REEL DEALS Steve Martin is adapting a couple of his more literary projects for the screen. He's planning to star in the movie version of his novel ''Shopgirl,'' where he'll play a middle-aged millionaire who proves to be Mr. Wrong for the story's young sales-clerk heroine. Anand Tucker (''Hilary and Jackie'') will direct. Martin's also playing a supporting role in ''Picasso at the Lapin Agile,'' based on his Off-Broadway play that posits a meeting between Picasso and Einstein in a Paris cafe in 1904, when both men were young and on the verge of their respective breakthroughs. Also in the film will be Ryan Phillippe, Kevin Kline, and Juliette Binoche. Fred Schepisi, who directed Martin's ''Roxanne,'' will direct.
Now that Philip Michael Thomas has resurfaced (he and Don Johnson showed up at NBC's 75th Anniversary special on Sunday), it's time to put into play ''Miami Vice: The Movie.'' Series creator Michael Mann, who went on to direct such films as ''Heat'' and ''Ali,'' will write the script and may direct. It will be set in the present, not the pastel-colored '80s, and it may feature new characters, a la the ''Charlie's Angels'' movie, rather than reviving Crockett and Tubbs. Still, can't Mann throw Thomas a bone? At Sunday's show, he looked fit, rested, and ready for work.
TUBE TALK It took another crew of emergency workers to save the cops, firefighters, and paramedics on NBC's ''Third Watch.'' The network was pleased enough with the ratings of the struggling show's crossover episode featuring the stars of ''ER'' on April 29 that it has renewed ''Third Watch'' for a fourth season this fall....
Despite the pouring rain, Mary Tyler Moore made it after all to the unveiling of her statue in downtown Minneapolis. The eight-foot-tall recreation of her famous tam toss during the opening credits of ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' was commissioned by TV Land, which placed a similar landmark, a statue of Jackie Gleason as ''The Honeymooners'' bus driver Ralph Kramden, in New York City's Port Authority bus terminal two years ago. At Wednesday's ceremony in Minneapolis, a crowd of 2,000 joined Moore in singing the show's theme song and tossing their berets. Referring to the inclement weather, she said, ''I guess I can take a nothing day and suddenly make it seem all worthwhile.''
KID STUFF Also immortalized in sculpture was Audrey Hepburn, who, in addition to starring in ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'' and ''Roman Holiday,'' was a UNICEF advocate who spent the last years of her life visiting international trouble spots and working to improve the lives of poverty-stricken children. A seven-foot bronze statue of the actress, who died in 1993, was unveiled Wednesday at the United Nation's Children's Fund headquarters in New York. Attending the unveiling, which was part of this week's special UN conference on the rights of children, were Roger Moore, Mia Farrow, and Harry Belafonte....
Who knew that Nelson Mandela was a Raffi fan? After his downtown trip to the Tribeca Film Festival, the former South African president is joining 70 current world leaders this week in New York at the UN children's-rights conference, where they'll attend a concert Thursday by the kids' music troubadour. Actually, it's a good thing that Raffi's doing his part for world peace; imagine if the entertainment had been, say, Barney -- World War III would break out for sure....
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