Trade Round-Up: Hobbit War Rages On
· Want more Gail Berman stories? Of course you do. [Variety, THR]
· Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson politely responds to New Line co-chairman Bob Shaye's comments to Sci Fi Wire that Jackson (who is suing NL over LOTR money he says he says he's owed) will make The Hobbit or any other movie with his studio (and we paraphrase here) over Shaye's rotting, festering dead body. [Variety]
· Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton are in negotiations to star in Charlie Kaufman's directing debut, Synecdoche, New York, a project whose script was memorably made sweet love to by the LAT back in September. [THR]
· Meryl Streep will star in the film adaptation of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia! [Variety]
· The FBI hosted a screenwriting workshop in Westwood to educate writers in the hopes that their counterterrorism efforts will be more accurately portrayed in future film and television productions. For example, scribes learned that Kiefer Sutherland's beheading of a suspect on 24 does not fall within the guidelines of the government's best vigilante justice practices. [THR]