A prestige actress just had a movie dropped into the fall slate. Watch out, ladies! Also today: a literary classic gets an Awzom! movie makeover, lots of TV shows hire actors, and some Christine O'Donnell jokes.

Remember Paradise Lost, that classic work of literature that features turns of phrase that have become common colloquialisms and idioms since its publication, it is that good and significant a feat of writing? Ha, well, here's Hollywood: "Alex Proyas is finding Paradise Lost for Legendary Pictures, signing to direct an adaptation of the epic 17th-century English poem by John Milton ... The project tells the story of the epic war in heaven between archangels Michael and Lucifer, and will be crafted as an action vehicle that will include aerial warfare, possibly shot in 3D." Yay! Alex Proyas is the storytelling genius behind Knowing and I, Robot, so this ought to be good. It's basically a remake of that 2009 classic Legion, only based on one of the most important poetic works of the English language. The frustrating thing is that this could, if done really really well, be a pretty cool, interesting, dark and expansive movie. But as a 3D action vehicle with aerial warfare? Nuts to that, man. Nuts to that forever. [Variety]

Jennifer Garner is going to become a pill-popper. Yes, apple-cheeked, kind-eyed, giggle-grinner Jennifer Garner is going to become such a pill-popper (typed "pill-pooper" there for a second which made me laugh and laugh, and is actually probably true, every pill-popper is, in a way, a pill-pooper too) that she will convince Jeremy Renner to come pop pills with her. That is a very believable scenario. Hey, if she pulls it off it will be very creepy actually! Especially when she tries to convince Renner, a pharmacist ironically in a pill-rage, to kill her husband. This is all for a movie called Better Living Through Chemistry that Garner has just signed onto. I'll believe it when I see it. [THR]

ABC has ordered a pilot, after a fight with CBS, for a Darren Star-produced TV version of the book Good Christian Bitches, about a good Christian who moves to a wealthy Dallas neighborhood and meets a lot of bitches. Christine O'Donnell will costar. I'm curious though, will ABC really keep that title? Seems awfully inflammatory, especially if any TVs near Ground Zero broadcast it. An affront to Christians, really. [Deadline]

News from the wintry wastelands of Toronto, where yetis are allowed to marry abominable snowmen, thus destroying traditional snow monster marriage. The news born on a freezing tundra wind this day is that Rabbit Hole, the play-based movie about Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart grieving over the death of their son, has been picked up by Lionsgate and will debut this year, thus putting it in the running for sweet, sweet Oscars. Which means we could have a Nicole Kidman vs. Annette Bening vs. Helen Mirren vs. Natalie Portman vs. Hilary Swank vs. Carey Mulligan vs. Robin Wright showdown. Good heavens will the sequins and ruffles fly come gown season. My money, though, is on Christine O'Donnell for her stirring portrayal of the housewife role in her revisionist adaptation of Mists of Avalon. [The Wrap]

Underdog television producer J.J. Abrams has set up his next TV series, Alcatraz, at Fox. The series, which will be run by Lost writer Elizabeth Sarnoff, is about "mysteries, secrets and the most infamous prison of all time: Alcatraz." Whoa! Mysteries AND secrets?? Yimminy-yowsers, that sounds like a little too much. Mysteries by themselves I can deal with. Secrets? Sure, no big deal. But TOGETHER?? Plus the most famous prison currently floating in San Francisco's Shark Bay? It's too much! Just too much. (But seriously, it does sound vague but intriguing. If only I wasn't still feeling a little jilted from the end of Lorst.) [THR]

TV casting newz! Patty Duke has joined the cast of the Lifetime women's movie Unanswered Prayers: Based On the Song "Unanswered Prayers" by Garth Brooks, Seriously. The reliable Dylan Baker has signed on for a recurring role on the fifth season of USA's show Burn Notice, which means he will also be playing roles on Covert Affairs and White Collar, they'll just digitally splice him in, saying the exact same lines, and no one will notice. Lennie James, who plays Jane Adams' mentor/sex-friend on Hung, has been made a series regular. And finally Lou "Diamond Lou" Diamond Phillips has agreed to be a cast member on Lifetime's new women's TV series about Sherry Stringfield (a woman) and Jaime-Lynn Sigler (same) being police detectives. Diamond Lou, a known man, will probably be in full wig. [Deadline]