Maggie Gyllenhaal is in final talks to star opposite Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. She'll play the role of Rachel Dawes, played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins. Holmes dropped out of the project earlier in the year.

The cast also includes Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart.

Nolan is set to start filming in the late spring or early summer. Warner Bros. Pictures is eyeing a July 18, 2008 release.

The producers are Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Nolan. Legendary Pictures and Warner are co-financing partners on the project.

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Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment are fast-tracking The Changeling, with Clint Eastwood looking to direct and Angelina Jolie in talks to star.

Written by J. Michael Straczynski, the film will become a co-production of Imagine and Eastwood's Malpaso. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard will produce with Malpaso's Rob Lorenz.

Jolie would play a woman whose son is abducted but retrieved; she suspects, however, that the returned child is not her kid. The woman must then confront corruption in the LAPD. The story is based on true events in 1920s Los Angeles.

The plan is to start production later this year.

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Pierce Brosnan will star opposite Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, the film adaptation of the hit musical for Universal Pictures and producing partners Playtone and Littlestar. The movie begins shooting June 25 in London and Greece.

Brosnan sang a few Irish standards in the indie drama Evelyn, and sang onstage early in his career. But this will be a decided departure for an actor best known for playing the steely James Bond.

Brosnan will play Sam, one of three men summoned to a Greek isle by a young woman who believes one of them is her father.

For Brosnan, the opportunity to belt out such ABBA standards as "S.O.S.," which will be a duet with Streep, was irresistible...more click on heading

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Hayden Panettiere 6th Annual GM - arrivals Hollywood, CA...more coverage click on heading

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Mary Lynn Rajskub ("24") has joined the cast of Sunshine Cleaning, an indie feature being directed by Christine Jeffs.

The move stars Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as sisters who find a measure of meaning and understanding in life when they team to run a service cleaning up after crime scenes and traumas.

Rajskub will play a technician for a blood bank who is the object of Blunt's sexual obsession.

The movie is shooting in Albuquerque, N.M.

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Lionsgate has resurrected Tulia, the long-gestating Tollin-Robbins project starring Halle Berry as a lawyer investigating an infamous Texas drug bust.

The producers are in negotiations with Carl Franklin to direct the feature. The film centers on the 1999 arrests of 46 black men in the impoverished town of Tulia, Texas -- a sting effort where no money, drugs or illegal weapons were found on any of the suspects.

Berry will portray the lead attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which intervened to free the citizens wrongly convicted based on one crooked cop's testimony...more click on heading

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Paul Walker is set to star in The Heaven Project, an independently financed thriller to be directed by John Glenn, who wrote the script.

The movie is a love story set in the framework of a psychological thriller. Walker plays a man stripped of everything he loves, who must overcome great obstacles to get his life back together.

The film reteams Walker with Eight Below producers and Mandeville partners David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman...more click on heading

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Robert Downey Jr. and Jay Baruchel will star in the Ben Stiller-directed comedy Tropic Thunder for DreamWorks Pictures and Red Hour Films.

In the film, everything goes wrong during the making of a big-budget war movie, and the actors end up becoming the commandos they are playing. Downey will play Kirk Lazarus, the greatest actor of his generation and a four-time Oscar winner. Baruchel will play Kevin Sandusky, an unknown actor on the set.

Stiller, Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen penned the screenplay. Shooting is set to start in July. Red Hour's Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld are producing alongside Eric McLeod.

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Paramount Pictures is making The Long Play, a rock 'n' roll epic that will be developed as a directing vehicle for Martin Scorsese. William Monahan is set to rewrite the script, reteaming the dual Oscar winners from The Departed.

Paramount has also put Scorsese back in business with Mick Jagger and his Jagged Films partner Victoria Pearman, who'll produce The Long Play with Scorsese. Scorsese directed Jagger and his Rolling Stones bandmates in a feature documentary shot last fall at the Beacon Theater...more click on heading

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Avatar, James Cameron's long-awaited non-doc follow-up to his 1997 Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic, has claimed its date of release, and it's going to be hitting theatres on Memorial Day weekend in 2009. That's in just 27 short months for those who want to start standing in line.

With a cast that includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, Cameron's sci-fi epic is about a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival.

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HBO has made a deal with American Girl, the retailer that makes a line of realistic dolls, to create and distribute feature films, specials and documentaries based on them.

The biggest tie-in will be a full-length feature film which will start filming this summer, produced by Goldsmith-Thomas Productions and Julia Roberts' Red Om Films...more click on heading

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Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures announced today that Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II and Saw III) is back to helm the next installment of the "Saw" franchise, the most successful horror series in history. The announcement was made jointly by Lionsgate's President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions Peter Block and Senior Vice President of Acquisitions Jason Constantine, and Twisted Pictures' Mark Burg and Oren Koules...more click on heading

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Tony Kaye (American History X) is in talks to take over the directing duties from Samuel Bayer on Black Water Transit, starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.

The film will pair the Pulp Fiction actors for the first time since 1995's Die Hard With a Vengeance. The production will still shoot in New Orleans, but has pushed principal photography back until early April...more click on heading

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Forest Whitaker, Guy Pearce and Dakota Fanning will topline ensemble drama Winged Creatures, produced by Robert Salerno (21 Grams) through his Unruly Films.

The movie is an adaptation of Roy Freirich's debut novel about survivors of a brutal restaurant murder who are left to divine their own individual paths to understanding their mortality and connection to society...more click on heading

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Former teen soprano Charlotte Church has blasted her own TV talk show, admitting the first series was "unprofessional" and "not quite right".

The star admits she struggled to cope exchanging music for a career in television, fronting self-titled chat show THE Charlotte Church SHOW.

But the CRAZY CHICK insists her television skills are improving...more click on heading

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