Catherine Zeta-Jones could certainly do with a hit movie. She’s been rather hit by the curse of winning an actress Oscar, where picking up the gong sees what should be a big career boost turn into the high spot before a steep slide into mediocrity (if you don’t believe me, just look at a list of Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress winners and see how most saw their career diminish almost from the moment they won).
Zeta-Jones hasn’t had a success since Ocean’s Twelve, and while she’s got Lay the Favorite, Playing The Field and Rock Of Ages coming up next year, she’ll be hoping the new movie she’s just signed up for, Broken City, will be a hit.
The film is about a Brooklyn private detective (Mark Wahlberg), who is hired by the New York City mayor (Russell Crowe) to discover the identity of his wife’s lover. When the lover turns up dead, the detective digs deeper into the case and uncovers a vast conspiracy involving the mayor. According to Deadline, Zeta-Jones will portray the mayor’s wife.
Allen Hughes will Broken City from a screenplay by Brian Tucker (it’s taken a while for it to get this far though, as the script made the Black List back in 2008). Production is slated to begin in November on a $50 million budget.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
Sony Pictures is in final discussions to produce an adaptation of the Assassin’s Creed video game, according to 
We hadn’t heard much about Bryan Singer’s planned cinematic reboot of Battlestar Galactica, until a few days ago when it was revealed the director’s remake of Excalibur had been cancelled and he was now making Battlestar a priority. As if to prove it, he and Universal have hired someone to write it.
Cloud Atlas, the first film directed by the Wachowski siblings (along with Tom Twyker) since 2008’s Speed Racer, has just gone into production, and it seems Andy and Lana are keen that there won’t be such a big gap between their next movies. They have their follow-up planned already with the Warner Bros. project Jupiter Ascending.
About a year ago, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck set up a new production company that seemed designed to help both of them get directorial projects off the ground easier. For a while it appeared Damon wanted to make his helming debut with Father Daughter Time: A Tale Of Armed Robbery And Eskimo Kisses, but we haven’t heard much about that for a while, and now 
If everything had gone to plan, we’d have been watching Akira in cinemas last summer. However while Warner bought the rights in 2008 and put a remake of the manga/anime on the fast track, various problems – from ever-changing directors to difficulty finding actors for the lead roles – has meant that it’s only now that it’s getting the greenlight. Indeed, there have been a couple time where it appeared the whole thing had been cancelled, so it’s almost surprising Warner has given it the thumbs up.
Better late than never, I suppose. 
Bad Teacher turned out to be one of the bigger comedy successes of the summer, grossing over $200 million worldwide on a budget of only $20 million. It seems director Jake Kasdan is hoping he can strike it lucky again by reteaming with Bad Teacher screenwriters Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg for a new untitled comedy at Sony Pictures.
Fancy seeing six minutes of The Dark Knight Rises this December, rather than having to wait until its July 20th, 2012 release? Well, while Warner isn’t saying anything, it appeared a large chunk of Batman 3 footage will be attached to IMAX prints of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.
A few months ago Ron Howard decided that after The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons he was done with Professor Robert Langdon and wouldn’t direct The Lost Symbol, the adaptation of the third novel in Dan Brown’s book series. Now it appears Sony Pictures is eyeing Howard’s replacement and wants Never Let Me Go director Mark Romanek, according to