November 14, 2006

Going against the stream of current film productions, Infomercial producer Mark Williams will develop "Double Cross", a big screen feature about Sam Giancana, a notorious and powerful mafioso who was also the boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966.

Based on a novel of the same title written by Giancana's brother, Chuck Giancana, and his nephew, Sam Giancana, the project will have its screenplay penned by Edgar Allan Poe Award winner Alfonse Ruggiero Jr. whose writing credits include those for TV series "Miami Vice" and "Wiseguy."

Coming to his next directorial stint after "Unaccompanied Minors", actor Paul Feig is set to helm "Smooth Operator", an action comedy feature of Warner Bros. Pictures production.

Also attached to pen the script, Feig reportedly plans to make the project with more physical comedy, something that he is not necessarily known for if looking on his work for TV show "Freaks and Geeks" or "Undeclared."

Taking a step further into filmmaking, Chase Palmer has been appointed to both write and direct a project involving Charles Darwin entitled "Evolution's Captain" for Focus Features with Cathy Schulman producing.

Based on Peter Nichols' 2003 book of "Evolution's Captain: The Dark Fate of the Man Who Sailed Charles Darwin Around the World", the picture will focus on the relationship between Darwin and the captain of the H.M.S. Beagle Robert FitzRoy plus their debate over the theory of evolution.

Barely taking "Multiple Mary" and "Birth Mother" under its wings, New Line Cinema has already added one more comedic project to be developed into a big screen feature as it has successfully picked up the rights to writer-director Rob McKittrick's pitch, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Not yet titled, the picture is intended to be a sequel to a yet-to-be-produced McKittrick project titled "Mancrush" in a roundabout way, and so will center on a love-hate relationship between two women. Meanwhile, it is reported that Contrafilm's Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson will both produce alongside Walter Hamada of H2F Entertainment.

Nicolas Cage is about to have his second acting role in comic book-based film feature after "Ghost Rider." Variety has revealed that Virgin Comics is set to bring one of its graphic novels to the big screen as a starring vehicle for the Oscar-winning actor

Entitled "The Sadhu" just like the series' title, the epic project will have its script written by spiritual author Deepak Chopra, the father of the series' creator and writer Gotham Copra. Meanwhile, Cage is plotted to play lead character James Jenson, a soldier who becomes a spiritual warrior.

Returning to voice Alex the lion in Madagascar 2 titled "Madagascar: The Crate Escape", DreamWorks' highly anticipated sequel of the hit franchise, Ben Stiller not only has confirmed that the project is on the verge to start the voice recording, but also has eagerly unveiled the project's plot for public to know.

"I think all the animals head back to New York on that plane that you know was up in the trees and then they crash in Africa and Alex gets reacquainted with his real family and it goes from there," he revealed.

Having such big-pair breast has inspired Katie Price to launch her own lingerie line.

And so, the "famous for being famous" English glamour model launched her own lingerie for bigger breasted women under her real name on Monday November 13th.

Making a quick response to the wide publications saying she and Beyonce Knowles have both been offered to star in "Tipping the Velvet" as a lesbian couple, Eva Longoria has firmly stated that the reports are in fact are fabricated and completely untrue.

"Stop the madness," so she told PEOPLE exclusively. "Believe me, I would love to work with Beyonce one day. She's so talented. But this is definitely not something we are doing together. It's completely and absolutely not true."

Bad news, Brody Jenner and Lauren Conrad split. It is sad to say of course that the couple have gone separate ways after only less than a month they "seeing each other". Both of them first go public with their romance on October 18.

Jenner told a source on Thursday November 9th during the launch party for the new furniture collection at Minotti in Los Angeles that his relationship with Conrad was over saying, "We're not together anymore."

Katie Melua quits music. Relax, the singer is planning to merely take a break from her prolific music career with the intention to go to university.

"It is very much something for the future but I will go to university," she said. Yet, the songbird has yet decided on what academy she would take.

Talk is heating up on Kate Moss and Pete Doherty upcoming wedding. The British supermodel, who is reportedly planning to marry on her 33rd birthday in January, is currently busy preparing her wedding dress.

Rumor has it that Moss has asked her old friend Alexander McQueen to design a wedding dress for her. The beauty reportedly is planning a £20,000 ($38,000) white dress featuring black lace detailing that will be "traditional but with a modern unique twist."

These days and for the coming months Julie Bowen will eat for two. The actress, widely known for her acting in "Boston Legal" and "Lost", is four months pregnant with her child with husband Scott Phillips.

"(I'm) eating in the middle of the night. I'm like a bear. I wake up in the middle of the night, eat food and go back to sleep again. It's not fun, but it's a wild ride. I'm looking forward to it being over," Bowen told People at the Environmental Media Awards in Los Angeles.

Trouble seems to keep lingering on "Dallas." After being reported to have its cast lineup scrapped, this big screen adaptation of the famed TV series now is also losing its screenplay, so Hollywood.com has reported.

According to the site, filmmakers of the picture have concluded to throw away the script written by Robert Harling after a few focus groups in the Midwest found it way too dramatic. Following this decision, the script then reportedly will be re-written as a show-within-a-show type comedy instead, similar to that of last year's "Bewitched."

Good news apparently comes in twos for Ellen Pompeo. The "Grey's Anatomy" star celebrated her 37th birthday Friday November 10th, while also was proposed by boyfriend, record producer Chris Ivery.

And so, that day marked both the actress' birthday and engagement as well. Speaking on the encounter, the actress's rep tells People, Ivery proposed to Pompeo after breakfast at home.

Singer Jimmy Buffett wants his rights back. The veteran musician filed a lawsuit Monday November 13th, asking a US federal judge to stop a Website operator from infringing his trademarks.

In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Galveston, Texas, Buffett accuses Robert Akard of operating a Website, underonehut.com, that sells Buffett-trademarked items without permission. Items sold on the Website, including the same clothing and CDs available through Buffett's own Website, margaritaville.com and in his chain of stores and restaurants.

Fulfilling today's unsurprising news quota is Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding. Ahead of their November 18th wedding plan, the couple arrived in Rome Monday November 13th.

TomKat arrived with an entourage of 10 people, all of them were spotted arriving in a private jet at the Ciampino Airport outside Rome at 11:30 a.m. local time. Among the group of people was the actor's mother and children.

Taking the same path as Kirsten Dunst has done in "A Jealous Ghost", "Almost Famous" star Kate Hudson is about to produce also have a starring role in "Bride Wars", a rom-com flick of New Regency and Firm Films production.

In bringing the project to the surface, duo June Raphael and Casey Wilson are re-writing their own draft originally penned in 2004 for Miramax. The story itself revolves around two best friends who go against one another as both refuse to step aside upon learning that they have a wedding-date clash.

Broadening her acting experience, Eva Green has eagerly signed on to take a starring part in "In the Country of the Last Things", a post-apocalyptic drama feature adapted from Paul Auster's novel of the same title, Production Weekly has reported.

Described as a "bleak, post-apocalyptic tale of the world in ruin", the project takes place in an unnamed city where theft is so commonplace it is no longer a crime and strange suicide cults are springing up everywhere. Green will play a woman named Anne Blume who comes to the city in search of her brother and later finds friendship, even love, amid the devastation.