Plan of Steel

REEL DEALS You can't keep the Man of Steel down. The on-again, off-again ''Superman'' movie with Nicolas Cage is showing new life. Warner Bros. has hired Bill Wisher, who cowrote ''Terminator 2'' with James Cameron, to pen a new script. According to Variety, Wisher has pitched his concept to Cage, and now he'll sit down to flesh it out.... In the oddest pairing since Sidney Lumet and ''The Wiz,'' ''Armageddon'' director Michael Bay is negotiating to film ''Africa,'' which tells the real-life story of archaeologist Richard Leakey. If Bruce Willis plays Leakey, I'm walking.

CONCERT TROUBLE Eight audience members went to the hospital with stab wounds after a brawl broke out at an R. Kelly concert in Miami Tuesday night. The tussle began when a few people began arguing out by a concession stand, according to MTV News, but the fight grew to include 40 to 50 people.

WELCOMED BACK It wasn't even two years ago that NBC fired Marv Albertfor his nibbling problem, but now that he's undergone his requisite counseling, the network has brought him back with a multiyear contract. Next season he'll be courtside at the network's NBA games, and he'll also cover boxing for the 2000 Summer Olympics. ''We did what we felt we had to do at the time,'' NBC sports head Dick Ebersol told the Associated Press. ''But Marv has done what he had to do in the interim.''

MOVING FAST The Backstreet Boys's ''Millennium'' has become the top seller of the first half of 1999, with 5 million copies sold. This second album is now halfway to the sales of the Boys' first album.

CORPORATE GUY Not only has Limp Bizkit's new CD, ''Significant Other,'' just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, but lead singer Fred Durst has become a suit. Interscope records has made him a senior VP and given him his own imprint on the label, according to the Hollywood Reporter. His job description includes producing, signing new bands, and making videos, which he has experience in, having directed Bizkit's clips for ''Nookie'' and ''Faith.''

HOMETOWN HONOR A group in Bob Dylan's hometown of Hibbing, Minn., is trying to raise money to build a music center in his honor. But don't make your travel arrangements yet. ''We don't have a place,'' one of the task force members told the Associated Press. ''We don't have anything but this idea. We don't have money. When (Dylan) left in '59, that's all he had too.''

BIRTHS ''Dharma and Greg'' star Thomas Gibson is a proud dad. His wife, Cristina, gave birth to an 8-pound 9-ounce boy, James Parker, last week.

SUBS IN CNN has filled Lou Dobbs' vacated chair at the anchor desk of ''Moneyline News Hour'' with Willow Bay, host of ''CNN & Fortune,'' and ''CNN & Entertainment Weekly'' (full disclosure: aaah, you can figure it out), and Stuart Varney, an 18-year CNN vet who had left the network last year.

OBITUARY Flamboyant producer and man-about-town Allan Carr died Tuesday from cancer, at the age of 62. Carr's greatest success came with the movie ''Grease,'' but prior to that he had served as manager to Ann-Margret, Peter Sellers, and Joan Rivers, and he also claimed to have discovered Michelle Pfeiffer (who starred in his ''Grease 2'') and Mark Hamill. Carr was equally renowned for his pull-out-the-stops bashes in Hollywood.