Everyone loves a rogue, and "Art Williams, Jr." was a rogue. Williams -- not his real name -- was a genius counterfeiter, circumventing even the state-of-the-art protections of new American bills. According to a 2005 Rolling Stone article (not available online), his fake notes were so good that "an FBI agent is said to have once counted $3,300 of his fakes on the hood of a police cruiser, then handed them back." He printed some $10 million in phony $100 bills before finally getting sent to jail last year, despite having been fingered by the FBI several times prior to that.

In what sounds sort of like Catch Me If You Can redux, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Art's life will be brought to the screen in The Art of Making Money, with Philip Noyce slated to direct after he finishes his Scarlett Johanson-led Mary Queen of Scots project. First-timer Frank Baldwin will write the screenplay from the Rolling Stone article (which will itself soon become a book). It sounds like a return to the good old mainstream days of Clear and Present Danger and The Bone Collector for Noyce, and a departure from his recent arthouse stylings (which included the absolutely sensational Rabbit-Proof Fence).

Weirdly, I can't google up anything on the real guy behind this story -- aside from the Rolling Stone article, he may as well not exist. Not having his real name doesn't help, but I'd have thought something would have turned up. I'll keep trying.

Variety is reporting that Phillip Noyce has signed on to direct Scarlett Johansson in Mary, Queen of Scots, a long talked-about project that will focus on the Roman Catholic Scottish queen who conspired in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I, and was eventually beheaded as a traitor in 1587. It's hard to understand what the excitement could be in telling this tale again -- we've seen it innumerable times in the past few years, right up to last year's bloated disaster Elizabeth: The Golden Age, in which the character was played by the hugely talented Samantha Morton. I also can't be the only one who thinks the casting here is bizarre in the extreme. Johansson is not a bad actress, but can she really play a French-accented monarch from the Elizabethan age? Isn't that something of a stretch? I guess we'll find out. The Variety story also says nothing about how this impacts Noyce's involvement in the Amelia Earhart biopic he's supposed to be helming.

The word from Hilary Swank's own mouth last month was that her Oscar-bait biopic of the doomed flying ace was set to begin filming in February -- so how is Noyce going to start helming Mary, Queen of Scots in April? Obviously something is screwy here. Numerous outlets have been reporting Noyce's commitment to the Earhart biopic over the last couple of months, but details about the project -- including official confirmation about basic cast and crew details -- have not been forthcoming. It certainly can't be true that Noyce is filming a major show like an Amelia Earhart biopic in the same season as Mary, so maybe his involvement was never so firm in the first place or he just dropped out of one and moved to the other. Such has been known to occur.

Hilary Swank has confirmed what was reported a while back -- her next project is a big biopic of flying ace Amelia Earhart. Collider reports that Swank gave some details at the recent junket for my-husband-just-died romcom weepie P.S., I Love You. "It's happening," Swank says of the Earhart film. "I start doing my research in January. It's my next project." She goes on to note that the strike may put a crimp in the plans, as the script is not quite finished. "The film's almost done, but with the hopes that ... we're not filming that till late February, so while I'm doing my preparation and breaking down the script -- sorry, not breaking down the script -- when I'm doing my preparations in breaking down Amelia, who she was and doing all that research, hopefully the writers get what they need and we can start working on that. It's very minor, minor work that needs to be done on the script." Swank also said the film does not attempt to offer a solution to the mystery of Earhart's disappearance.

Want to hear more? As is often the case, the Australian press is out in front on this. A couple weeks ago, The Australian broke the story that Philip Noyce is attached to direct this film, and it already has a title -- The Story of Amelia Earhart. Catchy. The paper also revealed that Noyce will shoot the film in Hawaii and Nova Scotia. That's it for details thus far, but expect more casting news and the like in the next month, assuming this picture doesn't become the latest in an increasingly long line of strike casualties.

In-between incensing comic book fans everywhere and the controversy over his being cast as the Joker; Heath Ledger has let one of his projects fall by the wayside. Ledger had been set to star in the film Dirt Music with Rachel Weisz, from Australian director Philip Noyce, but it looks like Ledger's commitment to Christopher Nolan and The Dark Knight is going to take priority.

Director Philip Noyce (Rabbit Proof Fence) has announced that Ledger is officially off the film adaptation of Tom Winton's novel of the same name. Noyce was pretty direct about he reason for the casting change "He's doing The Joker, instead". The story centers on an alcoholic mother and wife of the local bigwig of a fishing town who is drawn to a tortured widower. Despite Ledger dropping out from the project, Noyce is still planning on going ahead with the film with Weisz still attached. This isn't the first casting shake-up for Noyce, the first was the loss of Nicole Kidman, who had been originally attached to play Weisz's role. Noyce didn't give any hints as to who he had in mind to replace Ledger, but since Noyce's film has been in production for a while now, I'm sure recasting will begin as soon as possible.

[via JoBlo.com]

Because I consistently adhere to my low expectation of upcoming releases, regardless of what season we're in or how much buzz/hype surrounds a film, I can't honestly say that I'm looking forward to any of this season's heavy hitters. Sure, there are new films from Scorsese, Eastwood, Almodovar, Aronofsky, Soderbergh and even my all-time favorite, Gilliam. However, I just can't begin to anticipate any of them, for fear they will disappoint me (which is more than likely, unfortunately). The one thing I can still depend on, though, is acting, and only when I can get a glimpse of the performances in whatever trailers are currently available. I will say that I have high hopes this fall for Matt Damon, Will Smith, Forrest Whitaker, Kate Winslet and Nicole Kidman, but I've compiled a short list of three movies and their respective actors that I look forward to watching the most:

• Catch a Fire (Derek Luke) - I can always enjoy Tim Robbins, and while checking out the trailer for Philip Noyce's new film I couldn't believe the actor's seemingly perfect grasp of the South African accent -- despite being a great actor, he's not always the best with dialects. Sharing the film with Robbins, though, is the under-appreciated Derek Luke, who after gaining great acclaim for Antwone Fisher nearly disappeared into forgettable films like Biker Boyz and Friday Night Lights. In Catch a Fire, which is set in 1980s South Africa, Luke plays the real-life Patrick Chamusso, an anti-apartheid hero who went from being apolitical to leaving his family and joining up with the African National Congress. Regardless of how good the movie is, I expect to be blown away by Luke's handling of the role.