REEL DEAL In Hollywood, you can never say Neverland. Joe Roth, who left his post as Disney studio chief a couple years ago to run his own company, Revolution, may be paying a return visit, as Revolution is in talks to be the third leg of a Disney/Sony Pictures deal for a live-action version of ''Peter Pan.'' The three companies would cofinance the film and split the release rights (domestic, foreign, and TV) three ways. P.J. Hogan would direct, and Hogan's ''My Best Friend's Wedding'' star Rupert Everett may play Captain Hook. (''The Patriot'' baddie Jason Isaacs is also up for the part.) The film would shoot this summer in Australia for a Christmas 2003 release.
TUBE TALK Call it the ''And then all THIS happened'' approach to historical filmmaking, where a tentative romance between two made-up characters gets swamped by a real-life disaster, as in ''Titanic'' or ''Pearl Harbor'' (source of the classic Kate Beckinsale line quoted above). The next epic to take this tack will be ''The Johnstown Flood,'' an ABC made-for-TV movie about the 1889 catastrophe that killed more than 2,200 people. ''The Johnstown Flood'' will be based on Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian David McCullough's (''John Adams'') book of that title, although McCullough neglected to spice up his account with a romance between two people from opposite sides of the tracks in the Pennsylvania steel town of the title, an omission that will be remedied by script writer John Harrison (Disney's ''Dinosaur''). Scott Free, the production company of action-director brothers Ridley and Tony Scott, is producing. The movie should shoot by the end of the year.
LEGAL BRIEFS George Lucas has been attacked by a clone -- and lost. His Lucasfilm company has been unable to force a pornographic ''Star Wars'' spoof off the market. Lucasfilm had been granted a temporary restraining order against Media Market Group, the firm behind ''Star Ballz,'' an animated, feature-length video about the adventures of ''Wank Solo,'' and a group of familiar-looking characters. However, last week, a federal judge denied Lucasfilm's argument that anyone would confuse the pornographic 'toon with the Skywalker saga and allowed ''Star Ballz'' sales to resume. MMG argued that its film was a ''Scary Movie''-like parody that is protected by the First Amendment, and crowed on the ''Star Ballz'' website that ''the judge reached the decision [Lucasfilm's] claims were a totally unfounded PILE OF CRAP.'' However, Lucasfilm is proceeding with a lawsuit, saying, ''We feel strongly that the law does not allow for parody to be a defense to a pornographic use of someone else's intellectual property, especially when that use is directed to children.'' Of course, if Lucas really wants to eliminate a toon that's a threat to the ''Star Wars'' franchise, he should kill off Jar Jar Binks....
Corey Miller, who has the unfortunate nom-de-rap C-Murder, has been arrested in the shooting death of a teenager at a Louisiana nightclub. The brother of Master P and once a key artist on the family's No Limit label, the 30-year-old rapper was out on bail on an attempted murder charge on Jan. 12, when he allegedly shot and killed 16-year-old Steve Thomas after an argument, in front of 300 patrons at the Platinum Club outside New Orleans. Prosecutors have yet to determine what charges Miller will face.
PASSING NOTES TV actress Carrie Hamilton, daughter of Carol Burnett, died yesterday of lung cancer at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The 38-year-old had starred in the TV series ''Fame'' and had appeared in numerous TV movies and guest spots on such shows as ''The X-Files'' and ''Beverly Hills 90210.'' The daughter of the late Joe Hamilton (the producer of Carol Burnett's long-running CBS sketch comedy show), she had collaborated with her mother in adapting Burnett's best-selling memoir ''One More Time'' for the stage. The play, called ''Hollywood Arms,'' will premiere in April in Chicago.
