Woody Allen wants to cast Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall (The Prestige) opposite Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in his new film, to be shot in Barcelona, Spain this summer. Allen described the story as "romantic but serious." A script has been completed and Allen is currently auditioning English-speaking actors.

Prized Spanish cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe has been tapped for the film as part of a reportedly all-Spanish crew. The film will also shoot in Oviedo, a city in Spain 's northern Asturias region.

Johannson previously starred in Allen's Scoop and Match Point.

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Dominic Monaghan will play an 18th century gravedigger and Ron Perlman is attached to play his priest in the horror film I Sell the Dead for producer-actor Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix.

Monaghan ("Lost," "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy) and Fessenden (Broken Flowers) will portray London corpse traders who perform services for an aristocratic doctor. Perlman (Hellboy) is in final talks to play a mysterious priest who takes confession from Monaghan's character. Angus Scrimm, who played the evil "Tall Man" in the Phantasm horror film series, is in final talks to play the doctor.

Production on the indie film from writer-director Glenn McQuaid will begin in May in New York.

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Tobey Maguire told that Spider-Man 3 might be the end of the road for him.

"To me it seems like this is a natural point for the team to break up because we have a lot of story conclusions that were going along for the main characters for the first two movies and we kind of tie almost everything up for the third movie," he says.

"It feels like a trilogy to me and it feels like the end."

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Thank You for Smoking executive producer Edward Pressman and associate producer Stephen Belafonte are teaming up for another Christopher Buckley adaptation, a satire titled God Is My Broker, which is set on Wall Street and in a monastery.

Pressman's Edward R. Pressman Film Corp. has bought the rights to the Buckley book and will produce with Polsky Films and Belafonte's WhiteShark Films.

Peter Himmelstein, who is writing comedy-drama The Key Man for Occupant Films (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane), is attached to write the screenplay.

The plot centers on a Wall Street stockbroker who flees to a monastery, only to find monks who are turning their monastery into a corporation.

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20th Century Fox has acquired Steve Bencich and Ron Friedman's pitch The Devil You Know. Shawn Levy will produce through his Fox-based 21 Laps alongside Gotham Group's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein.

Bencich and Friedman, who wrote Open Season, Chicken Little and Brother Bear, will adapt "Devil" from the children's book by Nathan Hale. "Devil" will be a live-action film...more click on heading

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Dimension Films has closed a deal to remake David Cronenberg's 1981 horror pic Scanners. The film will be directed by Darren Lynn Bousman ("Saw" II & III) and David Goyer (Batman Begins, "Blade" series) will write the script.

The story revolves around a scientist who infiltrates an underground movement of "scanners," whose telepathic abilities make them lethal weapons. The original was best remembered for an exploding head finale.

Dimension co-chairman Bob Weinstein has earmarked an early 2008 production start; the aim is to release the film later that year...more click on heading

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Premise: When a young girl is snatched away from her father by a horrifying giant monster that emerges from the River Han to wreak havoc on Seoul, her entire family sets out to locate the beast and bring their little girl back home to safety in South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's big-budget creature feature.
 
Genres: Action/Adventure, Art/Foreign, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Suspense/Horror and Thriller 
Running Time: 119 min. 
Release Date: March 9th, 2007 (limited) 
MPAA Rating: R for creature violence and language.

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J.J. Abrams, the creator of the hit ABC dramas "Lost" and "Alias," will indeed be directing the first movie in Paramount Pictures' relaunch of Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek movie franchise.

The 11th installment of the series will actually be a prequel to the original television series and the first movie, as it chronicles the first meeting of a young James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock at Starfleet Academy and their first space mission.

Although Abrams had been committed to produce the movie for a number of months, it was finally confirmed that he would also direct it. Look for more announcements in the next few months as he starts casting.

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Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. has been quiet since the release of the Oscar-nominated movie "Dreamgirls," but that doesn't mean he didn't have an opinion on the film, or that lawyers haven't been busy talking.

Few dispute that "Dreamgirls" shadows in some ways the real-life story of how Gordy launched Motown Records in Detroit, and how the real-life Supremes came to fame. While the "Dreamgirls" musical was based in Chicago, in the film it's based in Detroit, and the three "Dreams," like their real-life counterparts, live in a Detroit project...more click on heading

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Wanted creator Mark Millar has posted an update on his official site about Universal Pictures' adaptation of his graphic novel directed by Timur Bekmambetov ("Night Watch") and starring James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman.

Millar got to see 30 minutes of pre-vis (rough versions of sequences in a movie using computer graphics) for the film and talks about the footage: ...more click on heading

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Steve Zahn has been cast opposite Amy Adams, Alan Arkin and Emily Blunt in Christine Jeffs' dark comedy Sunshine Cleaning.

Zahn (Sahara, Rescue Dawn) plays Mac, a married police officer having an affair with Rose Lorkowski (Adams), the co-owner of a firm that cleans up messy crime scenes. Arkin and Blunt play Rose's relatives and partners in the family business...more click on heading

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Tim Meadows is in final negotiations to join Columbia Pictures' Walk Hard, the John C. Reilly comedy being produced by Judd Apatow. Directed by Jake Kasdan from a script by Apatow and Kasdan, the film pokes fun at the musician biopic genre and centers on a singer named Dewey Cox (Reilly) who overcomes adversity to become a musical legend.

Meadows will play the drummer in Reilly's band...more click on heading

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Icon Productions has sold stateside distribution rights to the R-rated crime thriller Butterfly on a Wheel to Lionsgate Releasing.

Directed by Mike Barker (A Good Woman), the film stars Pierce Brosnan as a mysterious stranger who arrives in Chicago and terrorizes a happy-seeming married couple (Maria Bello, Gerard Butler) after kidnapping their daughter. Soon it becomes clear that his outrageous demands are not in pursuit of a big cash payment...more click on heading

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With Sony Pictures' Ghost Rider hitting theaters on Friday, you can expect new trailers for the studio's own Resident Evil: Extinction, starring Milla Jovovich, and for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse...more click on heading

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Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) is in talks to direct the comedy Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging for Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures International.

Lynda Obst is producing the film, based on Louise Rennison's 1999 best-selling young-adult novel.

The story centers on a 16-year-old girl who keeps a diary about the ups and downs of being a teenager, including the things she learns about kissing...more click on heading

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