Special Coverage American Idol'Lost' CoverageSex and the City MovieBox Office Game (win DVDs)

TELEVISION

Alicia Silverstone has been tapped to co-star on NBC's midseason comedy series The Singles Table. The half-hour show from Twentieth Century Fox TV revolves around five strangers who bond after sitting together at the singles table at a mutual friend's wedding. Silverstone has agreed to play Georgia, one of the strangers — who sounds like the antithesis of Clueless' Cher — a successful doctor by day and somewhat of a loner by night. She replaces Pascale Hutton, who played the part in the pilot, and has since been cast to appear on ABC's midseason drama Traveler. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 15)

James Cromwell (Six Feet Under) and Eddie Izzard (My Super Ex-Girlfriend) have a hard day's work ahead of them, as they join the cast of 24 for the sixth season. Cromwell comes onboard as Phillip Bauer, the estranged father of Jack (Kiefer Sutherland), while British actor Izzard plays evildoer Darren McCarthy. Blood-pressure meds will come in handy when ''Day Six'' debuts in January.

Isn't it ironic that Alanis Morissette has a song called ''Not the Doctor,'' yet she'll be the love interest of one while she guest-stars on Nip/Tuck? Morissette, who gets caught up in a tryst with anesthesiologist Dr. Liz Cruz (Roma Maffia), began taping the first of three episodes last week. (Look for her on Oct. 31.)

If there's one thing Hurricane Katrina taught us, it's that a class system of varying social and economic levels still exists in the United States. Now that Spike Lee's Katrina documentary is making the rounds on HBO, the director is focused on telling those post-Katrina stories in a scripted drama for NBC that will be set in New Orleans. ''It's a show about the city trying to rebuild itself and the people who are trying to put their lives together,'' Lee said of the series, to be titled NoLa. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 11)

Steve Schirripa, known for his role as Bobby ''Bacala'' Baccalieri on HBO's The Sopranos, may soon have a late-night show of his own. Fox's The Steve Schirripa Project is executive produced by Hugh Fink (co-creator of The Showbiz Show With David Spade and writer on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson). A Fox spokesman told Hollywood Reporter: ''We've made no secret of the fact that we're interested in pursuing possibilities in late-night. Steve has a very unique perspective and voice, and we're curious to see what he can come up with.'' (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 11)

MOVIES

Dwayne ''The Rock'' Johnson (Gridiron Gang) obviously likes doing football movies. He and Kyra Sedgwick are set to star in the Walt Disney Pictures' family football comedy The Game Plan, about a young football player who learns that he has a daughter. Sedgwick plays a ruthless agent who cares more about getting him signed than his being a good father. Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray, whose football movie Invincible is proving to be a winner at the box office, will be producing. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 14)

Lionsgate has picked up all U.S. distribution rights to actress-turned-director Sarah Polley's Away From Her, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival Monday night. Starring Julie Christie, the romantic drama follows a woman facing Alzheimer's disease and its effect on her marriage of 44 years. The flick, picked up for about $750,000, also stars Olympia Dukakis, Wendy Crewson, Michael Murphy, Kristen Thomson, and Alberta Watson. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 14)

DreamWorks Animation plans to bring Mr. Peabody & Sherman, the classic animated TV series, to the big screen. Rob Minkoff is set to direct his first animated feature since his 1994 blockbuster The Lion King, though he most recently directed the 1999 live-action flick Stuart Little. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 15)

Ocean's Thirteen scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien are said to have gotten a low seven figure deal to adapt the Don Winslow novel The Winter of Frankie Machine for Paramount Pictures — and they've accepted. Robert De Niro is attached to star in the pic and is producing with partner Jane Rosenthal through their Tribeca Films shingle. Meanwhile, De Niro awaits the December-slated The Good Shepherd, for which he stars, directs, and produces. (Variety, Sept. 15)

The Little Mermaid for the comic-book geek sect? Perhaps. Johnathan Mostow has been tapped by Universal Pictures to write and direct an adaptation of one of Marvel Comics' oldest superheroes: Sub-Mariner, a half-man/half-amphibian from the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. The Sub-Mariner first appeared in Marvel Comics No. 1 in 1939, when Marvel Comics was known as Timely Comics. He made his first modern appearance in the pages of Fantastic Four in the early 1960s. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 14)

Marvel Entertainment says it plans to unleash The Avengers as soon as they get Iron Man, the Hulk sequel, and a few other projects off their plate. Set to pen the screenplay is Zak Penn, the writer behind the last two X-Men movies from 20th Century Fox and Marvel. The comic book The Avengers began as a team consisting of superheroes Thor, Ant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, and Hulk. Later, Captain America and a host of others joined. Marvel calls the Avengers ''Earth's mightiest heroes.'' (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 14)

Imagi Animation Studios (which is currently in production on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) has optioned the rights to Astro Boy, the anime story of a robot named Atom, who, with the help of his friends, battles enemies attacking the world and faces his own challenges in adapting to the human world. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 14)

Peter Jackson has optioned Temeraire, a historical fantasy series by first-time novelist Naomi Novik, a saga featuring a dragon of the same name that reimagines the world of the Napoleonic Wars. The story revolves around a British captain who captures a French ship and discovers an unhatched dragon egg in the hold — a gift for Napoleon from the Emperor of China. Jackson is also working on The Lovely Bones, an adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel, and the sci-fi adventure Halo, based on the videogame. (Reuters, Sept. 12)

Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick, and Bette Midler have joined Helen Hunt, who is acting and making her directorial debut in Then She Found Me, an adaptation of the Elinor Lipman novel. Hunt plays a schoolteacher who's going through a midlife crisis when her birth mother (Midler) finds her. Broderick plays Hunt's husband, and Firth a man she meets through one of her students. (Comingsoon.net, Sept. 12)

Joel Schumacher, the director of, among other films, The Lost Boys, Dying Young, and Batman Forever, is a jack-of-all-trades (well, film at least). Now, he's signed on to direct Town Creek, a vampire horror movie for Gold Circle. The flick revolves around a West Virginia man who confronts a family that has been protecting a Nazi vampire. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 12)

Newmarket Films, the studio that repped The Passion of the Christ, has picked up all U.S. rights to Death of a President, the most buzzed-about film at the Toronto International Film Festival. Why all the hoopla? The film depicts the assassination of President Bush — and it looks pretty darn real. Newmarket dished out $1 million for the film, which is expecting to give DoaP a wide release within the next few months. The hypothetical docudrama mixes real Bush footage with dramatized segments of the faux aftermath of an October 2007 Bush assassination. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 12)

Could Paris, je t'aime be the Coffee and Cigarettes of romance? First Look Pictures has just picked up the North American rights to the collection of romantic short films taking place in the City of Light featuring such stars as Natalie Portman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Elijah Wood, Nick Nolte, and Juliette Binoche, who worked with directors like Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven, Alexander Payne, and the Coen Brothers. Paris premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, and is slated for an early 2007 theatrical release. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 13)

In his first gig voicing a CGI-animated character, Jim Carrey will play the voice of Horton, while Steve Carell will play the mayor of Who-ville in Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who, a CGI-animated feature film from 20th Century Fox Animation. Horton centers on an imaginative elephant who hears a cry for help coming from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air. Suspecting that there might be life on that speck, and despite a surrounding community that thinks he has lost his mind, Horton is determined to help. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 13)

Danny Huston (The Constant Gardener) is set to play a vampire leader in 30 Days of Night, Columbia Pictures' adaptation of the horror comic book, which also stars Josh Hartnett (The Black Dahlia) and Melissa George (Derailed) as a husband-and-wife sheriff team who — unpredictably! — try to save the world... or at least the residents of their Alaska town. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 11)

Kate Beckinsale (Click) is filling the vacancy left behind by Sarah Jessica Parker in, um, Vacancy, a Screen Gems horror thriller with Nimrod Antal (Kontroll) directing. Beckinsale and Luke Wilson play a couple who find out they are being watched in their motel room. (Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 11)

BOOKS

Tim Gunn, the chair of Parson's The New School for Design who we all know and love as the Project Runway guru, is working on his first book, to be titled Tim Gunn: A Guide to Style, written with Parsons' Kate Moloney. Okay, but doesn't Carry On have a nicer ring? (Publisher's Marketplace, Sept. 15)

TECHNOLOGY

On Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new gadget, currently named iTV, that will wirelessly stream content purchased via iTunes onto televisions. (Ah, synergy.) Jobs also announced that we'll be able to get a lil' Cinderrelly, Cinderrelly on our iPods as Apple starts selling movies from Disney on iTunes. (Daily Variety, Sept. 13)


Sign up for EW.com's The 25 newsletter!

Stay in the know and get EW.com's top 5 stories, 5 days a week (sent weekday afternoons).
Posted Sep 12, 2006 | Order Article Reprints