Sports. Aside from being a Huey Lewis and the News album, it's a slice of life that has lived for a long time in contradiction. On the one hand, there's the cud-chewing, testosterone-laden toughness of actual sporting events. On the other, there's the ever-rampant tears pouring out of sports dramas and biopics -- and now we're getting one more ...

But unlike pics that raise you up to a teary conclusion, this new feature looks like it will be a heart-tugger from the get-go. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Ryan Merriman and Aidan Quinn have signed on, with Andie MacDowell in final negotiations, for a new sports drama called The 5th Quarter. Based on a true story, the film centers on the way a young man deals with his brother's death. Basically, after 15-year-old Luke Abbate died in a car crash, his organs were donated to five people. In the wake of this tragedy, his brother (Merriman) got his football jersey changed to his brother's number (5) and then held up five fingers before the fourth quarter of each game, while his parents (Quinn and MacDowell) sat in section 5. See? Tear jerker -- one that might even require more than five tissues.

5th Quarter will also be a film that blends real life with fiction, not in the script, but in the cast and scenes -- the family's pastor is playing himself in the film, and real footage of the games will be edited into the film. Whether this will help or distract from the final product remains to be seen. Production begins this month.

Liu Xing (Ye Liu) has come from Beijing to a nameless American university to pursue a PhD in cosmology; he's done smart, incisive work in the field, and he's being given the chance to work for groundbreaking theorist Dr. Reiser (Aidan Quinn). It's a wonderful moment for Xing; he's found opportunity, and a place that will gratefully take everything he has to offer. The feature-film debut of opera director Chen Shi-Zheng, Dark Matter follows Xing as his dream, slowly and gradually, becomes a curse -- and shows us the desperate, dangerous expression of Xing's sadness and confusion.

Written by Billy Shebar, Dark Matter is inspired by the University of Iowa shootings of November, 1991, where physics post-graduate student Gang Lu killed five people and paralyzed another for life before killing himself. But Dark Matter isn't a ticking-clock thriller; it's a more contemplative film than that. The camera captures big visions and images, and it isn't concerned with the nuts-and-bolts shots of a crime story. Instead, we see Xing, in the rain, transfixed by a statue of famed American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Xing wants to look to the skies. Of course, he still has to live on Earth. ...

Cinematical has just received this exclusive clip from the film Dark Matter, starring Liu Ye, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn. This one is a pretty crazy story; it was inspired by the actual events surrounding a Chinese student who travels to the United States in search of a bright future in American science. But when he has a hard time navigating academic politics, he slowly loses his way (and his mind). Dark Matter premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago (where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize), and I've heard nothing but good things about it. For more, you can check out a Moviefone Unscripted segment with Aidan Quinn, Liu Ye and director Chen Shi-Zheng (renowned opera and theater director making his feature film debut).

Dark Matter arrives in theaters on April 11.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Dark Matter (click on the image above for a larger version), starring Liu Ye, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago (and came away with the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize), is inspired by the actual events surrounding a Chinese student who travels to the United States in search of bright future in American science. However, his hopes are dashed when he's unable to navigate academic politics and, eventually, he loses his way. Dark Matter marks the feature film debut of renowned opera and theater director Chen Shi-Zheng, and it was written by Billy Shebar with a story by Shebar and Chen Shi-Zheng. I've heard some really good things about this film, and so we'll definitely be checking it out when Dark Matter hits theaters on April 11.

For more on Dark Matter, check out a Moviefone Unscripted segment featuring Aidan Quinn, Liu Ye and Chen Shi-Zheng.

Last January, Chen Shi-Zheng's Dark Matter premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. But that wasn't enough to get it a sweet deal, or any normal deal for that matter. It took a year, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, the film finally has a North American distributor in First Independent Pictures. Now the award-winner will get an April release, which will be followed by a DVD release, the details of which are currently being finalized.

The film, which stars Liu Ye, Aidan Quinn (who replaced Val Kilmer), and Meryl Streep, is based on a true story of a Chinese student in 1991 whose mental stability unravels when his hopes for scientific greatness are dashed due to his school's internal politics. Ye plays the student, Liu Xing, Quinn plays his cosmology professor who brings the international student onto his research team, and Streep plays Xing's other mentor, a patron of the university. The twist -- his mentally-unraveled state leads him to extreme violence.

If you're curious about the real story, and don't want to be surprised, you can google "Gang Lu" and get the details of his story. Of course, this film is only based on the events, so it's sure to have its own twists, turns, and Dark Matter. (Pun alert!) In the meantime, check out the trailer here.

Odds and ends from Friday:

• Lionsgate came to their senses, and the studio has changed the name of P.D.R., their upcoming based-on-a-true-story, heart-string tugging sports movie about -- wait for it -- triumph over adversity. Originally named for the Philadelphia Department of Recreation (yawn), the film will now be called Pride, a solid, perfectly unmemorable title for what is sure to be well-acted (it stars, among others, Terrence Howard and Evan Ross, who was great in ATL), perfectly unmemorable movie.

• We reported back in February that both Val Kilmer and Meryl Streep had signed on to star in Dark Matter, the debut feature from Chinese opera director Chen Shi-Zheng. The film was about "a Chinese exchange student [played by heartthrob Liu Ye] who takes revenge after [his] hopes for a Nobel Prize are wrecked by internal school politics," and sounded fascinating and pleasingly dorky. Now, about four months later, all of those things remain true -- except for the part about Val Kilmer. According to reports that surfaced yesterday, he's had to leave the project (blasted scheduling conflict) and will be replaced by Aidan Quinn.

• In early May, it was announced that Richard Gere and Terrence Howard (yes, him again) were going to star in Spring Break in Bosnia, a potential-laden film about "a completely hair-brained scheme hatched by a trio of American journalists (including Sebastian Junger, author of A Perfect Storm) to capture a Bosnian war criminal." Their plans didn't work out very well -- shocking, that -- and the three ended up being mistaken for CIA. I  hate when that happens. Originally, Topher Grace was rumored to be in line to play the third journalist, but it was announced yesterday that Jesse Eisenberg (Walt from The Squid and the Whale) will play the part. Nice.