January 31, 2007

Jay-Z is teaming up with soft drinks giant Coca-Cola, helping to launch its Cherry Coke line.

The hip-hop mogul is having his Rocawear label designing the soft drink's new cans.

Platinum-selling and Grammy Award-nominated singer Avril Lavigne is in collaboration with Del Rey Manga, an imprint of Random House Inc. and one of the premiere publishers of manga in the U.S.

In an announcement released Tuesday January 30th, it is said that the recording artist will appear in "Make 5 Wishes," the company's first American manga. The first volume of "Make 5 Wishes" will be released in April, shortly before Avril's album, "The Best Damn Thing", hits stores. As of the second volume, it will come out in July.

Ready to add more depth into indie flick "Downloading Nancy", Jason Patric and Danny Huston have both signed on to join Maria Bello and Ray Liotta in the cast list of the project.

A production of Tule River Films, the picture sees Bello play an unhappy wife named Nancy who wants to end her own life by hiring a man she meets on the Internet to kill her, played by Liotta. Things get complicated when the two unexpectedly form a relationship, which makes it difficult for the man to finish the task.

Rounding out the companions to John Cho and Kal Penn for the "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" follow-up, Mandate Pictures and New Line Cinema have smoothly included eleven more names to the project's cast list, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Five of them namely David Krumholtz, Neil Patrick Harris, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Christopher Meloni, and Paula Garces are the cast member from the first installment of the franchise while the rest six are new players consisting of Rob Corddry, Ed Helms, Jack Conley, Roger Bart, Danneel Harris, and Eric Winter.

Numbers of musicians are teaming up with raunchy magazine Playboy to design T-shirt as part of a project for the magazine's annual "Sex and Music" issue.

Among those involve in the project are The Flaming Lips, Kasabian, Lil Jon, Soulwax, Dean & Britta, Monsters Are Waiting, and many more. The likes of The Flaming Lips, Kasabian and Soulwax have all submitted designs that offer "their own personal stamp on the Playboy brand and logo".

The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and CTV, organizers of Canada's biggest music awards show Juno, revealed Tuesday Jan 30th the early performers to perform at the event. Canadian rockers Billy Talent and Three Days Grace have both been named to the 2007 Juno performance lineup.

The music awards show, which is slated to take place April 1 at the Credit Union Centre, will be hosted by Nelly Furtado. More performers to rock the Junos will be announced next Monday February 5th.

Set to entertain more in delivering laughs for moviegoers, DreamWorks is about to develop a sci-fi comedy titled "Gullible's Travels" together with Bob Cooper's Landscape Entertainment.

Written by Ron J. Friedman and Steve Bencich who also seats as executive producers, the picture concerns the planet's most gullible man who is conducting time travel via a portable potty to save the life of the woman he loves. However, as he runs into her in the past and future, the guy believes he is meeting relatives of hers rather than the woman herself.

Fresh claim has just emerged from Fall Out Boy. The Chicago pop punk band is about to play three shows in three different cities in one day, it has been confirmed.

The concerts, which is embarked to support the release of their highly anticipated album "Infinity on High", will be held on February 6, coincides with the release of the new LP.

Apparently, the controversy surrounding "Borat" will continue to run for some time as another lawsuit has been planned to be placed against the mockumentary comedy, which recently won Sacha Baron Cohen a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical category.

As revealed by an Israeli entertainment news show called "Good Evening With Guy Pines", an Israeli comedian named Dovale Glickman intends to sue Cohen for copyright infringement, claiming that Borat's signature exclamation of excitement of "Wa wa wee wa" actually belongs to him.

Grammy-winning singer Toni Braxton has refiled her breach-of-contract lawsuit against her former manager, Barry Hankerson, in New York State Court. Braxton's attorney, Peter Haviland, said the suit filed Monday Jan 29th in New York state court would supersede the federal filing against Barry and Blackground Records, which would be withdrawn.

A rep for Hankerson and his label, Blackground Records LLC, explained that when a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan ordered Braxton to provide more evidence to justify her claim that Barry had cheated her out of at least $10 million by manipulating her into leaving her longtime record label, LaFace/Arista, the singer "voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit".

Rumors are heating up that American Idol is replacing Paula Abdul with Courtney Love as a judge on the wildly popular reality TV show.

Love reportedly told Us Weekly magazine that American Idol's executive producer Nigel Lythgoe contacted her office last week wondering if she would like to be a judge.

Joining Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross, Billy Burke, and Mary Beth Hurt are all coming together to line up the cast of "Untraceable", a thriller which sees Lane as an FBI agent who has to quickly track down a technology-savvy serial killer.

Hanks will portray the partner of Lane's character, Jennifer Marsh, while Cross becoming the movie's villain. As for Burke, the "Ladder 49" star is billed to play Marsh's love interest with Hurt taking the role of Marsh's mother.

This just in. Britney Spears is desperate to rekindle her romance with ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake.

The singer, who's no stranger to controversy, made headlines when she filed for divorce from hubby Kevin Federline. From that point on, she's becoming a hot commodity in Hollywood concerning her party habit, being spotted going sans panty, and being linked to numbers of men. Now that Justin is back on the market following his break up with Cameron Diaz, Spears wants the "SexyBack" singer back.

Though recently busy working in some TV productions, Teri Polo seems more than ready for another acting stint on the big screen. The beauty is reported to have given agreement reprising her role as Pam Byrnes in "Meet the Little Focker", the third installment of "Meet" franchise.

The actress, a native of Dover, Delaware, previously portrayed the character in "Meet the Parents" (2000) and its 2004 sequel "Meet the Fockers." Both films were huge success in the box-office with the former pulling $330.4 million while the latter one scoring even higher at $512.2 million worldwide.

The wild partygoer Paris Hilton insisted she won't get exposed, not for Parisexposed.com at least. And so the hotel heiress has filed a federal lawsuit, seeking to shut down the Web site that displays personal photos, videos, diaries, and other belongings of her once kept at a storage facility.

Parisexposed.com, which was launched on Jan. 23, claiming the items were auctioned off after Hilton neglected to pay the Los Angeles-area storage facility. It also promises visitors who pay a fee of $39.97 access to Hilton's passport, medical records and other legal documents.

Kate Moss and boyfriend Pete Doherty really are inseparable. The in-love couple, who's been spotted together in many occasions, has reportedly checked themselves into a drug rehab clinic.

Moss and Doherty reportedly admitted themselves to the Capio Nightingale Hospital Monday January 29th using false names. "They arrived together and will be supporting each other. They looked very much a couple as they came in and she is clearly worried about him," a source told The Sun.

The Queen of the galaxy will soon grace the big screen again, at least that's what Dino De Laurentiis is trying to say. The legendary film producer has stated that he is on the way to bring "Barbarella" to the surface as he did before in 1968.

Revealing that the script for the project is currently being worked on, De Laurentiis pointed out that the flick will not be a remake of Barbarella'" but "a completely new 'Barbarella'" instead while adding that the new version will have "love, sex, adventure."

Ahmed Aboudihaj and Zohra Labridi, the parents of Awatef Aboudihaj, the woman killed in a car accident involving R&B singer Brandy, filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday January 30th against the star, claiming "Brandy was driving recklessly" when she struck their daughter.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, comes a day after the California Highway Patrol recommended Brandy be charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in the Dec. 30 accident. The city attorney's office is reviewing the case. If charged and convicted, Brandy faces up to one year in county jail.

Grabbing chance to once again become a tough girl onscreen, Kate Beckinsale is currently engaged in talks to be the leadstar in Joel Silver-produced action thriller "Whiteout", which is also a production of Dark Castle Entertainment.

Adapted from a series of graphic novels created by writer Greg Rucka and artist Steve Lieber, the project concerns a U.S. Marshal working at Antartica's McMurdo Station named Carrie Stetko who must catch a murderer before the sun set for six month there.

The Sheffield-based band, Arctic Monkeys, has received four nominations for this year's NME Awards. The four-piece group is in the running for the categories of Best British Band, Live Band, Album and Music DVD.

This isn't the first time that the band scores numbers of nominations in the awards show, last year they won three awards, including the coveted Best British Group accolade.

British rock band The Police will play together again when they reunite at the upcoming 49th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on February 11th.

It was confirmed Tuesday Jan 30th by The Recording Academy that the trio will reunite and open the show when it airs in about a week and a half on CBS at 8pm EST. The Recording Academy released a statement which read, "The Police join a stellar list of past Grammy Awards opening acts, which includes reunions and once-in-a-lifetime performances."

Heading to his next directing stint after that in "The Invasion", German filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel is on board to helm dramatic feature "The School" for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment.

Based on true events happened in 2004, the project will depict the three-day siege of an elementary school in Beslan, Russia by armed Chechen rebels. About 1,200 were taken hostage in the school gym with around 300 people died by the end of the standoff.