Charles Heads The Crue

Former Seinfeld scribe Larry Charles is in negotiations to direct a biopic of Motley Crue. The project titled The Dirt will be based on the rockers' 2001 book The Dirt: Confessions Of The World's Most Notorious Rock Band. As the title suggests, bandmates Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars and Vince Neil reveal all about their rise to fame and subsequent lapse into debauchery.

Charles has just wrapped on Sacha Baron Cohen comedy Borat, so we trust he'll see the funny side to incidents like Tommy Lee having a poo on a plate and leaving it in the hotel ventilation system...

Iron And Ants

Zathura helmer Jon Favreau will direct Marvel Studios' live-action comic book caper Iron Man. He insists that there will be minimal CGI in this telling of the tale. "The idea of using CGI and relying solely on that to tell your story, those days are past," he says. "I think that integrating practical filmmaking and augmenting it with CGI is the key to making it an emotionally involved story."

The news comes as part of a bigger slate announced by Marvel Studios in partnership with Paramount. Under the new deal, Blighty's own Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead) has been hired to direct and co-write Ant Man about a superhero whose special ability is controlling the minds of ant. You may scoff, but it comes in very handy on a summer picnic.

Freeman & Berry Go Cuckoo

Talking of Halle Berry, she's reported to be teaming up with Morgan Freeman for comedy drama The Patient. Indie filmmaker Jean-Claude La Marre penned the script and will direct the film. "It's like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest meets K-Pax," he told MTV. "Freeman plays a mental patient at a Harlem hospital psychiatric ward who believes himself to be Santa Claus. And Halle Berry plays the psychiatrist who's evaluating him."

Apparently Freeman's character escapes the hospital and turns up at a toy store where, naturally, Berry begins to wonder whether he's telling the truth. Well, we knew she was nuts after seeing Gothika. Production is scheduled this summer with a view to release in summer 2007.

Brody & Lohan Get Talking

Adrien Brody and Lindsay Lohan are set for Speechless. Indie filmmaker Brian Dannelly (Saved!) will call the shots on this romantic comedy inspired by the story of Cyrano de Bergerac. Brody will play an introverted man who is invited to give a speech at his friend's wedding so seeks coaching from an assertiveness expert played by Lohan. Of course this may be difficult to buy for anyone who saw Brody molesting Halle Berry during his 2003 Oscar acceptance speech...

Dannelly and writing partner Michael Urban are adapting the script from L Sprague De Camp's 1952 novel. Cameras will roll later this year.

Benton's Feast Of Film

Even after the blot on our consciousness that was The Human Stain, director Robert Benton has been given a two-picture deal by Lakeshore Entertainment. The first project is Feast Of Love based on the novel by Charles Baxter. It's a romance revolving around a community of friends in Oregon. Kinky.

The second film will be Appointment In Samarra, adapted from the novel by John O'Hara. This centres on a glamorous couple who are the envy of everyone in their small Pennsylvania town until the husband starts to emotionally self-destruct. We're sure the Pennsylvania tourist board will love it! If they're not taken over by an army of robots first...

Alda Gets Resurrected

Veteran actor Alan Alda is joining Josh Hartnett and Samuel L Jackson in Resurrecting The Champ. It's a true story focussing on an LA Times reporter who wrote about a homeless man who was once a renowned boxer. Later the journo discovered that the champ wasn't who he claimed to be, but by then the two had formed a tight father-son bond - and the reporter probably wanted to avoid a punch in the mouth.

Rod Lurie, who has directed episodes of Commander In Chief and Line Of Fire, will call the shots in Canada this June.

Hurt For President

William Hurt has been elected leader of the free world. Columbia Pictures have hired him to play the US president in political thriller Vantage Point. Dennis Quaid - who also plays the big cheese in the very cheesy satire American Dreamz - is already on board the project. So is Matthew Fox, star of TV's Lost. Hmm, perhaps these aren't the people best qualified to find Iraq on a map...

Director Pete Travis, who got his first job helming TV comedy drama Cold Feet, will be on megaphone duty for this complex tale that follows the build-up to an assassination attempt from five points of view.

Brolin Vs Old Men

Josh Brolin will join Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men. Joel and Ethan Coen are adapting the crime novel by Cormac McCarthy and will shoot the film in late spring. Brolin will play a Vietnam vet who works on the Texas plains and scoops a bundle of cash he finds at the scene of a drug deal gone awry. We expect the characters played by Jones and Bardem aren't too happy about that.

It's a lucky break for Brolin who was last seen sinking into obscurity in dodgy diving caper Into The Blue.

Myers Vs The Robots

Mike Myers will star in How To Survive A Robot Uprising. The comedy is based on a manual written by Daniel H Wilson, a doctoral candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Myers will play a technical administrator who has the thankless job of sounding warnings against robotic threats and researching ways to keep them from taking over. (That should put the brakes on Schwarzenegger's plans to take the White House.)

Paramount bought the book last year and hired writing partners Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant to pen the script. Their credits include Herbie: Fully Loaded about a car with artificial consciousness - hey, wait a minute...

Fraser's Fantastic Journey

Brendan Fraser will top the bill for Journey 3-D. It's an update of Jules Verne's classic tome Journey To The Centre Of The Earth with Fraser playing a geologist-turned-explorer. Together with his teenage son, he discovers a message hidden in an ancient artefact, which leads them into the bowels of planet Earth and a world of dangerous prehistoric beasties. James Mason made the same journey in a tweed suit back in 1959. Toasty.

Grosse Pointe Blank scribe DV DeVincentis has tapped out the script and Eric Brevig, who won an Academy Award for his visual effects work on Total Recall, will make his feature directorial debut. (We're guessing it's going to be in 3-D.)

Howard Gets Real

Schmaltzmeister Ron Howard will be on megaphone duty for The Look Of Real. He hopes that daughter Bryce Dallas Howard (The Village) will take a part in the ensemble drama following the trials and tribulations of a group of young women in the garment industry. Sounds a bit like How To Make An American Quilt, but with Howard at the helm, it'll probably be a star-spangled bedspread.

The script is by Winnie Holzman who penned TV series like The Wonder Years and My So Called Life. Apparently she's already received notes from Howard and Grazer on her first draft and is now at work on a rewrite.

Abrams Goes Star Trekkin'

JJ Abrams will write, produce and direct the 11th instalment in the Star Trek movie franchise. His fellow M:Iimpossible III scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci will pen the story that focuses on the early days of James T Kirk and Mr Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission. And presumably getting beaten up by the college football team...

The decision to re-launch Star Trek on the big screen comes less than a year after US TV bosses pulled the plug on Star Trek: Enterprise because of dismal ratings. That's the way to do it - strike while the iron is hot!