It's hard to believe it was just last month that the film industry was trudging through hill, dale and snow to watch movies at the Sundance Film Festival, but in this fast-paced world, it does feel like a million years ago. One of the buzz titles at the fest was Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, a tale of two sisters that start a business tidying up crime scenes. Our own Kim Voynar felt it wasn't the best film she saw at Sundance, "but it certainly wasn't the worst. It does have its flaws, but overall it's a cute film that fans of [Amy] Adams and [Emily] Blunt will enjoy."

Indeed, with the very talented and attractive Adams (Junebug, Enchanted) and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada, The Wolf Man) in the lead roles and Alan Arkin providing support as their scheming father, how did this film fail to get picked up during Sundance? Anne Thompson of Variety notes that Sunshine Cleaning "entered the fest as one of several highly anticipated movies with stars attached that were expected to make a big sale. It didn't happen, though, partly because the filmmakers behind the film, Big Beach ... were hoping to make back their $7-million investment in a quick sale."

Ms. Thompson reports, however, that Overture Films has now acquired the film and plans to release it at the end of the year. The distributor may change the title, though, perhaps concerned that it might be considered too similar to 2006 indie smash hit Little Miss Sunshine, for which Arkin won an Academy Award.

It's not a bad idea for an indie film: Two sisters, still dealing as adults with the aftermath of their mother's suicide when they were children, are stuck in dead-end jobs. Then one of them gets the idea to stop cleaning rich people's houses for a living, and to start a business cleaning up crime scenes instead. That's the basic idea behind Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin.

Adams plays Rose, head cheerleader back in the glory days of high school, now stuck raising her son Oscar (Jason Spevack) alone. Rose cleans houses for a living, a job she's not crazy about, and she's having an affair with her high school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn), who likes Rose enough to have sex on the side, but not enough to leave his wife for her. Her sister Norah (Blunt) lives with their father Joe (Arkin), who's always got a scheme going for finally getting rich. When Oscar keeps getting in trouble in school, Rose decides she needs to make more money so she can put him in private school, and cleaning houses for a living isn't going to get her there.

Ever since her star-making role as Meryl Streep's proudly ambitious assistant in The Devil Wears Prada, Emily Blunt has been very much in demand for both big studio and smaller independent pictures. Currently she's a Sundance darling, showcasing her work in two films playing at the festival: Sunshine Cleaning, in which she's teamed with Amy Adams as sisters who become crime scene cleaners, and The Great Buck Howard, in which she plays "a fiery publicist hired to stage the comeback of a lifetime," according to the program notes.

Now it looks like she's set to play the gal pal of a rather hirsute fellow. Back in December, Scott Weinberg first passed on a report that Ms. Blunt had been (almost) hired to play Benicio del Toro's girlfriend in Mark Romanek's version of The Wolf Man, based on a script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven). MTV News spoke to her at Sundance, and she confirmed on Saturday that she has been cast and will begin filming in February.

I very much agree with Scott's description of Ms. Blunt as "mega-hot and seriously talented," and the romantic pairing of her with Mr. del Toro looks like a powder-keg of dynamite ready to explode. I look forward to witty banter being exchanged between the couple -- Emily with her pitch-perfect diction rolling bon mots off her tongue, as Benicio mumbles something incomprehensible in return. What a great contrast that will be when Benicio goes all lupine on her! Brilliant casting, I say. The only drag? We'll have to wait until February '09 to see the results.

I'm not sure what it is about sunshine and cleaning, but the two have been all over movie titles as of late. Last year we had Little Miss Sunshine and Code Name: The Cleaner, and in 2007 we're looking at a film called Sunshine from Danny Boyle, another simply called Cleaner (which stars Samuel L. Jackson) and one that combines both, Sunshine Cleaning, starring Emily Blunt, Amy Adams and the newly casted Mary Lynn Rajskub (best known for her role as Chloe O'Brian on Fox's hit show 24.) Both Cleaner and Sunshine Cleaning focus on characters who clean up crime scenes, though the latter seems a bit more interesting ... to this guy, at least.

In Sunshine Cleaning, Adams and Blunt play sisters who clean crime scenes for a living and, in the process, somehow learn the meaning of life. Sounds sort of cheesy until I tell you that Rajskub will play a blood bank technician who's the object of Blunt's sexual obsession. (Yeah, that little plot point completely caught me off guard too.) I should also note that Alan Arkin snagged a role, which makes this his second Sunshine-related indie comedy in two years; pic was written by Megan Holley and will be directed by Christine Jeffs. No word on a release date, but Sunshine Cleaning is currently sweeping up the streets of Albuqerque, New Mexico.

News bites for Tuesday:

• Sony Pictures Classics grabbed the rights to the Chinese war drama, The Children of Huang Shi, which Chris Ullrich told us about in October. Based on actual events, the film centers on a British reporter (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is in China when it was invaded by Japan in 1937. The man rescues 60 war orphans and leads them a feet-aching 1,000 miles to a village near the great wall. Chow Yun-Fat plays a political leader, Michelle Yeoh is an aristocrat and Radha Mitchell plays a nurse he falls for. The film should be released later this year.
• Another name has been added to the upcoming comedy, Sunshine Cleaning. Earlier this month, I shared news that Alan Arkin had joined Amy Adams and Emily Blunt in the movie about sisters who start a new business cleaning up crime scenes. Now Steve Zahn is a part of the cast, playing a married cop who is getting a little of Adams' character on the side. Now the question becomes: will this be a goofy cop, or will Zahn wow us with a little depth?
• Ms. Keira Knightley, the young, tough, sex symbol from Pirates of the Caribbean is baring all for her new film, Silk. According to MSN entertainment, her nudity is used to chastise her. A source is quoted as saying that during one of her two nude scenes, "she leans over her husband with her gown gaping open and he remarks that her breasts are small and like a little girl's." In the film, she plays the wife of a silkworm smuggler (Michael Pitt) from the 1800's who becomes obsessed with a concubine of a baron in Japan. Obviously, he's all sorts of charming and respectful.

What do you do when a role gets you your first Oscar nod in 38 years? If you're the scene-stealing Alan Arkin, you follow it up with another similarly-titled movie. After the success of Little Miss Sunshine, he has just signed on to co-star in another sun-filled indie film -- the upcoming Sunshine Cleaning. In October, Kevin Kelly brought us word of Amy Adams' involvement in the film, which tells the story of Rose Lorkowski, a woman sick of cleaning other people's homes for little cash. Wanting to send her son, Oscar, to a private school and make more money, she starts a biohazard/crime scene clean-up business with her unreliable sister, Norah.

Since that post, Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) has officially signed on to co-star, along with Clifton Collins Jr. (the crazy drug dealer from Rules of Attraction). There is no word yet on who Arkin will play in the Christine Jeffs feature, but hopefully it won't be a repetitive role where Grandpa Arkin sits down with Oscar and counsels his grandson about the joys of having lots of young sex -- the kid is supposed to be an 8-year-old. Maybe Arkin will be a Gil Grissom-type crime scene investigator that the cleaning sisters always run into. We shouldn't have too long to find out. The flick will start shooting in Albuquerque next week.

Hoping to cash in on the current fascination with crime scenes and the CSI onslaught, Amy Adams will appear in Sunshine Cleaning, an indie film about two sisters who decide to open a crime scene cleaning business and manage to find themselves in the process. Directing duties will be shared by Karen Moncrieff and Christine Jeffs based on a script by Megan Holley. Still no official word on whether Emily Blunt will join Adams, but we're certainly keeping our eyes open.

Adams is best known as the braces-wearing redhead who starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, managing to steal every scene she was in. If you were lucky enough to catch her Oscar-nominated role in Junebug, you'd see her doing that same thing in that film, minus the braces. She has an infectious spirit and smile, and has most recently appeared in Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby and The Office.

It has to be slightly intimidating trying to chew up scenery while sharing screen space with Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio as Spielberg puts you through the paces, but she makes it look easy. It's only been six short years since she first appeared in Psycho Beach Party (yes, we ain't lying about that one), but she has come a long way since. Adams will appear in three films in 2007, including a voice role in Underdog, where she'll be playing Polly Purebred, Underdog's true love. Oh, and if they decide to make a twenty-something sequel to Annie, someone had better call Amy Adams.

Apparently the people at upstart production company Big Beach have a bit of a "sunshine" fixation: They're going to follow up their smash indie hit Little Miss Sunshine with a project called Sunshine Cleaning. Not, just so we're clear, a sequel in any way -- they're just really, really into the word. According to this morning's Screen Daily, the film will star Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, and is "a character piece about a woman who starts up a business that cleans up after someone dies." Hmm. So we can pretend for the moment that it's about Harvey Keitel from Pulp Fiction, except as a woman? Sounds good to me. The movie is budgeted at about $7 million, and will be directed by New Zealander Christine Jeffs.

Sunshine Cleaning co-producer Glenn Williamson (Hollywoodland) spoke briefly about the project in Venice yesterday, and also offered a few details about another film with which he's involved, entitled Wonderful World. This one is another character piece with an even smaller budget -- $3-5 million, according to Williamson -- and will tell the story of "a cynical divorcee (Matthew Broderick) who starts a relationship with an African woman (Sophie Okonedo)." The film is being written by Josh Goldin, who will also direct.