News bites for your Tuesday:

• In the wake of failed attempts at the Triple Crown and terrible horse injuries, Variety reports that Disney is getting ready to revel in Big Red, Secretariat. Mike Rich wrote the script, and Randall Wallace has signed on to direct. The film will focus on the story of owner Penny Chenery, and how she took over her father's horse farm, was slapped with a huge inheritance tax upon his death, and still managed to save the farm and horse. Secretariat then became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.
• On the more artsy side of things, Variety reports that Taylor Hackford is cooking up a film called Tenn, focusing on "the formative years" of Tennessee Williams. Robin Shushan wrote the screenplay, which delves into the playwright's "tumultuous upbringing -- complete with a scornful father, depression, conflicts about sexuality and watching his beloved sister institutionalized and lobotomized." In other words, a rip-roaring laugh fest. The project is said to be similar to Capote and how tragedy can breed success.
• Lastly, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Alexander Belyaev's The Amphibian is headed for the big screen, courtesy of Stone Village Pictures. The hunt is underway for a screenwriter, and the company is planning comic books/graphic novel adaptations to accompany the film. It's a strange twist of a story -- an American surgeon in the Amazon saves his son from a fatal respiratory disease by giving him shark gills. But when the underwater kid saves a girl from a shark attack, things get complicated as they fall for each other. It's like Aquaman meets Splash!
  

New Line has purchased Mike Rich's spec script, Nativity, with plans to develop the project into Passion dollars.The story is said to revolve around Mary, Joseph and their 100-mile trip to Bethlehem for the birth of that troublemaker, Jesus. Rich claims he came up with the idea after watching Passion of the Christ collect over $600 million worldwide. Okay, what he's actually telling people is that he thought of it after reading about the Nativity in Time and Newsweek. Sure...we'll let him go with that.

While everyone immediately compares this to Mel Gibson's film, thankfully the script was written in English, making it easier for those at New Line to pin-point the dollar signs. In fact, I believe one producer literally snorted them off page 46. The story also attempts to flesh out key characters such as King Herod and John the Baptist's parents, Zachariah and Elizabeth. Since I'm not Catholic, I'm going to assume those were important people. Rich also penned two other feel-good flicks in Finding Forrester and Radio, though neither one came with Jesus' much loved built-in audience.