BIG-SCREEN BOUND

COLD MOUNTAIN Charles Frazier (Vintage, $13) Tom Cruise is in early negotiations to play the wounded Confederate soldier in the best-selling Civil War story. Academy Award-winning Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) will write and direct.

CHILDREN OF THE DUST BOWL: THE TRUE STORY OF THE SCHOOL AT WEEDPATCH CAMP Jerry Stanley (Crown, $9.95) Jim Carrey will produce and star in an adaptation of the children's book about the 1930s.

INVISIBLE MONSTERS Chuck Palahniuk (Norton, $13) Director Jesse Peyronel and his Bounder production company optioned Palahniuk's (Fight Club) 1999 novel about a disfigured supermodel and her transgendered partner-in-crime.

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