REEL DEALS Twentieth Century Fox may not be happy about the way Sony's ''Spider-Man'' has stolen the box-office thunder of of ''Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones,'' but it does think the wallcrawler's success bodes well for its own upcoming Marvel superhero movies. Fox has scheduled its to open May 2, 2003, the same weekend ''Spider-Man'' opened this year, and it's pushing back ''Daredevil'' from the January wasteland to President's Day weekend in February, which has increasingly become a good time to open a blockbuster (think ''Hannibal''). ''The summer is starting earlier and earlier,'' Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad told Variety....
Does Jeremy Sisto ever do light, romantic comedy roles? On ''Six Feet Under,'' he's the until-recently-institutionalized Billy. In his next project, ''Quiet Like Sleep,'' he'll play a recovering alcoholic with a terrible secret who tries to reconcile with his estranged family. He's producing the indie film as well, which begins shooting at the end of the summer.
HEALTH WATCH ''Witchblade'' star Yancy Butler has her own personal demons to fight. The 31-year-old actress, who plays a New York cop armed with a supernatural weapon, has checked herself into alcohol rehab, forcing the show to halt production. TNT's most successful original drama, ''Witchblade'' is set to begin airing its second season on June 16. Six of the 13 episodes have been shot, and while Variety reports that the series hopes to go back into production in a few weeks, it may do so with a new star.
CROSS WORDS The Vatican doesn't usually comment on fashion trends, but it has belatedly discovered that celebrities are wearing bejeweled crucifixes as fashion accessories, and it calls the trend a fashion don't. An editorial published by Vatican news agency Fides notes that ''Crosses glitter around the necks of television show-women, leading models and actresses. Jennifer Aniston, star of 'Friends' and wife of Brad Pitt, wears a cross of platinum and diamonds. Naomi Campbell has a collection of enormous, jewel-studded crosses. Catherine Zeta-Jones exhibits a cross of gold and diamonds. This mania is incomprehensible.'' (Especially if, like Zeta-Jones, you've married into a Jewish family and are contemplating conversion yourself.) ''Is it consistent with the Gospel to spend millions on a copy of the sacred symbol of the Christian faith and perhaps forget there are people all over the world who suffer and die of hunger?'' continued the editorial, which also criticized Cher and Elizabeth Hurley. Responding to the editorial, Cher spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg told the New York Post, ''Why don't you tell the Pope to clean up his own house?'' Rosenberg, of course, used to be the spokeswoman for Madonna, who started this whole trend in the first place.
STARS AND STRIPES Bruce Springsteen may be sitting out the New Jersey race for U.S. Senator, but it was still a busy week for stars with political agendas. Bono is taking U.S. Treasurer Paul O'Neill across Africa this week, hoping to get him to open America's wallet to help alleviate third-world poverty and debt. Angelina Jolie put on her United Nations goodwill ambassador hat and visited a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand, where she donated sarongs and soccer balls. Parkinson's disease sufferers Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali went to Capitol Hill in Washington yesterday to urge Congress to back controversial stem-cell research that could result in gene therapy to treat Parkinson's and other ailments. (''The debate is not about promoting one type of research over others,'' Fox said. ''It's about protecting researchers from being demonized and criminalized so they can go about their work exploring new opportunities to treat illness and disease.'') And Michael Douglas made what his publicist called a ''sizable'' donation to the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan, one of many programs administered by Internews to train journalists and rebuild a free press in about two dozen countries. Hey, if the Afghans learn how to report on what is really going on among decision makers in their country, maybe they can show American reporters how to do it.
