News & Gossip

The sci-fi saturation of the film business shows little sign of letup. The latest project is a feature based on a Robert Heinlein novela and written and directed by Alex Proyas. [Full Story]

Sarajevo is not a city easily intimidated by the odds. Its citizens withstood a 44 month siege by Serbian forces in the '90s that pounded it daily from the surrounding picturesque hills, while the world mostly looked the other way. And even as the snipers and fire bombs continued, the city, like many others around the world, started its own film festival. And again beating the odds, Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, has managed to consistently attract big names and an impressive slate... [Full Story]

Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro's search for writers for "The Hobbit" and its companion film has ended, with the filmmakers deciding that no one is better suited for the task than they are. [Full Story]

Stars attending the Venice Film Festival had better watch where they step this year. A group plans to sell the red-carpet footprints of top actors and filmmakers to raise money for the restoration of the Italian city's St. Mark's Basilica. [Full Story]

James McAvoy and Emily Blunt might soon discover that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence -- if you're a garden gnome in love. [Full Story]

Moviegoers who can't resist singing along to "Dancing Queen" are in luck. [Full Story]

Writers Juliet Snowden and Stiles White are going into the light. [Full Story]

As Tom Cruise writes the next chapter in his career, he's developing an interest in comic-book movies. [Full Story]

When you add up the dollars and cents for the three main architects of Indy's fourth adventure, it's not far off the film's domestic box office gross. [Full Story]

On the heels of Moscow Heat and Treasure Raiders, bodybuilder-turned-actor Alexander Nevsky has wrapped his biggest movie yet. [Full Story]

Rainn Wilson understands the luckless drummer he portrays in new movie "The Rocker" because they both spent so many years on the outskirts of fame. [Full Story]

It's not easy being Bond. [Full Story]

With his first slate of programming as co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival announced this morning, Cameron Bailey can take a quick breather before the 33rd edition of the festival begins two weeks from Thursday. "Now that we actually have the selection done and out there in public its just a huge, huge feeling of gratification," Bailey said in an interview with indieWIRE this afternoon. A longtime international programmer for the festival, Bailey was appointed co-director... [Full Story]

In a seismic shift within the Bay Area film community, the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS), which organizes the annual San Francisco International Film Fesival -- the oldest fest in the United States -- today unveiled a major expansion in the wake of the simultaneous announcement of the closure of the city's 32 year old Film Arts Foundation. The latest non-profit film organization to face fatal financial challenges, Film Arts recently sold its interest in the local 9th Street building it... [Full Story]

The Toronto International Film Festival is promising a lighter touch this year, both thematically and in the number of films presented, with dramatic films and comedies prominent among the list of 312 features and short films unveiled on Tuesday. [Full Story]

Movies featuring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Kate Beckinsale, Edward Norton and Colin Farrell and a documentary about Paris Hilton have joined the lineup for the Toronto International Film Festival. [Full Story]

The balance of the lineup for the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival, set for September 4 - 13, 2008 in Canada, has been announced. A total of 249 feature films are on tap for the event, 76% of which are either world, international or North American premieres. 61 films mark a filmmaker's feature directing debut. A total of 312 films from 64 countries will screen at this year's festival, compared to last year's 349 films from 55 countries. Additional details will be added shortly. [Full Story]

Warner Bros.' "The Dark Knight" regained the overseas box-office lead -- even as it relinquished the No. 1 domestic position after a four-week stand -- reaching a foreign gross of $328.6 million with its weekend take of $42.4 from 7,775 screens in 61 markets. [Full Story]

Mandalay Pictures has picked up the film rights to the graphic novel "Julius," a modern re-imagining of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." [Full Story]

Filmmaker Michael Emanuel has ordered up his human buffet. [Full Story]

A Dutch filmmaker has announced plans for a feature film loosely based on the 2005 disappearance and possible murder of American high school student Natalee Holloway on Aruba, one of the islands in the Dutch Antilles. [Full Story]

The off-kilter comic rhythms of Rainn Wilson are exploited to excellent effect in "The Rocker," a derivative rock satire that is far more enjoyable than one would have a right to expect. [Full Story]

Twentieth Century Fox said on Monday it will seek an injunction to block release of the Warner Bros movie "Watchmen" after a Los Angeles court ruled a copyright lawsuit against Warner can go forward. [Full Story]

This year's Venice Film Festival will be dedicated to Egyptian director Youssef Chahine, who died July 27 at 82. [Full Story]

Though Elegy has all the makings of one of those preposterous older man-younger woman Hollywood romances, it has been turned into so much more by a Brit and two Spaniards. [Full Story]