, You Don't Love Me Yet. The L.A.-based music novel is just getting released this week, and the novelist already has a specific plan for possible adaptations.

Basically, he is getting rid of the option fee and holding an open search for the director best equipped to handle the material. He's asking for only two things. First, he wants the filmmaker to pay "something" for the purchase rights, amounting to 2% of the budget -- only if the film gets a distribution deal. Second, while he will retain rights to the novel and its text, and the filmmaker will retain rights to the feature, he wants all ancillary rights to be released five years after the film's debut.

This would allow anyone to do anything with the story and characters of the novel and film, such as "a play, a television series, a comic book, a theme park ride, an opera – or even a sequel film or novel featuring the same characters." That's right, he wants to release it to the public domain almost-pronto. If you're a filmmaker and this interests you, you've got to whip up a proposal detailing, in Lethem's words: "what kind of work you've done before, and how you'd expect to handle this project both creatively and financially." The novelist hopes to pick a lucky filmmaker on May 15. Will this pay off? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it's a ballsy move.

[via Variety]

Intrepid Pictures is really trying to live up to their fearless, bold name and their 12-to-29-year-old demographic. I'm sure that I'm not the only one anxiously awaiting the September 14 release date for their Ping-Pong action flick, Balls of Fury, which has Christopher Walken dressed in over-the-top Dracula-like garb. While their other 2007 release, Doomsday, doesn't seem half as fun, the company is already gearing up for another brow-raising flick. However, this time it will be with a bunch of bad-ass ladies.

Variety has reported that Intrepid is developing an action film called The Uncatchable Cowgirl Bandits of Nottingham, Texas. The brainchild of company VP Katherine Brown and Michael Tabb, who will pen the feature, Bandits will follow a group of cowgirl rebels who steal from a number of branches of a bank that are threatening their community and corrupting town leaders. That's right -- it's Goonies meets Robin Hood, with a little Even Cowgirls Get the Blues thrown in for good measure. Now that we've got to wait for the script to get written, we might as well start musing on the cast.

On the one hand, directors like Tarantino and Rodriguez have set up a great pool to choose from. On the other, I'm not sure how many of them I will buy as "Cowgirl Bandits." Could you see them in cowgirl hats and spurs, chewing on pieces of hay? I'd say Rose McGowan is more suited to leather. Rosario Dawson yee-hawing? I'm not so sure -- maybe. How about Michelle Rodriguez? Reese Witherspoon has that country twang, but I doubt she'd be interested. The best choice is probably Jessica Alba, who already showed her stuff with a lasso.

Growing up as I did, John Henry wasn't a famous folk hero, but a beautiful, against-all-odds racehorse. My dad is a bit of a racing fiend, so names like John Henry, Secretariat, Man O' War and Affirmed were bantered around quite frequently. Unfortunately, there aren't too many feature films with horses, which meant that I saw Phar Lap more times than I can count. While Seabiscuit still holds as the most recent thoroughbred biographical feature, a documentary is in the works that details the long, on-going life of John Henry.

The doc will come from Cameron Duddy and Chris Koby, who Variety describes as music video directors. (Perhaps one of you know whether Cameron Duddy is the son of Christopher Duddy?) Penned by Max Eisenberg, the film will discuss the less-than-glamorous beginnings and long life of the famous racehorse -- who is still alive at 32 years (100 in human years). Ranked as the 23rd top champion of the 20th century by Blood-Horse, John Henry's story is pretty impressive. The horse went from being a fiesty, ornery youngster who was once sold for $1,100, to winning 39 of 83 stars and retiring in 1985 as the richest racehorse. Adding that rags-to-riches story with the fact that he was come-from-behind-horse, and you've got a heart-warming subject that pulls at all of our success-stories weak spots.

If you've been following movie gossip lately, you might have heard the morsel to come from Cinema Blend recently, that the Forrest Gump sequel is once again in the works. We've also heard counter-rumors, that no such thing is going to happen, and especially not in the near future. Whether the Gump rumors are true or not, the Bosom Buddy has done what he can to distance himself from the strange character, and it seems he'll be busy with a different kind of running in his near future. Tom Hanks is currently bidding on the story of South African athlete Oscar Pistorius for his Playtone company to produce.

You don't know who Pistorius is? He happens to be the first runner who might make the Olympic Games even though both legs were amputated below the knee as a baby. (So, sort of a cross between Gump and his amputee friend, Lt. Dan.) Right now, Olympic officials are trying to figure out whether the carbon extensions Pistorius runs on should be regarded as performance enhancers or running shoes. However, even if he wins this ruling, the runner will have to also beat his best times, but he's closer than anyone has been before. If you want more than running to impress you, the young man used to play water polo and rugby. Yes, rugby. To me, that seems more impressive. And, good on ya, Mr. Hanks. Do anything to help keep Gump 2 from becoming a reality.

We've had so many war movies lately that it seems like there's a rite of passage that every actor and actress has to go through -- they must do the historical or current war picture. For some, they start racking up a few, as is the case with Charlize Theron. In 2000 she co-starred in Men of Honor, the Robert DeNiro and Cuba Gooding Jr. Navy flick. Now the South African actress has just wrapped In the Valley of Elah, Paul Haggis' film about a career officer and his AWOL, Iraqi soldier son. But Theron just can't seem to get enough of these warring dramas, as she's just signed on for another one.

In October, Chris Ullrich posted about The Hurt Locker, a project director Kathryn Bigelow had written with the war reporter who was also co-writer on Elah, Mark Boal. While Chris' predictions were ignored (he wanted Bigelow vets like Patrick Swayze), the Theron-headed cast isn't too shabby anyway. She will star alongside Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes and Willem Dafoe. The action drama is set in Iraq and details a bomb disposal unit. From PW: "Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb." Unfortunately, the PR speak has made the end of that description sound like the film will be a sexual thriller -- sort of like Farrell's infamous sex tape meets Mission Impossible. Unfortunately, I don't think his adoring fans will be so lucky. Principal photography should gear up later this spring.

Chew on this:

• I've more casting news to bring you for the remake of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, which I posted about here and here. Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw will be joined by relatively new actress, Hayley Atwell. Her most notable role to date is in Woody Allen's upcoming film, Cassandra's Dream, which will be released in October. In Brideshead, Atwell will play Julia Flyte, the sister to Whishaw's Sebastian and the lover of Goode's Charles Ryder. Being paired with Goode should make for some steamy scenes. The film is set to shoot this May.
• If there is something better than Bill Cosby's Julia Child impression, it might be the news coming out of ShoWest today. It seems that Ratatouille director Brad Bird has divulged that Peter O'Toole will be one of the voices in the upcoming ratty film, that opens June 29. The epic actor's voice is bringing life to a food critic character named Anton Ego. That's enough to make me curious about the film. Basically, the movie is about a rat who wants to become a French chef, but obviously, rats aren't desirable in a kitchen, so craziness ensues.
• The director of Assault on Precinct 13, Jean-François Richet, is setting up a double-feature project based on an infamous gangster named Jacques Mesrine, who is known in France as "the man with 1,000 faces." The first, Death Instinct, has added Gérard Depardieu to the cast as Mesrine's mentor and fellow gangster. Vincent Cassel, who was François Toulour in Ocean's Twelve, has already signed on to play Mesrine. Gerard is probably not the man I'd think of first for the role, but maybe the addage should be: take as much Depardieu as you can get. No?
  

We're almost at the point where we can see the looming Spider-Man 3 on the horizon, its May 4th release date just out of reach. However, before the adoring masses get to slide in line and enjoy the long-awaited sequel, Variety reported that the webbed hero would get its world premiere in Tokyo on April 16th and be released in Japan 3 days before the U.S., on May 1. The jerks. It was a bit of a crappy turn of fate, considering the fact that the film is set, and was filmed in, New York City.

However, in the same news release, Variety reported that Sony was planning a U.S. premiere date before the wide-release. If current rumors are true, that premiere will be held in the Big Apple, as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. The Reeler has posted that while the gala premieres haven't been determined yet, that word on the street has the third installment screening during the festival. This works into reports that there would be a North American premiere, as the festival ends after Tokyo's world premiere. Since May's a long time to wait, you might want to check out Kevin Kelly's Sneak Peek at the film, if you missed it.