This is one movie I keep forgetting is actually being made. Ron Howard's adaptation of Angels and Demons has been simmering away, sending out casting calls, not quite reaching any level of heady anticipation. Maybe this news will do it.

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer has landed the part of Vittoria Vetra, the daughter of a CERN physicist who is embarked on a journey to uncover the truth behind her father's murder. Of course, Robert Langdon (still played by Tom Hanks) accompanies her, and they must foil a terrorist plot in the process.

The studio has yet to confirm. Naomi Watts was reportedly the last to be in talks for the role. No other parts have been cast.

I'm not an avid reader of Dan Brown, so I must ask: is the plot of Angels and Demons really that similar to The DaVinci Code? Is it really that a pretty foreign girl loses a member of her paterfamilias, and Robert Langdon must help her? Is it via the works of coded works of Michaelangelo? Is the Catholic Church evilly involved? I am guessing it is, since one of the characters in need of an actor is an aide to the Pope. Fill me in, because I will never read the book.

Angels and Demons is still set for release May 15th, 2009.

Yes, yes, I'm still in Austin. I'm like that annoying loser who refuses to leave the party even though your girlfriend is clearly vacuuming and it's slowly getting sunny outside. (I actually stayed a few days longer so I could visit with some good friends, if you must know!) Anyway, it just dawned on me that even though we've brought you tons of SXSW coverage, you're still missing out on one very important component: The intro shorts! Every festival has 'em. They're brief mini-flicks that introduce the festival, credit the sponsors, and basically set the tone for the screening. (Sometimes.)

SXSW has always had some good "intro shorts" (my favorite is an old, strange one with Jeff Goldblum), but this year they were particularly amusing. They were put together by Mike Mitchell, Kent Osborne, Dan Brown, and Charlie Sotelo (among others) -- and through the magical power of "embedding," you can enjoy them without visiting some grungy other website. We'll start with my favorite:


Obviously this is a spoof of good ol' Glengarry Glen Ross, but by the time the film festival was winding down, me and my movie-geek posse were quoting this short non-stop and chuckling like morons. ("Brass balls!" Ha!) Check out the rest of the promos right after the jump!

Last night while writing up the weekend box office report and detailing The Da Vinci Code's boffo open, I considered adding a clever little "Get ready for Angels and Demons, kids!" ending to the whole thing, but decided not to because I wasn't sure the book was actually a prequel (not to mention that I try to limit my pretending to be clever to once/post). But if only I had know -- it is, apparently, a prequel, and Sony's announcement of their vague hopes to turn it into a movie as fast as humanly possible was actually made just this morning. Because, in Hollywood, there is no such thing as dignity where money is involved.

Though the report of Sony's plans is not exactly something you'd take to the bank -- a studio exec is quoted as saying nothing more than "We are very interested in filming Angels and Demons. We hope that the relationship with Dan Brown will be a long one. That could be the next project." -- you can be sure that the rights fees for this one are going to be roughly equal to the GNP of several small nations.

For the six of you unfamiliar with Angels and Demons, it was Brown's third novel, features Robert Langdon's (now Tom Hanks to millions of cinema-goers) first appearance, and was described by Publishers Weekly as a "well-plotted if over-the-top thriller ... crammed with Vatican intrigue and high-tech drama." Hmm. It's a bit like The Da Vinci Code, then? I smell money!

[via Moviehole]

Edit: According to Nikki Finke, Sony bought the rights to the character Robert Langdon, which gets them not only Angels and Demons, but also the sequel on which Brown is currently hard at work. Eeeeeexcellent.

On Friday, Archbishop Angelo Amato became the latest high-ranking Vatican official to speak out against Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, going so far as to urge the Catholic faithful to boycott the movie version when it comes on later this month. According to Amato, both the book and movie are "stridently anti-Christian ... full of calumnies, offenses and historical and theological errors regarding Jesus, the Gospels and the Church." Interestingly, a large part of his anger seems to be directed towards members of the Catholic Church, and their passive response to Brown's book, and Ron Howard's film: Amato believes that, had The Da Vinci Code questioned fundamental tenants of Islam or Judaism, the "lies" therein "would have justly provoked a world uprising."

Whether there's any merit to those assertions or not, it seems unlikely that the Vatican's protests will have much effect on the film's box office, which will surely see a massive open starting May 17, when it begins to unroll across the globe (the US open is two days later).

A British judge this morning announced his decision in the month-long plagiarism case that pitted The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown and his publishing company, Random House, against the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, who claimed Brown had dishonestly used their book as much more than a simple source. According to the statement by Judge Peter Smith, however, they were mistaken: "The plaintiffs' case has failed...Dan Brown has not infringed copyright. None of this amounts to copying The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."

And, as they say, there was much rejoicing, both at Random House, which can continue to print copies of the book and make money hand-over-fist, and at Sony Pictures, which will be able to release the film as scheduled. Whew.

Monday's odds and ends:

• The Weinstein Company has acquired the rights to Miss Potter, the Renée Zellweger-starrer about Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter. Due out some time next year, the movie "follows Potter's struggles to overcome a domineering, unsupportive mother and the chauvinism of Victorian England."

• In addition to people who think he's ripping off their work, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has also offended The National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentationare. Yeah, sure Dan. You never write about an albino until you throw in one that's "hulking." They know how it is with you fully-pigmented people. According to Brown, however, Silas (the albino) is "a far more sympathetic character than anyone else in the novel." Having not read the book, I am unable to confirm or deny Brown's assertion but, since Silas is played by Paul Bettany in the movie, I can confidentially assert that at the very least, the albino is far better looking than any of the other characters.
  

• Susan Sarandon is in talks to star in a planned biopic about human-thorn-in-W's-side Cindy Sheehan. Sweet - I can't wait for wave two of the rabid articles about how out of touch Hollywood is with Mainstream America.

• New Line has bought the rights to a spec script entitled Disappearance of Trout and, even without knowing what it's about, it's hard to blame them. I mean, the whole field of movies with the names of fish in the title is WIDE open, and we all know how rare originality is in Hollywood these days. Disappointingly, the movie doesn't actually seem be about fish. Instead, it's a fantasy story about a young amusement park heir who disappears only to return 20 years later, "unaged, to help repair the lives of those once close to him and the heart of the town." Um, cool. Hell, I'd see that even if it didn't have "Trout" in the title.
  

The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a non-fiction book from 1984 that suggests "Jesus may not have died on the cross, but lived to marry and father children whose bloodline continues today," have hit Dan Brown with a plagiarism suit over The Da Vinci Code code. Needless to say, the suit, brought by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh to the tune of nearly $20 million, could potentially have a broader impact than simply costing Brown some money. According to copyright lawyers, if the suit is successful, Baigent and Leigh could "seek an order blocking further infringement of their copyright," thus threatening both future sales of Brown's book and the release of Ron Howard's film, a possibility that must have the suits at Sony shaking in their collective boots. Because Brown freely lists Holy Blood as one of the major sources for novel, however, its authors may face an uphill battle in proving plagiarism.

The case is in a London court as we speak, and a decision is expected before the movie's release date.

[via Film Rotation]

CountingDown.com reports that director Ron Howard, in an effort to keep curious fans away from the set of his adaptation of Dan Brown's The Davinci Code (due in May), has started wearing disguises and forbidding crew members to refer to the film by name, instead calling it "The Rose Line". George Lucas did something similar when he shot parts of Return Of The Jedi in the U.S., calling it Blue Harvest, though Howard's choice of super-secret titles, as iAfrica points out, should not thwart Davinci fans, considering it is taken from a key theme in the book. I say that if he changes the name to Michael Bay's The Davinci Code starring Rob Schneider, prospective snoops will run away in fear after reading only those first two words. Security problem solved.