The latest Hollywood actor to play a famous painter is Jared Padalecki, who has been cast as still-living artist Thomas Kinkade (aka "Painter of Light"). Though he probably won't go down in cinematic history like Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, Jeffrey Wright as Basquiat or (yet to be seen) Al Pacino as Dalí, Padalecki will be supported by a possibly memorable performance from the great Peter O'Toole, who will play the artist Glen Wessler, a mentor to the young Kinkade. He will also have the benefit of playing the artist in a trilogy. After the first movie, The Christmas Cottage, which follows Kinkade as a teen on the verge of deciding to become an artist, there will be two more pics portraying the artist as a young man (unless Lionsgate plans to wait years between movies and use Padalecki a la Jean-Pierre Léaud -- which I doubt).

When the news was out that Lionsgate would make a movie based on Thomas Kinkade's painting The Christmas Cottage, I had thought the artwork was simply serving as inspiration for a fictional holiday movie set in the depicted wintry home (Yawn). Now that I know the movie actually focuses on the life of Kinkade I am no more interested, but it at least makes more sense to me. Living commercial artists, especially those as commercial as Kinkade, aren't very worthy of biopic treatment, but Kinkade is so popular that it could attract a lot of his fans. I must point out, though, that as popular as Gustav Klimt is these days (ever been in a female art student's dorm/apartment?), his recent biopic has not been a big success. So, Lionsgate has to do a good job of getting people in seats for Cottage, particularly if they hope for there to be audiences for its two sequels (which paintings will be used for those titles?).

Nibbles for you:

• In January, Erik reported that Obi Wan's brown cloak from the Star Wars movies was going on the auction block. While bidding didn't explode past the approximately $100,000 starting price, it did make its mark, selling for $104,000 to an anonymous telephone bidder. Did Mr. Lucas slide his own bet in, using the Dark Side to keep others from bidding the price up? Good lord, you could buy an island for that! Personally, I would've grabbed Terry Jones' metal helmet from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. That went for what seems like a paltry $19,300 in comparison.
• Sicily has a new funding program for films, budgeted at $9.2 million, that is going to help two premiere foreign filmmakers, and Oscar nominees, make their next features. Michelangelo Antonioni will use his funding to make Aquiloni sull'Etna, translated as North Winds on Mt. Etna, while Wim Wenders will use his share to make Palermo Story. First, props to Antonioni for making a feature at 95, and second, I hope this Wenders film doesn't get swallowed for years like Land of Plenty did.
• When you can't find adaptation inspiration in literature or television, where do you turn? Well, Lionsgate and the Firm think you turn to art. Thomas Kinkade's painting, The Christmas Cottage, will be the source for the feature, and the aim is to release it as Santa rolls around next Winter. The movie, which was written by Prairie Home Companion collaborator Ken LaZebnick, will use the painting to discuss the artists life -- he began painting when his mother was about to lose the family home. I can't blame the studios for wanting a piece of this -- Kinkade's company claims they sold $1.7 billion of his artwork at retail, and $2.4 billion in licensed products. I guess he's not starving.