Egads! Is that Evan Rachel Wood dating Larry David? Did she give up on Marilyn Manson? Alas, no. What you see up there is a picture from the set of Woody Allen's new film, which is one of a handful that have popped up on Just Jared. If these are any indication, this untitled romcom could be a good and quirky movie. Wood has that youthful maturity to her (which I imagine is what drew Manson to the actress), and even in crazy stripes, she looks completely comfortable alongside David.

Unlike Woody's recent forays, which seem blissfully free of old men with young women, Woody has dusted off an old project that he had planned to star in himself. However, since he now thinks he's too old, he cast Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame, to get the young, female action. At this point, all we know is that there's some May-December romance going on, and that Henry Cavill (The Tudors) has nabbed a co-starring gig as a man who gets set up with Wood's character by her mother. Man, she must love David if she's willing to give up Cavill for him.

The film is currently shooting in Manhattan, so if you're in the Big Apple, keep your eyes peeled for David and Wood eating knishes and getting romantic on the Lower East Side.

I'm in Dallas for the second AFI Dallas Film Festival, and having a great time so far. The fest has worked through some of those first-year kinks and things seem to be sailing along smoothly, though I know there's probably lots of finagling going on behind the scenes that makes whatever glitches do come up invisible to most of us here. Shuttle service for passholders this year is making it much easier to navigate the fest quickly and efficiently between venues. The festival lounge is great this year -- the space is nicely decorated, there are always yummy snacks on hand, the drinks flow all night long, and Guitar Hero battles happen nightly.

I kicked things off here on Tuesday moderating a panel on women filmmakers for a private event held for a group of high-powered corporate women. Filmmakers SJ Main (Luck of the Draw) and Robin Bliley (Circus Rosaire) made my job super easy; both had many insights to share about being independent filmmakers and women working in the business, and the women (and their husbands) in attendance had many thought-provoking questions that kept the tone conversational and interesting.

Just got back from the Sony offices here in New York, where Cinematical managed to sit down with Jim Sturgess (star of 21), as well as Ben Mezrich (author of Bringing Down the House, the book 21 is based on) and Jeff Ma (who Sturgess' character is based on). I have to say we all had a pretty damn cool conversation, which we'll post on the site at some point before the weekend, but in the meantime check out what Sturgess had to say about Spidey.

Now, remember back when we told you how Across the Universe director Julie Taymor was directing a Spider-Man: The Musical, with music and lyrics from U2's Bono and the Edge? Well, at the time, Taymor said she was interested in Sturgess playing Spider-Man, with Evan Rachel Wood playing Mary Jane. Not only is that true, but apparently Sturgess and Wood have already performed the roles. He says, "We actually have done a workshop for it, which is how this all kind of started. [Taymor] asked me and Evan to come down and do this workshop that she was doing, so it was a chance to work with Julie again and Evan again and, yeah, at that point I didn't know much more about it. We just did two weeks, and we kind of hung out with Bono and the Edge and sung songs about Spider-Man. As a young actor and musician, it was an incredible experience to be involved in that."

He continued, "We then sort of did a rough performance of the play -- like a read through where we sang through the songs and stuff. As ridiculous as it sounds, it's going to be an incredible piece of work." Cinematical asked Sturgess whether that meant he would be starring in the musical, to which he replied: "Um, I don't know. I haven't spoken to Julie since, and I don't know when she plans to do it. It's a timing thing, I guess. I don't know how long it's going to be before it comes to the surface."

More Spidey after the jump ...

I'd say it was about time that Woody Allen hired some eye candy that wasn't of the female persuasion. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Henry Cavill (The Tudors) has signed to star in the director's upcoming romantic comedy. The as-yet-to-be-titled film also stars Evan Rachel Wood, Larry David, and Allen. There are very few details about the story, but according to early rumors, Rachel Wood is playing Larry David's love interest. Apparently, Allen originally wrote the starring role for himself, but now feels too old to take it on. Thus, he'll appear in a supporting role.

Cavill is probably best known to most as Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, but he has also earned the reputation as being one of the unluckiest guys in Hollywood. Cavill was in the final stages of auditions for Batman, Superman and James Bond. Of course, we all know he didn't get those parts, but he did score the lead in Joel Schumacher's upcoming sci-fi thriller, Town Creek. Maybe now that the offers are starting to come in, Cavill can get a reputation for being something other than an 'almost was.' Allen's film is currently in production in his old stomping grounds (aka New York City) and is set for release in 2009.

There is just something about Evan Rachel Wood that makes her appealing to older men, gothic or neurotic. After shocking the world by stealing Marilyn Manson away from Dita Von Teese, becoming his girlfriend, and now possibly marrying him, she's starting a professional relationship with another oldie, but this time he's -- much older, and much more known for his interest in younger women -- Woody Allen.

Hollywood Elsewhere has learned that Wood will star in Woody Allen's next film, after Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- one that will have her play Larry David's love interest. Yes, Mr. Curb Your Enthusiasm himself. A man who is forty years older than she is. (See? Old guys left, right, and center, at least for the 20-year-old Wood!) Allen wrote this script a while ago, but feels too old for it, so he picked "the young sexpot Larry David" to take over. I guess that extra dozen years makes all the difference.

This probably means that it will be more like Woody's older fare. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not sure. The voyage overseas did a lot for the filmmaker, and Elsewhere also hears that his latest is very good: "VCB is funny and sweet and sad and way, way better then his last few movies, including Match Point." Then again, Allen is supposed to be doing more films overseas, so maybe it will be a mixture of young and old -- which, well, would be completely fitting for this whole project.

Above is the trailer for Vadim Perelman's upcoming film, The Life Before Her Eyes. For many, this movie should be a welcome respite from Uma Thurman's recent work (My Super Ex-Girlfriend), and a blast back to the more challenging and tasty fare that made her famous -- films like Dangerous Liaisons and Henry & June. Based on Laura Kasischke's novel, the film follows Thurman as the survivor of a high school shooting (something only vaguely hinted at in the trailer), whose life unravels 15 years later. Evan Rachel Wood (Across the Universe) plays her as a young woman, while Eva Amurri (Saved!) plays her best friend. I must say, it's so good to see Thurman in something meatier, and if this film is half as good as the trailer, this should be a must-see pick when the feature hits theaters this April.

Meanwhile, you can head through the jump to check out an official still from the film.*

*Edited to change picture

He's glorified greed, fended off a psycho ex-girlfriend and even served as president of the United States -- but at heart, Michael Douglas has always been plain ol' crazy. In King of California, a festival crowd-pleaser from first-time director Mike Cahill, Douglas is Charlie, who's just been released from a mental institution and is convinced that there's Spanish treasure buried under the local Costco; Evan Rachel Wood, as his teenaged daughter, plays Dulcinea to his Don Quixote. Though Douglas has always excelled at playing characters who are slightly unhinged (as Kim Voynar notes in her review), Charlie is what you'd call certifiable, and in a way this role brings Douglas back full circle -- he did, after all, launch his movie career by producing an indie about nutjobs called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. After endearing himself forever to this interviewer by chatting at length about the finer points of Cal football (go Bears!), Douglas spoke easily about his attitudes on directing, his lovely co-star and his recent return to madness.

Cinematical: It's rare to see you in an indie. Do you think that's because you see fewer smaller scripts these days, or do they just not jump out at you?

Michael Douglas: First of all, my whole career began in indie pictures to a large degree. I don't know. You know, I just haven't been been offered ... maybe people just get intimidated. I've had a few, but I haven't made that many movies really since I got married. If you look back, since 2000 I've only done about four pictures or something like that, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) and Maureen (Eva Amurri) are two average high-school students, chatting and killing time in the girl's bathroom one day when their conversation is interrupted by a noise from way off in the distance. It sounds like a bundle of firecrackers being set off, and causes them to quickly shut up and perk up their ears. The sounds are repeated, closer and louder, and before they have time to react to what is happening the bathroom door bursts open and a troubled, wild-eyed student is suddenly walking toward them, pointing a machine gun. This is the opening of In Bloom, the new, much-anticipated film from Vadim Perelman, director of House of Sand and Fog and the upcoming Angelina Jolie film, Atlas Shrugged. Based on Laura Kasischke's novel The Life Before Her Eyes, In Bloom follows two parallel timelines: one that begins in the weeks preceding that opening scene and one that jumps ahead a good fifteen years, focusing on a much-changed Diana, now being played by a jumpy and tense Uma Thurman.

The exact timeline of the film is left murky, with the scenes featuring Young Diana no different, stylistically, than the 'present day' scenes. Young Diana doesn't appear at all to be living in the past, and Older Diana doesn't inhabit any kind of futuristic world. It's a somewhat puzzling, but acceptable dramatic choice for Perelman to make, and he presses the intimate connection between the two timeframes by aggressively juxtaposing them. Scenes in Young Diana's world sometimes have a duration of only a few seconds, before we cut back to Older Diana's world for a few more seconds, and so on. Older Diana is an average teacher with a husband and an emotionally troubled daughter, but she still focuses much of her energy on replaying that day in her mind over and over, torturing herself for some reason that's unknown to us. Until the closing moments, Perelman chooses to hide from us exactly what happened in that bathroom, although it's not much of a mystery. I had already written the correct answer in my notes fifteen minutes into the film.

Leave it to Hollywood to dig up a fact that nearly two centuries of historical research has missed -- that the famous Bronte sisters, Anne, Emily and Charlotte, were all smoking hot. A new biopic of the trio, simply titled Bronte, has just been greenlit for a fall start, and will star Bryce Dallas Howard, Michelle Williams and Evan Rachel Wood. Annoyingly, the Variety article doesn't identify who will be playing which sister, but I think Howard would be the obvious choice to play Anne, the least successful sister whose most accomplished work was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She can do the whole constipated-with-disappointment thing pretty well, I imagine. Emily and Charlotte were the real stars of the family, with the former penning Wuthering Heights and the latter topping that with Jane Eyre. The article also declines to give us any kind of outline as to the story, unless its doing so by proxy when it mentions that the sisters, as youngsters, "created epic fantasy worlds to entertain themselves."

The film was written and will be directed by Charles Sturridge, whose last effort was the 2005 film Lassie, which was barely released in U.S. theaters. Before that, he mostly did TV, including a rendering of Gulliver's Travels, so who knows what kind of quality we're looking at here. Interestingly, IMDB has had a Bronte page up for a while, and there are other actresses in all the main parts except for Michelle Williams, who is credited as Charlotte. Nathalie Press is credited as Emily and Emily Barclay is credited as Anne. Guess that was until Gwen Stacy decided to come knocking. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is also credited on IMDB as Bronte brother Branwell -- who knows if that still applies. The film is set to get rolling in September.

I guess it makes sense for a studio to not give final cut privileges to someone like Julie Taymor. Sure, she's got a brilliant mind for visuals, but sometimes the artsy directors are the ones most in need of help in areas like editing. Plus, Taymor is not yet a bankable director, with only two feature films in the bag so far. Still, it is easy to see why she would be upset about the studio cutting her new film, Across the Universe, without telling her. Now Taymor is threatening to remove her name from the film -- as if Alan Smithee could make such a beautiful-looking movie.

The Beatles-inspired musical is being distributed by Revolution Studios, and since the film was originally supposed to be released last fall, studio head Joe Roth was probably getting antsy about completing it already. But anybody who has seen one of Roth's own movies (Freedomland, for instance) would hate to have to give up something for him to finish. I don't really understand why Taymor couldn't at least be involved in the editing process, but I also have no idea how stubborn or difficult she might be about her work. Whether or not she is credited, though, I will still know that she was responsible and I will still be excited to see the film, even if I do think the premise seems a little cheesy. Some of the sequences do look mind-blowing, as you can see from the trailer.

Wow, now that was a nice surprise. Check out this rather lovely new trailer for Julie Taymor's Across the Universe and then come back and let me know what you think. To me it looks like 1969 meets Moulin Rouge ... or maybe Forrest Gump meets Sgt. Pepper. Either way I now have another movie title to add to my "oooh, gimme!" list for 2007. Written by veteran British wordsmiths Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Across the Universe sure looks (despite my earlier comparisons) pretty darn unique!

It's a story of love, lust and innocence lost in the 1960's, it's a musical, and it's all Beatles music! Neat! (The stars are Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson and the luminous Evan Rachel Wood.) Sony hasn't nailed down a firm release date just yet, but "September" seems to be the general consensus right now. Frankly I'm pretty darn psyched to check this flick out -- and this is coming from a guy who spends most of his days knee-deep in monster movies and stoner comedies. (And if you've never seen Taymor's Titus, I just now thought of a flick you need to toss into your Netflix queue.)

Michael Douglas excels at portraying middle-aged men who are a few yards shy of being neurologically balanced. Witness his turns as a pot-smoking writer in Wonder Boys and as a same-sex-loving cop on TV's Will & Grace for examples of this. And now there's another role to add to this list -- that of the mentally unhinged Charlie in King of California, the rights to which were just picked up by First Look for a cool $3 million.

This funny, poignant, crowd-pleasing dramedy from talented first-time writer-director Mike Cahill tells the story of Douglas' Charlie, who returns home to his daughter Miranda (the sublime Evan Rachel Wood) after a two-year stint in a mental institution seemingly crazier than ever -- muttering about naked Chinese men washing up on the California beaches and 17th-century Spanish doubloons buried somewhere in SoCal. Thanks in part to her dad's magnetic eccentricity, his unflinching optimism that there is indeed buried treasure nearby, and her own sheer boredom, Miranda agrees to aid Charlie in his quest.

The film that emerges from their father-daughter treasure hunt could have been one 90-minute cliche. It could have been just another quirky indie about a cartoonishly dysfunctional family. But Michael Douglas, looking as bearded, mustachioed and grayed as the Man of la Mancha, is so sympathetic, so pure of heart in his delusion that it's impossible not to see him as a modern-day Don Quioxte. One crazy yet tender look from Douglas, his eyes popping wide out of his head, an innocent (and mildly deranged) smile playing across his lips, and it's easy to see why Miranda would line up next to him to joust a windmill or two. That said, the film would be lost without Wood's compelling performance to anchor it.

Director Alexander Payne might only have three films under his belt, but you have to admit, Election, About Schmidt and Sideways were pretty impressive films. Payne was considered to be a great director that was going to revolutionize Hollywood comedies. The only problem was Payne hasn't exactly thrown himself into his work. His films have been few and far between, so we might have to settle for Payne producing a new film starring Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood titled King of California.

There hasn't been any sign of this movie yet in North America, but an international trailer has been released. King of California follows an estranged father and daughter who bond during a road trip in a misguided search for treasure. Douglas portrays a man who has just been released from a mental institution that comes to live with his grown daughter and gets her to agree to come with him on a search for Spanish gold hidden somewhere in California. The film looks to be in line with Payne's quirky sense of humor and Douglas looks like he might be gunning for the Oscar that eluded him for Wonder Boys. King of California was written and directed by Mike Cahill and Nu Image Films is planning on a 2007 release.

[via Ain't It Cool News]

Odds and ends from Tuesday:

• Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen) has signed on to play a young Uma Thurman in Vadim Perelman's (aka 'the dude who allegedly threw his dining room chair at a writer') thriller In Bloom. Produced by 2929 Prods., pic focuses on a teenager (Wood) who witnesses a horrific high school shooting, only to discover just how deep those emotional scars really are when she finds her life is a complete mess 15 years later. Uma Thurman will play the older version of said woman.
• I don't know what's more horrifying: That there are plans to remake Working Girl or that Jessica Simpson is in talks to star in the role made famous by Melanie Griffith? Simpson's rep has confirmed the actress is interested, though it's just one of several scripts currently on her plate. With the success of films like The Devil Wears Prada, I can see why they would want to remake Working Girl. But, Jessica Simpson? Should she take the part, this would mark Simpson's first lead role in a major film.
• M. Night Shyamalan is so fed up over the fact people expect a certain type of film from him, the dude contemplated removing his name from Lady in the Water, as well as the big-screen adaptation of Life of Pi, though he is no longer associated with the latter. Says Shyamalan, "I'd love it if everyone could look at Lady In The Water as a lyrical parable, but there will be people that won't get it because they are coming at it with a certain lexicon of what to expect already in place." Actually, Mr. Shyamalan, all people expect out of you is a decent movie. If you could set your enormous ego aside and craft the kind of film we know you're capable of, you won't have to remove your name from the credits or complain to everyone and their mother. Yes, it's that simple.

Two weeks ago, I told you about my distaste for many of today's young starlets. Well, I've realized that there is one actress who has been effective throughout her short career: Evan Rachel Wood. Now I'm counting on the 18-year-old to continue going strong in adulthood, and I think she's more than capable of succeeding. In fact, I'm so certain of her ability, that I'd like to make this prediction: Wood will win an Oscar in her lifetime, if not in the next decade. She just needs to be better recognized by the industry so that she can get the roles she's worthy of playing. Coming up for her are two films that might get her more notice: the Augusten Burroughs adaptation Running With Scissors and Julie Taymor's Beatles-inspired love story, Across the Universe.

Wood might face one problem in her career, though: She isn't into the mingling and partying that keeps most of Hollywood's young stars in the industry eye, as well as in the public consciousness. Already she's (in my opinion, anyhow) the most beautiful and most talented actress under the age of 20, and yet few people know her name. Personally I think that her wanting a private, quiet life will benefit her in concentrating on her acting -- though I don't believe that partying is necessarily bad for stars, and could point out many who are good enough to be a part of the wild life. Lifestyle shouldn't be an issue. Hollywood and moviegoers should just notice a standout like Wood automatically. Not only has she not put in a bad performance, yet, she has already carried bad movies like Pretty Persuasion, making them worthwhile viewing for her work alone. I also think she would be effective in any of the bigger roles out there going to the likes of Dunst, Lohan, Bosworth, Howard and the rest.

So what is it going to take for her to become the most appreciated actress of her generation?