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REEL DEALS Ever wonder who the Murphy was behind the adage that anything that can go wrong will? It's really Salma Hayek. In ''Murphy's Law,'' a romantic comedy based on an idea by her brother, Sami, Hayek will play Murphy as a legendary being (somewhere on the order of the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy) responsible for making sure things that are supposed to go wrong do. In the film, which Hayek will also produce, she falls in love with a magician whose life she has just made miserable....

In the Australian movie ''The Hard Way'' (not to be confused with the old Michael J. Fox-James Woods cop farce), three bank-robbing brothers plan one last big score. Sounds routine, except that the ringleader is ''Memento'''s Guy Pearce, and his beleaguered wife is ''Six Feet Under'''s Rachel Griffiths. Lions Gate has picked up the North American rights and will release the movie here later this year....

Not even a force as powerful as George Lucas could keep ''Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones'' safe from piracy. An advance edition, apparently taped by a camcorder at a preview screening, has made it to the Internet as a downloadable bootleg, and bootlegs are also available on the street for as little as $5, the New York Post reports. Media consultant Bruce Forest tells the Los Angeles Times that as many as ''a million people will have seen 'Star Wars' before it's opened. That's never happened before.''

''Episode II'' proved to be a highlight of the first annual Tribeca Film Festival, which ended yesterday. Sunday featured a benefit premiere of the movie, which drew star Natalie Portman, old-school ''Star Wars'' actor James Earl Jones, Michael J. Fox, Susan Sarandon, Macaulay Culkin, and Denis Leary, among others. Proceeds went to the Children's Aid Society, while 3,000 kids, including some who had lost parents on Sept. 11, were invited guests. (Next stop: the Cannes Film Festival, where the film will screen out of competition on Thursday, the day it opens worldwide.)

The weekend's other big highlight was Friday's free concert in Battery Park, which drew more than 10,000 people to hear Sheryl Crow, Counting Crows, Wyclef Jean, and comics Robin Williams and Jimmy Fallon. Surprise guest David Bowie also performed a set, and there was a video of U2 performing a new song from festival co-organizer Martin Scorsese's ''Gangs of New York.'' (Festivalgoers also got to see the first public showing of ''Gangs'' footage, a seven-minute sneak of the long-awaited film that is due in theaters in December.) Highlights from the concert will air later this month on MTV.


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