Writer/director Kevin Smith has been signed by Dimension Films to co-write and executive produce the third film in the horror spoof trilogy that originally begun with the Wayans Brothers. Scary Movie 3: Episode I - Lord of the Brooms is set to round out the franchise but will be going ahead without the participation of the Wayans, who pulled out after the second film in order to pursue their own new project, a fantasy/science fiction comedy. Smith, who brought the indie hit Clerks (1994) to millions of fans and went on to direct films like Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999), and the upcoming Jersey Girl (2003) will be working with director David Zucker on the project. Zucker, as many comedy fans know, was the director responsible for Airplane! (1980) and The Naked Gun (1988). Production on Scary Movie 3 is set to begin in February for a release date of late fall 2003.

The trade magazine Variety reports that actor Wesley Snipes (Blade 2 (2002)) will star for Revolution Studios sci-fi thriller John Doe. The film is about a man with severe memory loss who wakes up one day to find that he has mysterious superhuman powers that he can't explain. As the man sets out to discover who he really was - and is - he is tracked by an assassin bent on silencing his secret forever. Zak Penn, the screenwriter behind projects like X-Men 2 (2003) and Behind Enemy Lines (2001) will make John Doe his directorial debut. Production for the film should begin next year as Revolution hopes to secure a release date of sometime in 2004. Snipes also stars in the upcoming film Godforsaken, about a hitman who discovers he has a terminal disease and puts a contract out on himself.

Actor Will Smith is set to head back into the world of science fiction. According to both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, Smith is signed on to star for director Alex Proyas (Dark City (1998), The Crow (1994)) in the big screen version of Isaac Asimov's classic novel I, Robot. 20th Century Fox has been developing the film for quite some time now, originally titled Hardwired. The book was a series of short stories about a future where robots existed alongside humans, and were governed by three essential laws - one of which is the fact that "a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm" (an idea from the book that sharp fans will recognize was used directly in a quote from James Cameron's Aliens (1986)). The books detailed the robots' origins and eventual rise to evolutionary perfection. In the film version of I, Robot, Smith will play a police detective who is a technophobe, and who begins working on a murder case where the evidence begins to point at a robot being the perpetrator. As the investigation heads in this seemingly impossible direction, he begins to uncover a conspiracy about the very nature of robots and their plans for world domination. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind (2001)) has done the most recent rewrites of the script, which should go into production in April.

Actress Charlize Theron has joined the cast of HBO Films' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, to play actress Britt Ekland, who was once a Bond girl and who would become the comedian's wife. The film is based on the book by Roger Lewis, and actor Geoffrey Rush has been mentioned as already cast in the lead role as Sellers, who worked with other British actors on the historic Goon Show and who went on to incredible fame on his own, most notably for his role as Inspector Clouseau in Blake Edwards' Pink Panther films. Theron is currently working on the heist thriller The Italian Job with Mark Wahlberg and Edward Norton.

Paramount Pictures and SNL alumnus Rob Schneider are in negotiations to make The Adventures of Sinbad the Insurance Salesman, a comedy which has been in development around Schneider for some time. The film will be about a lowly insurance salesman, unlucky in love until he meets his dream woman. The script was written by Mike Reiss, one of the writers for Fox's popular animated show The Simpsons, and longtime partner John Schneider has been tapped to produce the picture. Rob Schneider's next film will be the upcoming comedy The Hot Chick (2003), and he also has a sequel for Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo in the works.

The trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that action star Sylvester Stallone is in final negotiations with MGM to write, star and produce a sixth film in the Rocky series. Fans will remember that the last time Rocky Balboa hit the screens was in 1990's Rocky V, which found the champ broke and suffering from brain damage from years in the ring. If Rocky VI gets the go ahead, we would catch up with Balboa as a man in his fifties who still lives in Philadelphia and runs a center for young people. Having been in retirement for many years, Rocky would expectedly be taken out of retirement for one final fight. Stallone's last few pictures, including Driven (2001) and Get Carter (2000) have suffered from poor reviews and box office business. His next releases will be Avenging Angelo (2003) and Shade (2003).

The cast of Disney's upcoming film The Alamo has added another member to its ranks. Robert Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), The X-Files) is set to star as frontiersman Jim Bowie. Bowie was a tough man who fought hard and had a signature Bowie knife that he carried with him. He was also one of the major historic figures to die at the famous battle (likely on his deathbed rather than while fighting, as he became ill as soon as the Mexicans lay siege to the fort). Patrick joins Billy Bob Thornton (who plays Davy Crockett) and Dennis Quaid (as Sam Houston). Set production has been underway in Texas for many months now, since the project was originally set to be helmed by Ron Howard. Filming begins on The Alamo in January under the direction of John Lee Hancock (The Rookie (2002)) and will be released during the holiday season of 2003.

Variety magazine has reported that one of the long in development projects about legendary aviator and famed eccentric Howard Hughes will indeed be getting off the ground. The Aviator will be Martin Scorcese's next film and will reunite him with his Gangs of New York (2002) star Leonardo DiCaprio. Studios Miramax and Warner Bros. will be joining forces on producing the film, a budget of which is expected to hit somewhere around the $100 million range. Shooting will get underway this summer for a 2004 release date. Scorcese had agreed initially last year to direct the project, but its future was uncertain until Miramax and Warners beat out DreamWorks with their bid to take over the film. Michael Mann (The Insider (1999), Ali (2001)), who wrote the screenplay, was initially set to direct it but decided to pass it on to Scorcese, who immediately got behind the new film. The biopic will focus on the early life of Hughes, as a film director and romantic young man who was involved with women including Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner. The other major Howard Hughes project in development is one to be directed by Chris Nolan (Insomnia (2002)) and starring Jim Carrey, who will also executive produce. That film, however, will concentrate on Hughes later life, with his rise to power and subsequent turn into a reclusive eccentric and germaphobe.

Director Stephen Daldry, who found success with his working class English ballet charmer Billy Elliot (2000) and whose new drama The Hours (2002) has already been named Best Picture by the National Board of Review, is being courted by Paramount Pictures to take on their project The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Chabon (Wonder Boys). Daldry takes over the role originally intended for director Sydney Pollack, while actor Jude Law is being touted as the main choice for the role of Kavalier. The story is about an escape artist who flees from war ravaged, Nazi occupied Europe and arrives in Brooklyn, where he joins his brother and begins to write comic books. After shooting on Kavalier & Clay has wrapped, Daldry is expected to begin work on The Corrections, based on the novel by Jonathan Franzen.

In another series of events involving a film project that is being developed by at least three separate directors and studios (the other of which being the Howard Hughes projects), it seems that Baz Luhrmann's (Moulin Rouge! (2001)) in development film Alexander the Great has come one step close to realization. Twentieth Century Fox, the studio that initially was behind financing the film alongside Universal, has backed out the deal and Spielberg's DreamWorks has stepped in to fill the void. Both studios will be funding the film, and Universal is expected to handle the domestic distribution. Also involved with the project is actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who coincidentally is one of the names associated with the Howard Hughes films, as he is set to work with Martin Scorcese on the aforementioned The Aviator. Producer Dino De Laurentiis and writer Ted Talley (Red Dragon (2002)) have developed the film and Luhrmann will also produce and direct. The other two rival films about Alexander the Great are being developed by Oliver Stone (who was set to go with both Heath Ledger and Colin Farrell up for the lead role at different stages) and Mel Gibson. Gibson is busy directing his Jesus Christ biopic, entitled The Passion, while Stone's film seems to be continually hitting snags. Advantage, Luhrmann, as the project moves one step closer towards reality.

Continuing the tale of competing Alexander the Great projects, it appears that Oliver Stone's planned film may get underway before Baz Luhrmann's (Moulin Rouge! (2001)) film begins shooting in the fall, under the wing of Dreamworks and Universal. Variety reports that Warner Brothers is looking to close a deal whereby they gain domestic distribution of Stone's film, which will make his start date likely in June of 2003, several months before Luhrmann's project is set to start with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead. Stone already has Irish thesp Colin Farrell (Daredevil (2003), Minority Report (2002)) set to star as the famed conqueror. Stone is working with Intermedia to develop the film, which recently paired up with Warners to create next summer's blockbuster Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) which came in at a budget of between $100 and $150 million. Warner Brothers will also be distributing the upcoming epic films Troy, with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom, and The Last Samurai, which stars Tom Cruise.

Elijah Wood, currently enjoying success as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, has signed on to join the cast of Michel Gondry's new film The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The script, about a struggling couple who decide to undergo revolutionary therapy which "erases" bad memories from their minds, was written by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002)), and is already slated to star Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as the couple. Wood will join the cast as a technician at the facility that does the treatment, alongside actor Mark Ruffalo (You Can Count on Me (2000)). Tom Wilkenson and Spider-Man's Kirsten Dunst round out the eclectic cast. Wood can currently be seen in Jackson's The Two Towers, and will return as Frodo for the final installment of the Rings trilogy next Christmas, in The Return of the King. He will also star in the independent film Try Seventeen (2003), where he plays a 17-year old college student who pretends to be older than he really is.

Legendary actor Albert Finney, currently working on Tim Burton's latest project Big Fish (2003), is in negotiations to take the lead part in an independent film entitled Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals, which is set to be directed by Willard Carroll (Playing by Heart (1999)). Cannibals is a thriller about a newspaper reporter (Finney) who is drawn into an investigation of a baffling murder case. Finney won most acclaim recently with his portrayal of Winston Churchill on cable television's The Gathering Storm. Finney also starred in the critically lauded and successful Steven Soderbergh films Erin Brockovich (2000) and Traffic (2000).

Sopranos actor James Gandolfini is set to star alongside Ben Affleck in the holiday comedy Surviving Christmas, which will be released through DreamWorks. Surviving Christmas tells the story of a neurotic man (Affleck) who hasn't had an opportunity for normal family life, and as such, decides to hire out a family in which to spend the holidays with. The problem is that the family he gets prove to be even more neurotic that he is. Gandolfini would play the patriarch of the household. The film is set to be directed by Mike Mitchell (Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999)) and will go before cameras sometime next year in between Gandolfini's work on the independent film Before the Devil Knows You're Dead as well as the next season of the mobster hit series The Sopranos. Gandolfini has also starred in The Last Castle (2001), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), and The Mexican (2001).

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