Before we get started, I just want to make it clear that in Hollywood nothing is ever official until you see the press release (and you should probably take the following news with a big grain of salt). Over at the Alice in Wonderland fan site, talk has surfaced that Tim Burton has finally cast Alice in his live-action version of Alice in Wonderland (not to be confused with the long-suffering American McGee creation).

According to the commenter, Ian B: "My brother is working on the movie and he said Alice has been cast. He is a music supervisor for the movie and said there will be a press release about it on July 9th. The role was originally supposed to be Evan Rachel Woods but she backed out. Alice won't be played by a child but a 23 year old. From what I was told it's her first Burton movie, and her first big role in a film that will be released world wide." So who's the lucky gal? Say hello to Ryan Nikole Parker. Parker is not very well known, and other than a few TV credits is a relative newcomer to the business.

Burton struck the deal for Alice with Disney back in November, and according to comments on the IMDB message boards, he's already finished casting. Luckily for us, July 9th isn't that far away, so we won't be waiting long for the official word.

Sound off below on who you would like to see go down the rabbit hole with Mr. Burton.

[via The Bad and Ugly]

Okay, so we went through something similar with Frank Darabont's unused draft of the latest Indiana Jones installment, which managed to be a bit better (read: Mutt-less) compared to the still entertaining end result. Now, it appears that the original draft for Hancock -- long titled Tonight, He Comes -- has popped up by way of Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere (read it here). Oh, and if it's authentic, it happens to be missing the next-to-last page.

I've found the behind-the-scenes hearsay -- conveniently summed up in this NY Times piece -- on this film to be fairly fascinating. First, as scripted by Vy Vincent Ngo, Tonight had made the rounds as a reportedly hard-R superhero drama that capitalized on the somewhat sexual nature of the title. However, it seems once Will Smith was brought on board, Sony saw fit to tame things down considerably.

Even as recently as April, the MPAA had twice handed them an R instead of the sought-after PG-13, and now the finished result runs a choppy 92 minutes -- distinctly shorter than indicated in AICN test screening reports which made particular mention of a subplot involving statutory rape. Of course, as Wells brings up, it's hard to ignore the involvement of producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, whose recent work on Smith's last hit, I Am Legend, had a similarly slapdash second half at the compromise of the original material.

I've yet to get more than a couple of pages into this thing, but do you guys think this is the real deal, and if so, do you guys think that this is the real film compared to what's on thousands of screens this week?

And we thought that the shrinking gap was only between theatrical and DVD releases. Now it's how soon a project can get off the ground after someone passes away. Anna Nicole Smith had barely been gone a month when projects started to cook up on her life and death. Now Defamer has spotted that a super-respectful NINETEEN DAYS after Tim Russert dies of a heart attack, a telepic is already in the works with a casting notice up on Craigslist. The notice even says that Randy Quaid has already signed on to star.

When the news broke, did someone reach over for their phone, call up Quaid, and get this set up? Or, maybe they, you know, waited a few days so they wouldn't seem eager to capitalize on the man's death (and spent that time throwing together a script). So, this ad says that a New York-based film company is looking to cast an unknown actress in the role of Maureen Orth, Russert's wife, and that the film will follow the last 24 hours of his life. So, not only can they not wait a bit to get this going, but it's also centered on the man's death?

The casting is certainly appropriate, but that's about the only nice thing I can say about this news.

Apparently, Hollywood (and all watching) cheered too soon -- a representative for Rose McGowan has hit back at the reports that she has split with Robert Rodriguez, or scrapped their movies. McGowan's rep told People Magazine that "the production of all three films is moving forward with Rose to star." And one of those mysterious sources "close" to the actress insisted their relationship was fine.

Now, naturally we here at Cinematical could really care less about the status of their engagement -- we just wanted to know what was going to happen to those movies. And that all depends which dubious glossy you believe -- the New York Post, who broke the story, or the damage controlling People. We all know those official statements and mysterious sources can mean nothing in six months.

But even if this was all tabloid fiction, it really should serve as a wake-up call for Rodriguez and McGowan. What must it be like to turn on your television, laptop, or radio and hear people rejoicing over your break-up in the hopes that, now, Red Sonja would not be remade? They've even gone so far as to "officially" recast Barbarella with Jessica Alba on many news sites. That has to hurt. So, maybe it's time for you crazy kids to scale it back a bit. Pick one of your three love projects to make (we can give you that much), and then devote your time and talents to a movie that doesn't involve your other half. I can't really speak for McGowan, but might I humbly suggest A Dame to Kill For to Rodriguez?

Here's a stat that may or may not blow your mind: According to Box Office Mojo, Sex and the City has grossed $312 million worldwide. Yup. $312,533,654 to be exact -- for a movie based on a hit HBO show that went off the air a few years ago. Since we all know what happens when Hollywood gets a look at those kinds of numbers, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict what the future holds: plenty more TV-to-movie adaptations. We're practically guaranteed another Sex and the City flick, and earlier today Monika brought us news that the long-rumored Friends movie might be moving forward.

Honestly, why wouldn't it move forward? You're telling me Matt Leblanc, whose last credit on IMDb is Joey, is holding out for a massive paycheck? Same goes for Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, with the latter being the only one getting decent big-screen work (though, truth be told, she's about two movies away from becoming yesterday's news). The others are all showing up in bit parts, directing films that don't go anywhere and/or trying desperately to make the TV thing work again. Fact is, together they're a pot of gold. Apart and, well, we don't really care, do we?

But could a re-emergence on the big screen revive these careers? Could they somehow find a way to take the cutesy sitcom and turn it into a feature film people would actually want to see? Could Friends: The Movie make more money at the box office than Sex and the City? And should we care?

After years of Beavis and Butt-Head, there was Office Space. But after red Swingline staplers and the need for flair, Mike Judge took a number of years off from directing -- until the largely ignored Idiocracy. This time around, however, we don't have to wait as long (as Eugene pointed out in April). Extract is on the way, and now EW's Hollywood Insider has shared more of the plot, and who's in talks to co-star alongside Jason Bateman.

The film will focus on a guy who owns a flower-extract plant -- the industrial sort, not the leafy sort. In typical, professional Judge fashion, the guy is having a bunch of bad luck, which includes "workplace issues and a cheating wife." EW sources say that Kristen Wiig is looking into playing the wife, while Mila Kunis might grab a role as a plant employee. That sounds like a set up for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, revisited -- the man can choose between his crappy partner and the wonderful nice girl right in front of him.

Between the possible murk of an actors' strike and Wiig's SNL schedule, the film is slated to start production in August.

Back when I posted about television shows hitting the big screen in February, I included a joke Matthew Perry made about how the cast of Friends were "trying to organize a thing soon," but he meant a dinner, not a movie.

Did he, in fact, mean a movie? We can take this with a grain of salt right now, but The Daily Mail says that a film based on the popular series has gotten the green light to start filming in the next year and a half, with all of the actors interested in reprising their roles -- Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, and David Schwimmer.

Basically, it's all said to be due to the success of Sex and the City, and their source says: "she [Aniston] and Courteney have already talked this summer about what they want out of a Friends movie, and if deals can be made with them, everything else can fall into place rather quickly." The rest of the piece has a bunch of particulars about money, and how the show is at the top of the TV-to-screen list.

Whether it's true or not, it makes sense. But do you want to see the friends reunite?

We usually don't report the goings-on of Hollywood relationships (be them long term or of the booty call variety), however this one is pretty epic. According to -- ugh -- the New York Post, sweethearts Rose McGowan and Robert Rodriguez are no longer together and no longer getting married (they were engaged prior to this). Why is this important news? Why should people care? Well, partly because Rodriguez was in the process of lining up a few interesting movie remakes (Barbarella, Red Sonja) with McGowan in the lead. One imagines McGowan had snagged the roles because, well, she was boinking Robert Rodriguez. But when there's no more action between the sheets, does that mean there's no more McGowan in the starring role?

The Post claims their break-up was partly due to the fact that Rodriguez was having a hard time finding financing for Barbarella with McGowan in the lead because she's not a big enough box-office draw. I know some of you beg to differ because she's got the hot "I'll sleep with your man if you leave him alone for five seconds and he can put me in one of his movies" seductress thing going on, but could you seriously see a flick starring Rose McGowan bringing in at least $70 million (reported budget for Barbarella) to the box office? Personally, I can't. With Jessica Alba or Charlize Theron or Angelina Jolie? Sure. Not Rose McGowan. (Last time I checked, her ass didn't exactly ignite a box office firestorm for Grindhouse.)

Should be interesting to see what develops from here. What would you like to see happen?

Mark Millar is becoming a real Hollywood insider these days, a Frank Miller in training. He dropped quite an intriguing bombshell to Scotland's Daily Record -- claiming that there's a Superman movie revamp on the way. While some of his claims could be dismissed as wishful thinking by a man who merely wants to fulfill his Kryptonian dreams, he's certainly talking it out with someone. Says Millar, "I've been planning this my entire life. I've got my director and producer set up, and it'll be 2011. This is how far ahead you have to think. The Superman brand is toxic after that last movie lost 200 million, but in 2011 we're hoping to restart it. Sadly I can't say who the director is, but we may make it official by Christmas. But fingers crossed it could work out, that would be my lifetime's dream."

Now, this flies directly in the face of Bryan Singer confirming he was attached to the sequel. But there's been a peculiar lack of progress with it. He's obviously busy with Valkyrie, but when you look at how quickly the Iron Man and Spider-Man franchises are moving, well, someone's not moving faster than a speeding bullet anymore. Could Warner Bros really be open to rebooting the franchise? The parallels between Ang Lee's Hulk and Bryan Singer's Superman Returns are striking, and I can honestly see the studio choosing a similarly clean slate. But they would be ditching a pretty expensive investment in Returns, and creating quite a controversy in the process.
Far more people loved Superman Returns than Hulk, and Singer commands a lot of geek cred.

Even when I started following the industry obsessively, I always wondered how it came to be that by October or November of each year, there would always be a fairly clear picture of who the Oscar "frontrunners" were, which films were falling out of the race, and sometimes even which movies are "locks" in certain categories I figured the buzz had to start somewhere -- and that to some extent, the tail had to be wagging the dog.

Maybe it starts with glowing advance Hollywood Reporter reviews. Consider Ray Bennett on Meryl Streep in the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, due July 18th: "Streep is sensationally good in rendering the whole yarn credible and in making dramatically moving songs such as 'Slipping Through My Fingers,' sung to her departing daughter, and 'The Winner Takes It All' to a lost love. It's no stretch to think of her performance in Oscar terms, ranking with previous musical winners such as Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Catherine Zeta-Jones."

So: is this that fabled "Oscar buzz" we keep hearing about, or just one dude sounding off about a movie he liked? Is this the first step toward Streep being a "Best Actress lock" come December? I wouldn't have put Mamma Mia! (or, for that matter, The Dark Knight) on my Oscar shortlist a few months ago -- looks too silly! The release date's all wrong! But I guess now that I've read The Hollywood Reporter, I'm supposed to think it's a contender. Right?

Or did you know that all along?