John Carpenter's Ghost of Mars: Courtney Love, from the band "Hole", is in negotiations to star alongside Ice Cube in John Carpenter's next horror film. Also joining the cast is Jason Statham (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). Love would play a police lieutenant in the sci-fi thriller set 174 years in the future.The story concerns several human colonists in Mars who must be rescued after becoming possessed by vengeful Martian ghosts. Production is set to begin in June.

No More Mister Nice Guy: The Farrelly Brothers (There's Something About Mary) will have their hands full coming up as they get ready to produce this film which will be under Conundrum Entertainment. SNL alum Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigalow) will star in the film about as the world’s nicest guy who gets matched with a lawyer uncle who is the world’s sleaziest. Schneider and Alex Herschlag will write the picture.

Battlefield: Earth: Though it's still a good month away, John Travolta has already begun promoting Battlefield: Earth. While on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Travolta showed a clip in the film which featured him alongside wife Kelly Preston. To download the clip, click on this link.

Dr. Dolittle 2: Director Steve Carr (Next Friday) is likely to helm this sequel starring Eddie Murphy, according to Variety. Plans are to start production on the picture as soon as Murphy finishes up his work on Pluto Nash. 20th Century Fox is scheduling the picture for a summer 2001 release.

The Giaconda Smile: Clint Morris sends in a scoop, stating that the VFC has given the greenlight to a film that was written years ago by actor,John Wood (Aussie's "Blue Heelers"). The VFC has granted funding for an editor to work with Wood on developing a second draft of the script. The film will be set in Melbourne where the mystery follows Mick McGuiness, a detective who teams up with a journalist named Elly to solve the murder of a woman named Giaconda. Wood hopes to play the part of Mick himself. Aussie actress, Allison Whyte, is Wood's choice to play Elly in the thriller.

The Replacements & Valentine: Dark Horizons is reporting that because test screening results have been positive, Warner Bros. is considering moving the film from a fall to a late summer release date.

Along the same lines, the producer of the film, Dylan Sellers, has signed with the studio to make projects, including a new teen thriller entitled "Valentine". That project is aiming to head into production very shortly under the direction of Jamie Blanks (Urban Legend) and follows four childhood friends all being stalked by the one person - a love-struck suitor spurned by them all. This particular project is being prepped for a Valentine's Day 2001 release.

Scary Movie & Hamlet: The trailer for this parody (formerly entitled "Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween") starring Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Shannon Elizabeth, and Marlon & Shawn Wayans has now been released on the Internet. Below is a link to download the trailer (it is pretty damn funny, especially if you're a fan of the teenage horror genre). Also, a trailer for this long-awaited adaptation of William Shakespeare's play is out now as well. Hamlet is a modernized version of the classic play (ala 1996's Romeo & Juliet) and stars Ethan Hawke, Julia Stiles, Liev Schreiber, and Bill Murray.

"Scary Movie" Trailer (7.2 mb QuickTime)
"Hamlet" Trailer (6 mb QuickTime)

Rules of Engagement: The Tommy Lee Jones/Samuel L. Jackson courtroom drama had what it needed to take down Julia Roberts' Erin Brockovich at the box-office last weekend, with an estimated gross of just over $15 million. Below is a review by Cinema Confidential for the film:

Cinema Confidential reviews "Rules of Engagement"

In cast you missed them... In case you haven't downloaded any of the billion trailers that came out last week, the movie trailers section has been updated, with even more trailers to such films as the Norm MacDonald comedy Screwed and the Richard Gere/Winona Ryder romance Autumn in New York. Also there are the links we gave you last week to such trailers as the Road Trip Rated-R trailer, the full-length X-Men trailer, the teaser for Shaft Returns, and the Chow Yun Fat/Michelle Yeoh film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And as much as I hate to admit it, I even included a link to the Pokemon: The Movie 2000 trailer.