Underworld, the vampires and werewolves bust-up starring Kate Beckinsale, is to be turned into a trilogy. Studio Screen Gems was so thrilled with the genre picture's number one opening performance in the US that it is pushing ahead with plans for a franchise. Beckinsale is said to be interested in reprising her role as a warrior vampire who falls hook, line and sinker for a member of the rival Lycan clan. Studio executives say they want to begin on part two as soon as possible, though the third instalment may be a prequel.
Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, is set to star in an adaptation of the classic videogame Spy Hunter. The muscular star of The Scorpion King, whose latest film The Rundown opens in the US today, will play a former fighter pilot who chases secret agents in a high-performance car. The Universal film is expected to go into production next spring, Variety reports.
Val Kilmer has ended talks to star opposite Tom Cruise in Michael Mann's thriller Collateral because it would clash with his existing role in Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great biopic. Kilmer plays King Philip in Stone's epic, which has begun filming in Morocco. Meanwhile The Hollywood Reporter says the casting quest continues on Collateral, which features Cruise in a rare turn as a contract killer. Rising American action stars Jamie Foxx and Jada Pinkett Smith have also signed.
Two Hollywood film-makers have filed a $100m suit alleging that 20th Century Fox stole their ideas for its action picture The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Papers lodged at a Los Angeles federal court claim the plot and some characters were taken from a 1992 screenplay called Cast of Characters. Suits of this nature and magnitude are not uncommon in Tinseltown and a Fox spokesperson rubbished the allegations, saying that the film was a direct adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel. Moore's work centres on a crack band of famous Victorian crime-fighters and opens here on October 17.
Catherine Zeta-Jones celebrated her 34th birthday yesterday by filing a $10m lawsuit against a cosmetics firm that claimed she had been seen buying its products. Zeta-Jones has an exclusive deal with Elizabeth Arden, and says Caudalie, another firm, had no right to use her name in its advertising.
