BBC - Movies -news article - High Noon

		A Fiennes Gift Ralph Fiennes will star in real-life drama The Gifted, according to Production Weekly. It tells the story of New York philanthropist Zell Kravinsky, who has made around $50m as a property developer, but has given most of it away in the last six years. He even donated his kidney to a stranger in 2003! Jacob Aaron Estes (Mean Creek) will direct from his own script in the spring. Fiennes is also gearing up for his directorial debut next autumn. Snow Country is based on the novel Yukiguni by Japanese scribe Yasunari Kawabata and chronicles the relationship between a wealthy sophisticate (guess who) and a 17-year-old Inuit girl in the icy wilderness of northern Canada. She gives him her heart, which is nice, but he could really use a kidney.

		Curtis Aboard Boat Filmstalker reports that Richard Curtis is planning a new comedy and it has nothing to do with love, actually. He will write and direct The Boat That Rocked about the ups-and-downs of running a pirate radio station (presumably during the 60s) in a rickety old ship off the coast of the UK. Curtis has described the project as "Animal House meets Titanic" so no prizes for guessing how it ends. We see Tony Blackburn in the Leo DiCaprio role - at the end, his toupee bobbing poignantly on the waves...

		The Scoop On Smurfs Talking of blue faces, producer Jordan Kerner has been speaking to Moviehole about his movie version of The Smurfs. "It's a 3-D/CG Smurfs," he says. "You just can't make those guys live - it'd be a little weird, but a 3D Shrek world of them? That's fantastic." Kerner is currently trying to flesh out a story that captures the essence of the 80s cartoon and justifies the bigger canvas. In his words, it will be a trilogy "not literally Lord Of The Rings, but an epic story like that... about Gargamel and Smurf Soup and how all that began and what really goes on in that castle." You see, that's what The Lord Of The Rings was missing - a really good soup recipe.

		Penguins And Monkey Suits Penguin tale Happy Feet is still top of the heap at the US box office, crossing the $100m (£51.7m) mark after just fourteen days. Casino Royale is just behind with a two-week tally of $94m (£48.7m) in the US and $222m (£114.8m) worldwide. That was helped by another storming weekend on home shores where 007 took $16.6m (£8.6m) to hold the No.1 spot. All signs point to Casino Royale becoming the highest-grossing Bond film in franchise history. And Daniel Craig still looks like he's sucking a lemon.

		Vatican Celebrates Nativity The Vatican played host to the premiere of The Nativity Story yesterday. Director Catherine Hardwicke and supporting players Oscar Isaac and Shohreh Aghdashloo were among 7000 attendees, but star Keisha Castle-Hughes (who plays Mary) and Pope Benedict XVI were not present. It's been reported that Castle-Hughes didn't get an invite because she has committed the 'sin' of being unmarried and pregnant. Nonetheless New Line honcho Rolf Mittweg called the event "a marketing dream come true," which really captures the true meaning of Christmas, doesn't it?