April 02, 2007

With an Oscar nomination in her hand in such a young age, looks like the road has become way smoother for Abigail Breslin to undergo indeed. Yes, the child actress is reportedly in the brink to ink deals to star opposite two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster in "Nim's Island" while going to topline "American Girl" for Picturehouse and HBO Films.

A Walden Media-financed fantasy, "Island" is adapted from the book by Wendy Orr and Kerry Millard which centers on a young girl who accompanies her scientist father to an isolated island in the South Pacific. When the man goes missing at sea, she communicates electronically with a person she imagines as a character from a book who in fact turns out to be a reclusive author.

Eric Clapton has made the year 2007 a productive one for music industry by gathering the world's most famous guitarists in a single concert. Those like B.B. King, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Sheryl Crow, Jeff Beck, John Mayer and many more will back him up in a concert on July 28.

Clapton has only one view to hold this mega concert. That is for the sake of Crossroad, a drug rehab he owns in Antigua. The clinic that he found 10 years ago will benefit from the Chicago concert. Though tapping the artists is part of the plan, Clapton opens up for some spontaneous collaboration. "Some of it's mapped and some of it isn't. We have to leave a little bit of it to chance," he said.

Anticipation running up and down over U2's new album has reached a new progress. Speaking on behalf of the band, The Edge hinted that they are working on several more songs and that great stuffs are coming in the way.

"We're working on new songs and getting lost in the music. I don't think we're going to try and think too much about what we're going to do with it yet, we're just going to do a lot of writing and just see what gives. We're giving ourselves the luxury of just working on the songs," said Edge as quoted by Rolling Stone. It was previously reported that the band was going to work on the old songs that didn't make it to "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (2004).

Coming onboard to accompany "Grey's Anatomy" star Katherine Heigl, Malin Akerman and James Marsden have both signed on to take starring role in romantic comedy "27 Dresses", which Spyglass Entertainment is developing for Fox 2000.

While Heighl has been reported to play a young woman serving as a bridesmaid for years but never a bride, Akerman will portray her sister who is engaged to the man whom Heighl's character falls for. Meanwhile, Marsden is said to become a man who will change her bridesmaid status for good.

Marking her next writing stint for film feature after her debut for "Nancy Drew", Tiffany Paulsen has reached an agreement to pen for "Further Adventures in Babysitting", which is currently in development under Walt Disney Pictures banner.

A remake of the 1987 flick "Adventures in Babysitting", the adventure comedy has already picked up Raven-Symone and Miley Cyrus as the stars with Lynda Obst producing. Meanwhile, story is likely to stay close to the original, which saw Elisabeth Shue as a suburban high school senior whose dull night of babysitting is interrupted by a desperate call from a friend, leading her to an all-night adventure.

No summer like Dave Matthews Band's summer. The rock band is back for the annual summer gigs that start July 8 at Toyota Park, Bridgeview, IL and run through October 2 at the double nightstand venue Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA.

A line of performers consisting of The Roots, Guster, Stephen Marley, Xavier Rudd, Toots & the Maytals, Umphrey's McGee, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, The Wailers, Robert Earl Keen Jr. and Pete Yorn will support the band in the 36-dates trek.

Struggling to develop "The Road" after obtaining its film rights last fall, Chockstone Pictures finally has made a significant progress on the horror drama.

Variety has reported that the company has successfully hired Joe Penhall to pen the script of the flick at last. Penhall, known widely as an acclaimed playwright, recently saw his award-winning play "Blue/Orange" get turned into a TV-movie by BBC with Brian Cox taking the top billing.

Hard rock quartet Mudvayne is giving the final touches to their fourth album. Should everything go according to plan, the album will hit the store between October and December this year. The yet unnamed album is prepared to surprise or at least to please their fans.

Not specifically saying to have a fresh sound, the band assures that it will not be the same old stuff. "This has got some really interesting music on it, stuff you don't expect. It just kinda moves forward; it's not linear from what we've done before. But I think it's gonna be a great record," vocalist Chad Gray said in a statement.

Seems the imaginative update of "Little Red Hiding Hood" fairytale is about to have the second chapter. Variety has revealed that Michael D'Isa-Hogan has come onboard to direct "Hoodwinked 2: Hood Vs. Evil", a sequel to the 2006 CG animated "Hoodwinked."

A directorial debut of D'Isa-Hogan, who previously served as an animator to Disney's "Home on the Range", the project has already had Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech all returned to pen the script. Meanwhile, Maurice Kanbar and David K. Lovegren will both produce for Blue Yonder Films and Kanbar Entertainment with The Weinstein Company distributing.

2007 Juno Awards is all about Nelly Furtado. The 28 years old singer swept as many as five nominations apart from her frequent appearance on stage as the host of the show. In the Canadian version of Grammy, Nelly snatched the spotlight when first taking the stage and introduced herself as the host. She then gradually grabbed the 5 trophies that forced her to prepare 5 different sets of acceptance speech.

As an artist, she won Dorito's Juno Fans Choice Award and Artist of the Year. Her album "Loose" shone for two things, Pop Album of the Year and simply Album of the Year while her single featuring Timbaland titled "Promiscuous" was awarded Single of the Year.

Both own well-developed production companies that are going rather productive lately, so seeing them stand face-to-face against each other over a film title therefore is very possible to happen, and this sure is one hot topic to talk about.

According to exclusive report by TMZ.com, Hollywood superstars Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are both engaged in a battle over the rights to "Maxed Out", a documentary film exposing America's obsession with credit card debt which is currently playing in select cities.

The supermodel is busier than ever. Not only Naomi Campbell is having a week of community service, but also she is planning to launch lingerie label.

Campbell who has just completed a week's community service in New York for assaulting her assistant, is about to launch her own signature lingerie line. She is said to team up with fashion designer Christopher Kane.

Dublin's Olympia Theatre will witness the first time in a decade, R.E.M. performing live their fresh tracks before the release of the album. This is intended to give a good warming up for both the band and the materials that will be recorded in the next few months.

The songs will be revealed in a set of shows that runs 5 dates. First show is scheduled for June 30 and followed by the show on July 1. After that, they will take a one-day break before hitting the stage again on July 3-5. Frontman Michael Stipe said that he intended to hit the ground running.

Back for the twentieth time this year, the Hollywood's messiest, most raucous award celebration Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards announced on March 31, 2007 the list of honorees for the film category based on personal picks of the TV network's viewers.

Deemed the Favorite Movie is "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" with dancing penguin romp "Happy Feet" being named the Favorite Animated Movie, the latter beating out tough contenders that included "Cars" and "Open Season."

Three albums and 5 members quitting the band after, Brody Dalle of punk rock band The Distillers announced the formation of a new band. Dalle will team up with her old time band mate, Tony Bevilacqua and Queens of the Stone Age's Alain Johannes to outline Spinnerette.

The new band will have a different sound to The Distillers mainly on the message delivered. Dalle said in a statement, "Spinnerette get a clean slate. She gets to start over and be the new kid in town, only she ain't no kid. She's quirky and sexy and she f***s around." The songs to be included in the new band's first album were actually written for The Distillers. "The songs seemed out of context and inappropriate for The Distillers. I felt ambivalent about sharing them with anyone," she continued.

No more speculation in the future as it has been known who the mystery man is. The identity of the mystery man Jennifer Aniston was seen dining with on Monday night March 26th has been revealed.

Aniston, as reported by "Extra," was spotted eating with an unidentified fellow at Il Sole on the Sunset Strip. And now the media have learned that the mystery man is Hollywood producer Ryan Kavanaugh.

Just before the cameras rolling on him for "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond", Chris Evans turns out to have smoothly added another new acting stint into his hectic schedule for this year. The striking hunk revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he has been attached to an indie feature entitled "Under the Blue Sky" with "The Mothman Prophecies" helmer Mark Pellington to direct.

Expected to start filming September this year, the picture will be an Iraq drama and concerns on a man who comes home from the war. No other names listed in the cast yet for now, but Evans confirmed that he would play the guy.

Forming promising collaboration with Montecito Pictures, DreamWorks is set to develop a comedic feature titled "The Creepy Kid" from the script by duo Ethan Furman and Adam Farasati, The Hollywood Reported has revealed.

The first studio deal for Furman and Farasati, natives of Northern California working as bartenders in West Los Angeles, the project will be produced by Montecito alongside Magnet Pictures, the production arm of Magnet Management.

Bringing their togetherness to work, husband-and-wife David Duchovny and Tea Leoni are teaming up to produce a film feature entitled "American Dreamers" based on the book of the same name by former Reader's Digest editor Peter Canning via their And Then Productions shingle.

Depicting the life story of the founders of Reader's Digest DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, the project will center on the pair's rise as magazine publishers during World War II plus their political compromising of their brand during the Cold War. It is noted that the couple also lost themselves when they became rich and passive as people pawed for money and control of their empire.

Working under EMI UK, Australian artist Kylie Minogue is preparing for the highly awaited album. Plans have been made and if everything goes smoothly, the first single should reach the fans' ear by the end of this year.

Sources have stated that Minogue has been working with a Scottish producer named DJ Calvin Harris for this album. She has also confirmed sometime ago that she collaborated with Boy George in the song "Ready". According to her, some of the songs will really say what she wants to say including the account on her breast cancer survival.

Looks like comedic genre still becomes everyone's favorite in cinemas for sure as Josh Gordon and Will Speck's latest effort "Blades of Glory" instantly soars to pull a superb number of $33 million and claim itself the top holder of weekend box office ended Sunday, April 1, 2007.

The sports comedy therefore smoothly forces its closest competitor also fellow newcomer "Meet the Robinsons" to seat as the runner-up after the animated adventure turns out to score less at $25.1 million. Nevertheless, the amount the Disney production has collected proves way larger than the $11.4 million "300" has pulled, and so put the bloody epic tale on the third place, one notch lower than the rank it achieved in the previous week.

Beyond her "Simple Life", life is just not so simple for Nicole Richie. In addition to working on the hit TV series, the socialite is busy working to launch her signature scent.

In an interview with Britain's OK! magazine Nicole revealed to have a number of exciting projects by the time she finishes filming the "Simple Life." "I'm working on a style book, plus I'm launching a jewelry and accessories line, a sunglasses line and my own perfume," she told the publication.

In its slimiest mode ever, Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Award 2007 has burst out its winners in the music category.

Acting as the host of the event this year, Justin Timberlake not only got the most green goo but also brought home the Favorite Male Singer award. Self-proclaiming 'old JT' he said, "I feel like a grandpa up here, but this is awesome!" upon his acceptance speech.

It's been quite sometimes since we last reported that Usher is engaged to his stylist. By Wednesday March 28th, a publicist for the R&B singer, Simone Smalls, did confirm to MTV that Usher is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, stylist Tameka Foster.

While no further details being disclosed, Usher said in recent interview he could be walking down the aisle before the end of the year. When and where, just keep it here for we'll keep you posted with more.

Miley Cyrus, an American actress and singer best known for starring as Miley Stewart / Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel Original Series "Hannah Montana," wins the category of Favorite TV Actress at the 20th Annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards held Saturday March 31st.

The other TV frontrunner is Drake Bell, well known among young audiences for his role on the series "Drake & Josh," who earns the Favorite TV Actor award. The annual American televised singing competition "American Idol," in the meantime, is named Favorite TV Show.