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REEL DEALS Having recently directed Denzel Washington in the upcoming ''Training Day,'' Antoine Fuqua has been hired to shoot ''Man of War'' with Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci (''Malena''). Like Angelina Jolie's ''Beyond Borders,'' it's a romance set in a war refugee camp. Shooting begins in February....

Also in the Great Minds Think Alike Dept.: dueling Scrabble movies. Director/producer Curtis Hanson (''Wonder Boys'') and Miramax are racing against each other to develop films set in the brutal arena of tournament Scrabble. Hanson has optioned Stefan Fatsis' new nonfiction book ''Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble,'' while Miramax bought an original script called ''Your Word Against Mine,'' a romantic comedy about two tournament competitors who fall in love. No matter which picture comes out first, audiences are sure to thrill at the action sequences and visual pyrotechnics that only the crossword board game can offer....

Action director Renny Harlin (''Deep Blue Sea'') has been talking about returning to his native Finland to shoot a World War II epic, but it looks like his next film will be ''Mindhunters,'' a Hollywood thriller about seven trainees in the FBI's psychological profiling unit who discover that one of them may be a serial killer....

''The Believer'' will hit the big screen after all. This year's Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance, Henry Bean's controversial docudrama about an Orthodox Jew who becomes a neo-Nazi skinhead scared off distributors before finally landing on Showtime, where it will premiere in September. But now, the aptly named Fireworks Pictures has picked it up for theatrical release in early 2002.

SCENERY CHEWING You may think of Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins as the consummate craftsman when it comes to acting, but he says, ''I don't take it at all seriously.'' In an interview with Variety, he says, ''I heard an actor the other day saying, with all honesty, 'I'm just a storyteller,' and I thought, give me a break. Come on, be honest, it's because you like being famous, you like the work, the money. I don't swallow all that craft stuff.'' He says his job is as easy as showing up, saying his lines, and going home; he describes acting as ''hardly brain surgery.'' Unless, of course, you're performing that gruesome finale in ''Hannibal.''

LEGAL BRIEFS The former personal assistant being sued by Kate Hudson for allegedly spending $63,000 of the actress's money on herself said she can prove she didn't do it. An attorney for Margaret Miller insisted that all the purchases his client made --including clothing, first-class air tickets, and hotel rooms -- were made for Hudson or with her approval. ''I feel it's very important to note that on clothing purchases the evidence is going to show who the clothing was for,'' the lawyer said. ''Our clients are, to say the least, not the same size.'' He added, ''It's important to remember that all of the bills in question here were paid by Kate's business managers, not by my client. They were all approved and paid for.'' He said that Miller will countersue for lost earnings due to overtime she claims she was never paid for. Despite the dispute, the attorney said Miller and Hudson have had ''a friendly conversation, with Kate being rather reassuring to my client and telling her not to worry.'' Hudson's representatives deny that such a conversation has taken place....

Police in Middletown, R.I., issued an arrest warrant for Richard Hatch over a domestic dispute with an ex-boyfriend. The ''Survivor'' winner had sought a restraining order against the man, whom he had pushed out of his house, only to learn at the courthouse yesterday that the man had filed a complaint against him. Hatch turned himself in to police, paid $1,000, and was released on his own recognizance. He'll face a misdemeanor assault charge in court on September 7.


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