REEL DEALS It's hard, maybe, to mention Tom Cruise and Orson Welles in the same breath. But Citizen Cruise is going after one of Welles' most famous properties. Variety reports that Cruise's production company is developing a remake of ''War of the Worlds,'' possibly for the actor to star in. The young Welles made a name for himself when he broadcast a radio version of H.G. Wells' classic Mars-attacks novel on the eve of Halloween in 1938, with a fake news bulletin format script that fooled listeners across the country and caused a nationwide panic. The 1953 film version produced by George Pal was a drive-in classic; presumably, however, Cruise will want to pony up for more sophisticated special effects....
Barry Levinson will direct Ben Stiller and Jack Black in ''Envy'' this July. Stiller will play a guy who goes green-eyed when his neighbor and pal (Black) nets a windfall from an invention. It's the brainchild of Larry David (''Seinfeld,'' ''Curb Your Enthusiasm''), and it sounds similar to his sour screen comedy ''Sour Grapes'' from a few years back. Apparently, Levinson and Dreamworks have buried the hatchet, now that a lawsuit over his last Dreamworks movie, 2000's ''An Everlasting Piece,'' has been dismissed. That film's producer sued the studio for allegedly dumping the film in a handful of theaters and letting it die without marketing it properly (it earned just $75,000 on 13 screens) because its satirical take on the Northern Ireland situation would have upset the British at a time when studio cofounder Steven Spielberg was about to receive an honorary knighthood. The suit was thrown out of court a few days ago when the judge ruled that Dreamworks had nonetheless lived up to its contractual obligations. Maybe that story will be told in ''Envy II.''...
is launching its own Pixar-like computer animation unit. Running it will be Sandra Rabins and Penney Finkelman Cox, who executive produced ''Shrek'' for DreamWorks. They're hoping to get ''Shrek'' and ''Ice Age''-style family films into theaters by 2005. They're also hoping people will forget Sony's last foray into computer animation, ''Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.''
TUBE TALK Next Friday, hours after he spends his last morning on CBS' ''The Early Show,'' Bryant Gumbel will grant a farewell interview -- to ABC's Barbara Walters. The ''20/20'' host sat down on Wednesday to tape the interview with Gumbel and his fiancée, Hilary Quinlan. Let's see if Walters made the hard-shelled morning host cry....
Meanwhile, TV Guide reports that MSNBC's Brian Williams wants a network anchor slot so badly that he's willing to jump ship to . Williams is often mentioned as an heir apparent to NBC's Tom Brokaw, but the 62-year-old doesn't seem to be planning to retire anytime soon. Neither does CBS' Dan Rather, 70, who just signed a contract renewal that keeps him on the network for another four years, but the contract apparently doesn't guarantee him the anchor chair he's held for two decades. TV Guide says CBS has been in talks with Williams about the possibility of joining the farm team (''60 Minutes II,'' that is, with the idea of grooming him for Rather's chair within three years. NBC said in a statement, ''We have the highest regard for Brian Williams and we hope he stays at NBC for years to come.''...
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