Susan Sarandon, Blake Lively, Mad Men's Christina Hendricks, Catherine Hardwicke and Little Red Riding Hood, a Heathers remake and more top this installment of the Hollywood Trade Roundup, a collection of hotties in the headlines from The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety.
The week opened with news that Brad Pitt overpowered the friendly aliens of Peter Jackson's District 9 over the weekend, with Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Bastereds collecting $37.6 million to win the frame, sending Sienna Miller and Channing Tatum's G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra to third place, Rachel McAdams' The Time Traveler's Wife to fourth, and the Meryl Streep and Amy Adams cooking comedy Julie & Julia to fifth.
Catherine Hardwicke (who directed Kristen Stewart in last year's Twilight) has signed on to helm The Girl With the Red Riding Hood, Warner Bros.' reboot of the Grimm brothers fairy tale. In addition, the director is in discussions to join Sony's 21 Jump Street remake of the 1990s TV series that put Johnny Depp on the map.
Susan Sarandon is in talks to join Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. She'll play the mother of a young stock trader (Shia LaBeouf) who falls under Gordon Gekko's (Michael Douglas) spell.
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Gossip Girl Blake Lively will play Ben Affleck's ex-girlfriend in The Town, an adaptation of Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves. Affleck, who also is directing the project, plays a career criminal opposite FBI agent Jon Hamm (Mad Men). Filming begins next month in Boston.
Speaking of Mad Men, Christina Hendricks, who plays the sultry Joan on the AMC drama, has joined Katherine Heigl in Life as We Know It, a romantic comedy revolving around two strangers who come together to care for the orphaned kids of their mutual best friends. Hendricks will play Heigl's best friend.
Hot on the heels of the small-screen adaptation of St. Elmo's Fire, Fox is developing a take on 1989's Winona Ryder-Christina Slater cult favorite Heathers. There's no word on how the film, which also starred Shannen Doherty, will be updated.
Samantha Morton has joined Disney's John Carter of Mars, the adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' book series. Morton (In America) will play the daughter of a Civil War veteran (Willem Dafoe) who is mysteriously transported to Mars.
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In TV ratings news, HBO's Anna Paquin-Stephen Moyer vampire drama True Blood hit yet another ratings high, drawing more than 5.3 million viewers to watch Paquin dream of Alexander Skarsgard and viewers catch their first glimpse of Evan Rachel Wood as the lesbian vampire queen. Granted, it was just her bloody foot, but still …
Speaking of Moyer, the actor has joined 90210's Lily Collins in Priest, a big-screen thriller starring Paul Bettany, Cam Gigandet (Twilight) and Maggie Q. Moyer will go from playing a good vampire on True Blood to the moral brother of a murderous priest who turns against the church to track down a band of vampires who kidnapped his niece. Will the True Blood factor carry over to the big screen?
Project Runway's long-awaited return to the air — this time on Lifetime — was up 45 percent compared with its Season 5 premiere on Bravo in July 2008. An estimated 4.2 million viewers tuned in to the Heidi Klum-hosted reality competition show.
Ugly Betty's America Ferrera and Ana Ortiz were recognized with Imagen Awards for best actress and supporting actress, respectively, for their positive portrayals of Latinos in the media on the ABC show. The honor marked Ferrera's second win in a row.
Elizabeth Banks, who played former first lady Laura Bush in W, will star in The Next Three Days, Paul Haggis' (Crash) Lionsgate story about a woman who is imprisoned for a murder she claims she didn't commit. She'll star opposite Russell Crowe, as her husband who tries to clear her name.
U.K. series Skins, which revolves around an ensemble cast of teens and depicts drug use, nudity, profanity, and more, has been picked up for a stateside remake by MTV. The raunchy series will cast a slate of unknown actors for its U.S. debut and will collaborate with the original Skins team to develop stories for American youth.
Paula Abdul has lined up her first post-American Idol gig. The former singing competition judge is set to host VH1's concert special VH1 Divas. Performers for the special are set to include Adele, Leona Lewis and former Idols Kelly Clarkson and Jordin Sparks. The concert airs Sept. 17 on the cable network.
On the Billboard albums chart, Reba McEntire scores her second No. 1 album with Keep on Loving You, bumping country classmate George Strait's Twang to No. 2. Taylor Swift's Fearless, meanwhile, moves up one slot to No. 8.
Looking to the weekend at the boxoffice, Halloween comes early as The Final Destination and Rob Zombie's Halloween II open wide against holdovers Inglourious Bastereds and District 9. On the counter-programming front, 1960s comedy Taking Woodstock, starring Imelda Staunton, Emile Hirsch and Eugene Levy and directed by Brokeback Mountain's Ang Lee, opens in a more limited release{C}.
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