James Woods To Play Rudy!

Emmy-winner James Woods will play former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in a two-hour cable movie to air later this year on USA Network.

"Rudy!" is expected to chronicle Giuliani's tenure as mayor of the nation's largest city, culminating with his work after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Quality begets quality - and we couldn't be more excited about James Woods coming on board this project," said Jeff Wachtel, USA Network's executive vice president for series and long form programming.

"The depiction of Rudy Giuliani requires an actor of complexity and intelligence - two words that are synonymous with Jimmy's body of work."

Woods, 55, received Oscar nominations for his work in 1986's "Salvador" and 1996's "Ghosts of Mississippi." He also gave two Emmy award-winning performances during the 1980s for "Promise" and "My Name is Bill W."

The script for "Rudy!" is being written by Stanley Weiser, whose credits include "Wall Street," "Fatherland" for HBO and "Witness to the Mob" for NBC. The film will be based on the book "Rudy!" by The Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett.

Charlize Theron In "The Italian Job,"

Charlize Theron is negotiating to star alongside Mark Wahlberg in "The Italian Job," a heist drama that F. Gary Gray will start shooting in August.

Based on the eponymous 1969 picture, which starred Michael Caine, Benny Hill and Noel Coward, the Paramount update will shoot in Italy and Los Angeles and will be grittier than the original, which had comedic elements. Consistent in both films is the presence of the speedy but miniscule Mini Cooper sports cars, a line BMW recently bought and revived, just in time to be the centerpiece of the new film.

Wahlberg plays career criminal Charlie Croker, who masterminds a massive gold bullion heist that is made possible when the crooks create the largest traffic jam in L.A. history. With the highways effectively turned into parking lots, the thieves are able to get around by using Mini Coopers that can drive over sidewalks, stairways and even subway tunnels.

Theron would play the daughter of Croker's former partner. She enlists in the heist and proves to be a gifted safecracker and driver.

Theron, repped by UTA, next stars in the Luis Mandoki-directed "Trapped" for Columbia Pictures and Miramax Films' "Waking Up in Reno."

John Singleton To Direct The Sequel To "The Fast And The Furious,"

Director John Singleton is in the home stretch on a deal to direct the sequel to "The Fast and the Furious," reuniting with his "Baby Boy" star-singer Tyrese.

Singleton will pick up where "Fast" left off, when cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) let Dominic Torreto (Vin Diesel) get away. In the sequel, that gets him stripped of his badge. He is given a chance to redeem himself by going undercover to infiltrate the street racing circuit in Miami. Shooting is expected to begin in October.

The directing job became open when the original's helmer, Rob Cohen, declared he would return only if both of his stars were in place. Diesel dropped out of the sequel last month, and Cohen followed. Tyrese emerged as the new star power earlier this month.

The film is a high priority piece of business for Universal Pictures. The original cost $38 million and grossed $145 million domestically, proving to be equally strong on video and DVD.

While Singleton broke in directing issue-oriented dramas like "Boyz 'N the Hood" and "Higher Learning," he has made a concerted effort to broaden his range. He directed the Samuel Jackson starrer "Shaft" and attached himself to a "Sinbad" project at Columbia.

'American Taliban' TV Movie Planned

A television movie on John Walker Lindh, the 21-year-old Californian captured with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, is being developed by Artisan Television and the FX cable channel to air in 2003.

Lindh was returned to the United States and indicted in federal court for conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, providing services to al-Qaida and the Taliban, and using firearms during crimes of violence. Jury selection for his trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 26.

John Romano, writer and producer of the "Party of Five" TV drama, has been hired to write the Lindh script, with Artisan Pictures CEO Bob Cooper as executive producer.

Romano and others involved in the project said the film with the working title "American Taliban" would attempt to explain what motivated Lindh. The two-hour film project is currently using information in the public domain as its basis, while its creators hope to obtain more specific source material.

Romano told Daily Variety for its Wednesday editions: "I was compelled by the profound psychological and political mystery of this kid. How does someone grow up in Marin County with all the benefits that America has to offer, and then end up in Afghanistan with an AK-47?"

He also is a consulting producer on an NBC drama "American Dreams," set in the days just after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, to be aired in the fall.

Warner harvests VeggieTales

Warner Home Video and WEA Inc. confirmed late Wednesday that they have signed a new agreement to handle sales and distribution of video product from Big Idea Productions, including the popular VeggieTales franchise.

Under the deal, WHV will handle sales and WEA will continue to distribute the videos. The agreement also covers Larryboy and 3-2-1 Penguins!, which has until now been available only in Christian bookstores.

The first video release under the new agreement will be VeggieTales: Jonah Sing Along Songs and More, which streets July 30. WHV and WEA will also launch the 3-2-1 Penguins! series into the mass market with first releases Big Trouble on Planet Wait-Your-Turn and The Cheating Scales of Bullamanka, both set for October.

Big Idea will continue to handle product marketing.

"We are thrilled to add the enormously successful VeggieTales series to Warner Home Video's family entertainment library," said Jim Cardwell, WHV executive VP and general manager of North America and Australia. "Our goal is to further leverage the brand in the mass marketplace and to bring the same success to Big Idea Productions' existing franchises, 3-2-1 Penguins! and Larryboy, as well as to new properties introduced during the term of this deal."

Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by former VeggieTales distributor Lyrick Studios, now called HIT Entertainment, is "still pending," a HIT spokeswoman said last week. HIT filed a $30 million lawsuit against VeggieTales producer Big Idea Productions on Jan. 4 in U.S. District Court in Dallas after Big Idea decided to drop HIT as its distributor at the end of last year.

The lawsuit alleges that Big Idea violated a verbal agreement to continue its distribution agreement with HIT.

In a separate agreement, Artisan Entertainment has theatrical and video rights to Big Idea's upcoming Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie

A Writer's Dream: First-Time Dark Fiction Author's Novels Optioned for Films

A first-time dark fiction author has not just one, but two novels optioned for films. Lia Scott Price turned her novel, "The Guardian," (published by Writers Club Press, iUniverse, Inc.), into a screenplay, which was optioned by the Triton Film Group, an independent film company that produces films for domestic and foreign markets. The screenplay, based on the novel, was adapted into a feature film entitled "Inner Demons."

"Inner Demons," an action-thriller about a supernatural vigilante, is on Triton's production schedule and has international presales and distribution.

Price's second screenplay based on her novel, "Ghostwriter," (Writers Club Press, iUniverse, Inc.), was also optioned and is currently in development for a feature film. Scenes from "Ghostwriter," are also currently being developed into film shorts, scheduled for filming in June 2002. "Ghostwriter" is a supernatural thriller about a deadly pact between a serial killer and a desperate author.

Price is also a first-time short fiction writer whose story "Without Wings" appeared in the anthology "The Spirit of Writing" (Mark R. Waldman, JP Tarcher, amazon.com). The anthology includes top writers such as Stephen King. Price's first romance novel, "The Frog Asylum," was also published through iUniverse, Inc.

Price's novels focus on unusual, edgy topics, ones that raise eyebrows. The thriller novels incorporate dark themes with supernatural and sacred elements, and both "Ghostwriter" and "The Guardian" use Los Angeles as a setting. In "Ghostwriter," the novel's serial killer dispatches those who sin based on the Ten Commandments. "The Guardian" has a disillusioned and deranged guardian angel haunting Los Angeles.

Price is currently working towards becoming known as a woman writer of dark fiction, particularly in the thriller genre whose novels have a strong potential to become films. Price's novels can be found on iUniverse.com.

Brains are accompanying brawn on the big screen this summer.

Along with "Spider-Man," "Star Wars" and other mammoth action movies, Hollywood's busy season brings an unusually healthy crop of smarter films for older adults to balance the popcorn flicks aimed mainly at viewers in their teens and 20s.

Counter programming such films during the youth-oriented summer is standard Hollywood practice to keep baby boomers theater-bound. What's different this year is how steadily those films are coming and how well they're clicking with audiences.

A major new adult release has arrived each of the last three weekends: the adultery thriller "Unfaithful," starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane; the Hugh Grant romantic comedy "About a Boy"; and the edgy crime drama "Insomnia," with Al Pacino and Robin Williams.

Each has scored with adults 25 and older, drawing solid business in a movie market dominated by blockbusters "Spider-Man" and "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones." "Insomnia" debuted last weekend with a robust $26.1 million, while "Unfaithful" and "About a Boy" opened well and have held up strongly in subsequent weekends.

"There's been room for a lot of different kinds of films that are specifically directed toward different audiences," said Jeff Blake, head of distribution and marketing for Sony, which released "Spider-Man." "It seems like the blockbusters have expanded the market enough to let these other films do quite nicely."

Another higher-minded film, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," debuted strongly in limited release last weekend.

Also coming this summer are;

"Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," an ensemble women's film featuring Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, Ashley Judd and Maggie Smith; Nicolas Cage's
"Windtalkers," about Navajo code-men during World War II; a new three-hour cut of the beloved Italian film "Cinema Paradiso"; the brainy Sundance Film Festival comedy hit
"Tadpole," with Sigourney Weaver; Steven Soderbergh's pseudo-sequel to "sex, lies and videotape,"
"Full Frontal," featuring Julia Roberts and David Duchovny;
"Road to Perdition," from "American Beauty" director Sam Mendes, a 1930s Irish-American mob tale with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law.

"Here's a film that you would normally expect to see toward the end of the year. I'm happy the studio feels confident to let the movie stand on its own two feet in the middle of summer," Mendes said.

Steven Spielberg, whose DreamWorks studio backed "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition," teams with Tom Cruise on "Minority Report," a hybrid of action and ideas. Cruise plays a cop of the future accused of a murder he has yet to commit by a psychic police corps that arrests people before they carry out their crimes.

"It's that rarest and best combination - big, summer, popcorn fun - but it's also about something," said Tom Rothman, studio co-chairman for 20th Century Fox, which is distributing "Minority Report" and also released "Unfaithful."

Adult-oriented films such as "Unfaithful," "Insomnia" and "About a Boy" rarely rise to blockbuster status. But they are far cheaper to make and market than a $120 million behemoth such as "Spider-Man," so they can become solidly profitable even in a summer crowded with explosive action and dumb comedy.

"There's a huge market available for good, solid, adult entertainment," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which made "Insomnia." "Good movies rise to the occasion. It's as simple as that."

Spider-Man Targeted By Web Pirate

About 10 million people have attempted to download copies illegally of blockbusters Spider-Man and the new Star Wars film, a new report estimates.

And of those, the report says that between two to three million successfully finished the operation allowing them to watch the whole movie.

The Copyright Crusade II report, compiled by US research company Viant, will send alarm bells ringing through the film industry as studios attempt to stave off the threat of internet piracy.

The report suggests between 400,000 and 600,00 film copies are downloaded each day from illegal internet sites.

This is up on last year's figures, when the highest estimate was 500,000 a day.

The first version of Spider-Man to appear on the internet was reported on 2 May, one day before it opened in the US and was a version taken by a hand-held video camera from inside a cinema.

May has been a particularly busy time for bootleggers with about nine million users surfing the web for new films, according to Viant.

The majority of the downloads are being transferred over internet channels such as usenet, IRC, Gnutella and FastTrack, which allow files to be shared by millions around the world.

'Theft is theft'

The problem is mainly focused on the American market, where widespread broadband connections make it a faster and simpler process.

The Motion Picture Alliance of America (MPAA) has shown particular concern about the rise in film piracy, believing the industry is losing more than $3bn (£2m) in worldwide revenue.

Its president Jack Valenti recently spoke to a US Congress committee about its attempts to stamp out piracy but also its intention to embrace new technology.

"Movie producers and distributors are filled with optimism over the prospect of the internet as another new delivery system to dispatch their movies to consumers, at a fair and reasonable price," he said.

"Consumers ultimately benefit from these endeavors because they will enjoy more choices for accessing the movies they want in high-quality digital format."

He also urged the committee to "send a clear message of deterrence that theft is theft, whether conducted online or off".

Music; Independents Getting Into Online Music

The Big Five record labels are finally getting some much needed competition in the emerging business of making music legally available online.

Two independent services -- FullAudio's MusicNow (www.fullaudio.com) and Listen.com's Rhapsody (www.listen.com) -- are now challenging MusicNet (www.musicnet.com) and pressplay (www.pressplay.com), owned by the major labels.

None of the four is perfect, and is sure to change dramatically in the next few years. But after several days of listening to MusicNow and Rhapsody, I'd rate them as equal or better than MusicNet and pressplay.

Here's a brief history:

The music industry lives in fear of rampant online piracy, spurring their efforts to shut down unauthorized services such as Napster and Kazaa. Somewhat reluctantly, the Big Five -- Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), EMI Group, Sony Music, Vivendi Universal and Warner Music -- are making small amounts of their vast libraries available for authorized online services.

MusicNet, owned by BMG and Warner, launched on Dec. 4 with a library of 75,000 tracks. It has since expanded to 80,000. Pressplay, owned by Sony and Universal, launched on Dec.19 with 50,000 tracks, since expanded to 70,000. EMI doesn't have a stake in either service, but is licensing songs to both.

FullAudio, based in Chicago, launched MusicNow on April 17 with 50,000 tracks licensed from EMI, Universal and Warner. Subscribers sign up through the Web sites of radio stations owned by the Clear Channel group; limited at the moment to a few stations in Phoenix -- though you don't have to be in Phoenix to join.

Listen.com, based in San Francisco, launched an upgraded version 1.5 of Rhapsody on May 23 with 138,000 tracks licensed from BMG, EMI, Sony and Warner, as well as number of smaller independent labels.

The four services share a few things in common: They charge a monthly fee, ranging from $5 to $25 a month, for access to the music of your choice from their collections.

They sell this access in one or more of four ways: streaming, where you listen to songs as they are sent to you through the Internet; downloads, where the song is transferred to your computer's hard disk for later listening; burning, where a song is copied onto a recordable CD; and Internet radio, where you pick among channels of commercial-free music.

Also, all four use copy-protection technology built into the newest version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player (www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download), which requires a personal computer running an operating system no older than Windows 98. Macintosh users, for now, can't use any of the services.

The specifics:

• MusicNet offers 100 streams and 100 downloads for $9.95 a month, along with access to 48 Internet radio channels. You can listen to the downloads as many times as you want, but only for 30 days.
• Pressplay offers 300 streams and 30 downloads for $9.95 a month; 500 streams, 50 downloads and 10 burns for $14.95; 750 streams, 75 downloads and 15 burns for $19.95; or 1,000 streams, 100 downloads and 20 burns for $24.95. Downloads stay active as long as you continue your pressplay subscription so the $14.95 plan would give you 600 active downloads in a year if you exercise your full monthly download quota.
• MusicNow offers 50 downloads for $7.59 a month or 100 downloads for $14.99. Additional downloads beyond the monthly limit are 15 cents each. Downloads remain active as long as you subscribe.
• Rhapsody offers access to 58 Internet radio stations for $4.95 a month, with the ability to skip forward if you hit a song you don't like. A classical music package offers radio plus unlimited streaming of Rhapsody's classical music tracks, all from the Naxos label, for $5.95. A premium classical package adds 10 burns per month of Naxos tracks for $9.95. A premium general package offers radio along with unlimited streaming of all available tracks for $9.95.

All of the services, except MusicNet, have free trials for those who want to listen before buying. Rhapsody also has a permanent free service, providing access to 20 of the 58 radio channels, without the skip forward feature. During the week of June 10, Rhapsody goes a step further with unlimited free streaming for seven days.

One more thing the four services share is huge gaps in what's available. Hundreds of thousands of songs have been commercially released in the past century, and the Big Five have only scratched the surface in what they've licensed for digital distribution.

The long-sought ``celestial jukebox,'' with every song ever recorded available online, is still at least several years away. Even if the record labels were moving at full speed -- which they're not -- the complicated process of obtaining licensing rights from performers and composers will take many months to work through.

The Beatles, for example, aren't yet licensed by any online service. Nor do any of the four services have licenses from all of the Big Five, so some artists may appear on MusicNet but not pressplay, or on Rhapsody but not on MusicNow.

Also, the size of downloads -- which run about one megabyte per minute of playing time -- are too big to make the services practical for those connecting to the Internet through a standard dial-up telephone line. You need broadband, such as a cable modem or DSL phone line. Nor is Internet radio practical without broadband.

Fortunately, I've got a cable modem at home, so I had no trouble trying out MusicNow and Rhapsody.

MusicNow makes it easy to search for and download songs, though its collection is extremely limited. There's no classical music, for one thing, and many albums only have one or two songs available for download. Paul Simon's hit ``Graceland'' album from 1986, for example, has only one song that's downloadable.

The songs I downloaded sounded good, however, matching the quality of regular music CDs to my untrained ears.

Rhapsody has a fancier onscreen interface than MusicNow, which has so many boxes and lists that I got confused on occasion. But it was also easy to perform basic searches.

I signed up for the classical package with burning and downloaded ``The Trout'' quintet by Franz Schubert, divided into five tracks totaling 39 minutes -- taking half my monthly quota of 10 burns. The burning process was simple, requiring nothing more than clicking on a few buttons, and took only four minutes. The finished CD played in my home stereo and in my computer at work.

I also found the skip forward feature on Rhapsody's radio stations to be surprisingly helpful. I could quickly sample the contents of a channel by jumping through song titles, and I could instantly dispense with a song I didn't like on my favorite Rhapsody channel, ``Jazz: Cool and Hot.''

Given their spotty libraries and the competition from numerous free Internet radio stations, I can't strongly recommend any of these services. But some music aficionados might enjoy trying them out. If you're in that number, some parting advice.

First, don't bother with MusicNet. There's no reason to spend money on downloads that expire in 30 days when pressplay and MusicNow allow you to build download libraries indefinitely.

If you've got a broadband connection and you do most of your listening at the computer, Rhapsody is the best choice because of its unlimited streaming. You don't need to download songs if you can stream them anytime you want. I've got a wireless network and a laptop computer at home. I bought external speakers for the laptop, and now I can listen to Rhapsody streams anywhere in the house.

If you want to listen while unplugged from the Net, pressplay offers a better selection than MusicNow as well as limited burning. Either way, you'll have a front-row seat for the future of recorded music.

Revamped iCrave Returns

One of Hollywood's scariest Internet monsters, whose online streams of TV shows were killed off by an angry mob of lawsuits, has been resuscitated, this time as a would-be ally set to resume operations this weekend.

The Net-based iCraveTV will have a slightly different Web address -- http://www.icravetv.biz -- than its predecessor, and a substantially different purpose: showcasing the Netcasting hardware and software of parent company EnterVision while providing authorized access to video from the BBC, Miracle Entertainment and a dozen U.S., Canadian, European and South American networks.

The original iCrave started up two years ago in Canada, providing fans with online streams of their favorite U.S. television shows. The company made its money by surrounding the streams with banner ads. But it quickly attracted the legal fire of the industry's biggest organizations -- including the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the NBA and NFL and the major networks -- and was shut down.

EnterVision, whose predecessors have been working on proprietary Netcasting technologies since 1995, picked up the iCrave name and began cutting deals with broadcasters, the biggest potential buyers of its technology, to use the EnterVision hardware and software on their own Web sites and the revived iCrave site.

None of the content deals involve any money, much less advertising or possible profits, but iCraveTV president-CEO Herbert Becker and other company execs said the long-term plan is to turn the site into an online version of a cable operator, charging carriage fees to participating networks.

EnterVision makes its money now by selling both hardware servers and software needed to transmit video over the Internet, with prices for software ranging from $200 for hobbyists to $2,500 for professional operations.

According to the site, more than 39,000 copies of the various software packages have been downloaded. EnterVision also sells hardware servers packaged with the high-end software for $25,000 each.

The technology relies on a type of program called a Java applet that runs on most common Internet browsers and computer operating systems. The applet converts, on the fly, frames of NTSC video signals into equivalent frames of digital pictures in the widely used JPEG format and ships them over the Net for viewing.

EnterVision also is using a different approach in its dealings with content providers, guided in part by Phil Craig, the iCrave founder who serves as an adviser.

"We're not going to be doing anything without permission," Becker said. "We've spoken to the rights holders, and they're actually quite keen on it. They see the use of the Internet for getting their content out there. The reality is this: They want as many eyeballs as possible. The Internet gives them more eyeballs."

That upfront permission will be key, said David Kent, a partner at law firm McMillan Binch who helped Canadian broadcasters bludgeon the original iCrave and JumpTV.

"The bottom line is, if they're going to take Canadian signals and transmit them over the Internet, then it raises all of the issues raised by iCrave.com and JumpTV to broadcasters," Kent said. "It does look like a son or grandson of iCrave, and I think you could expect the stakeholders, depending on what happens, are likely to have the same reactions as they did to iCrave."

EnterVision's majority shareholder is Mohamed Hadid, an investor who has had major holdings in the Ritz Carlton hotel chain and Options Talent Group, a Los Angeles talent scouting shop in whose Wilshire Boulevard offices EnterVision is temporarily quartered.

Legal: InternetMovies.com Sues Hollywood

This statement was issued today by InternetMovies.com: On April 25, 2002 a lawsuit was filed against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, is the result of the wrongful shutdown of Michael Rossi's web site, InternetMovies.com. The allegations against the MPAA include, interference with contractual obligations, interference with prospective economic advantage, as well as libel and defamation.

The allegations against the MPAA stem from a series of cease and desist orders issued in March and April of 2001. In the cease and desist orders, the MPAA wrongfully accused InternetMovies.com of distributing unauthorized copies of copyrighted motion pictures. The cease and desist orders effectively shut down http://www.InternetMovies.com for a temporary amount of time. This temporary shut down had a negative effect on the business proceedings and reputation of InternetMovies.com.

InternetMovies.com does not and has never distributed unauthorized copyrighted motion pictures. InternetMovies.com was registered and launched in 1997 by entrepreneur, Michael J. Rossi, who wanted to share his interest in movies, both blockbuster and independent, with Internet users. He shared this interest by providing information to visitors, such as articles about the movie industry and a graphic directory that linked visitors to movie trailers. The graphic directory is an assemblage of movie poster icons that, when individually clicked, connect the visitor to the registered movie site of interest, or site which features a trailer. Rossi has many satisfied visitors, he continues to maintain InternetMovies.com by scanning news for articles and updating his movie trailer links. He presently has 30,000 members, and boasts 60 million hits per year.

It is unlikely that InternetMovies.com is the only business to be unfairly damaged by the MPAA's unfounded claims of wrongdoing. According to Jack Valenti, President of the MPAA, "As a part of our copyright enforcement efforts, we are using Ranger, a sophisticated search engine, to track down movies illegitimately on the Web. Once Ranger sniffs out an illegal site, we send 'cease and desist' letters to the Internet Service Provider whose customer is engaging in the infringing activity or, where possible, to the site itself. In 2001, we dispatched 54,000 such letters to 1,680 ISPs around the world." In its crusade the MPAA falsely accused InternetMovies.com of distributing unauthorized copyrighted movies. To prevent false accusations, the MPAA should not solely rely on search engine software. Instead, they should rely on a human based legal review of any suspect web sites.

By filing this lawsuit against the MPAA, Michael Rossi wants to show that the small entrepreneur can stand up to Hollywood and its unfair business practices.