Wolverine is heading to Japan, for real.
The next episode of the Hugh Jackman starrer is ready for a start next January.
Christopher McQuarrie, of “X-Men” and “Valkyrie” fame, has finished the script that THR reported he was starting last August.
No director has been signed. And the script is a little different than originally thought.
Is the singing over at Disney?
Think of Jiminy Cricket warbling “When You Wish Upon A Star.” Or Angela Lansbury and her friends toasting “Be Our Guest” from “Beauty and the Beast.”
Well, those days may be a thing of the past. I am told that Disney Animation has put the kibosh on Alan Menken’s planned “The Snow Queen,” from the directors of “Tarzan.”
The reason? “The Princess and the Frog” was a disappointment, insiders say. Even though it was nominated for an Oscar and got pretty good reviews, “P & F” is considered a bust in Toon Town.
It was just three and three quarter years ago that Sumner Redstone kicked Tom Cruise out of the Paramount nest. Cruise’s crime? Jumping on Oprah’s couch, picking a fight with Matt Lauer — acting, basically, nuts.
Redstone didn’t like that stuff. He ended Tom’s deal at Paramount, and pretty much sealed him off from another “Mission: Impossible.” Tom went to MGM, took over United Artists, and made the dreadful “Valkyrie” after the boring “Lions and Lambs.”
Now, as Cruise awaits release of “Knight and Day,” with Cameron Diaz, Redstone is a fan again. Maybe he’s seen an early cut of “Knight and Day” and really liked it. All I know is this: Cruise and Katie Holmes, mother of Suri, were seen once again dining with Redstone over the weekend. This time the setting was Il Piccolino on North Robertson.
It’s March 1, and that means plenty of well-known names are arriving (or have recently arrived) on Broadway. It’s Tony season, with new plays and lots of A-list actors filling up our dance card through June.
Today’s story in the New York Times about Katie Couric vs. Anderson Cooper: Insiders tell me it’s more than likely that Cooper’s team planted the story.
“He wants out of CNN,” they say. “His ratings are terrible, and he’s miserable.”
This may be true. The sources do concede that Cooper has met with CBS News chiefs, but that the conversations are more about either anchoring the “CBS Morning Show” or joining “60 Minutes” in a more permanent way. Cooper already contributes to the latter show as a freelancer, so to speak.
When he wasn’t filming “Howl” or “Eat Pray Love” or going to grad school at NYU or appearing on “General Hospital” or doing art projects last year, James Franco made a movie with Elizabeth Edwards’ brother.
Franco stars with Josh Lucas in “William Vincent,” which used to be called “In Praise of Shadows.” Jay Anania, the brother of Elizabeth Edwards, put upon estranged wife of former Senator John Edwards, directed it. Although, as Lucas remembered it, Franco did the directing.
Lucas told me last week that the Franco film was one of five movies he just made back-to-back. Franco also showed him his short “Herbert White,” which played at Sundance.
“I started out thinking it was a crappy low-budget student film,” he said. “But it turned out very well.” “William Vincent” will go to festivals, maybe Toronto in the fall. There’s no info yet on whether Elizabeth Edwards will help her brother promote it. She may be in divorce court by then.
Maggie Gyllenhaal, nominated for best supporting actress for “Crazy Heart,” is really just happy to be nominated for an Oscar.
“I’m going to enjoy all of it,” she told me the other night at a USA Network/Vanity Fair party held in the thick of the big snowstorm. All the USA Network TV shows were being celebrated–”Characters Approved.” There were lots of TV people roaming around Barry Diller’s magnificent IAC Building lobby waiting to hear the cast of “American Idiot” perform. Gyllenhaal was one of a few who were just being saluted for being themselves. Nora Ephron was another. (The IAC building looked like a giant lit up snowflake on the dreary West Side.)
Carly Simon was en route to the UK when the British papers got all the signals wrong about her song “You’re So Vain.”
She emailed me last night: “What a riot! Nothing to do with David Geffen! What a funny mistake! Someone got a clue mistaken for another mistake!”
The British papers have gone crazy over a 38-year-old story. And they’ve got it all wrong, of course.
For years, Carly Simon has teased the public that “You’re So Vain,” her signature record, was about Warren Beatty. She always said the character– who flew his Lear Jet to Nova Scotia “to see a total eclipse of the sun” — was a combination of egotistic former dates.
Now, Simon has re-recorded “You’re So Vain” in an “unplugged” style for a new album called “Never Been Gone.” As a nod of the hat to the Beatles, Carly says the word “David” backwards as a red herring. She’s let it slip that it might be a clue about the song’s real-life inspiration.
At the rate things are going, a fourth installment of the “Bourne” series remains, sadly, doubtful.
Last night at the premiere of “Green Zone,” starring Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass — who directed “The Bourne Ultimatum” — the question was asked. And really, no one could answer it.
Of course, Matt Damon told this column months ago that he wouldn’t make a Bourne movie without Greengrass.
