Robert Rodriguez has signed on to direct a new film adaptation of the sci-fi comic-book series Barbarella, previously committed to celluloid by Jane Fonda circa 1968.... Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will make its international premiere June 28 in Japan. Why there? "No special reason," a studio rep tells Reuters.... To benefit The Adrienne Shelly Foundation, CharityFolks.org is hosting an auction of Waitress memorabilia, including aprons designed by the likes of Keri Russell, Cheryl Hines, Scarlett Johansson and Tori Spelling.
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Lions Gate and the Weinstein Co. have joined to pick up worldwide rights to Teeth, rookie screenwriter-director Mitchell Lichtenstein's Sundance Film Festival entry about a virgin possessing incisors on her hoo-ha. Yes, Mitchell Lichtenstein has issues dating back to prom night.Fox Searchlight, meanwhile, grabbed rights to Waitress, the final film helmed by the late Adrienne Shelly and starring Keri Russell. Waitress is slated for a 2007 release.
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Law & Order's latest bit of headline-ripping will dramatize the Nov. 1 murder of actress Adrienne Shelly, whose credits included a guest-star gig on the serial back in 2000. According to the New York Post, a casting call is out for a male Hispanic, age 19 to 24, to play an illegal immigrant who argues with a Manhattan woman. When the woman is knocked unconscious, the man, thinking he may have killed her, tries to cover up the incident by making it look like a suicide — the same circumstances of Shelly's own death. Asked for comment by the Post, an NBC rep defended the show as fiction, and declined to offer details on the episode, which could air as early as February..
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Adrienne Shelly (Trust, The Unbelievable Truth), who was found hanged in her West Village apartment on Nov. 1, was in fact murdered, police have since learned. Led by the clue of a sneaker print in the bathtub where Shelly was discovered, the New York City Police Department ultimately were led to Diego Pillco, a 19-year-old illegal immigrant who had been renovating the apartment below Shelly's, and while doing so fielded a complaint from her about the noise he was making. Having apparently panicked that he might be deported if Shelly filed a complaint with the police, Pillco "snapped," assaulted the married mother of a toddler in her apartment, then staged the suicide. Pillco has been charged with second-degree murder.
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David Hasselhoff will don a dress and tap-dance as Adolf Hitler in a Las Vegas production of The Producers, beginning its run Jan. 31, 2007.... The N's Degrassi: The Next Generation presents its mid-Season 6 finale on Nov. 17.... Reminder: Fox's Vanished (finally) returns tonight at 8 pm/ET.... WE has announced a Dec. 6 premiere for its Dirty Dancing reality series.... Adrienne Shelly, best known for her roles in Hal Hartley's Trust and The Unbelievable Truth, was found hanged in her New York City office on Wednesday evening. She was 40.
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