Woody Allen's next film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is skipping London for Barcelona. It's also stars Allen muse Scarlett Johansson and two newcomers to the auteur's world: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. And if that wasn't enough... word is that the movie will include a Penelope Cruz-Scarlett Johansson sex scene and a threesome with Javier Bardem.

But despite all that salaciousness, the movie's first controversy is a linguistic one.

Authorities in Barcelona are forbidding The Weinstein Company from distributing the film in Spanish. Barcelonan audiences will have the choice of either watching the film in English with Catalan subtitles, or viewing a version that's been dubbed into Catalan.

Both Cruz and Bardem, of course, are Spanish speakers. Elsewhere in Spain, the movie will be shown in English with Spanish subtitles. It's all due to the Catalan-promoting policies of the regional government:

The regional government recently announced a E7.4m (GBP5.9m) film fund to promote Catalan cinema. It also gave a grant of €15,000 to a soft porn producer for three "erotic films" as they would promote the Catalan language. But despite generous public funding, the 12 Catalan language features produced last year were watched by just 0.8 percent of the region's 24 million cinemagoers.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona's co-producer, Jaume Roures, is a dedicated Catalan nationalist.

When it came time for Fox Searchlight Pictures to promote their new immigration-themed drama Under the Same Moon, they decided on a unique strategy for their trailer...

Promote the movie by making fun of Lou Dobbs.

Now, here's the thing. The Fox News Channel, Fox Searchlight's corporate sibling, has an unabashedly conservative political stance. It's home to a number of pundits that rely on jingoism and masked xenophobism as a matter of course. Meanwhile, Fox Searchlight is promoting a film about a family of illegal immigrants trying to stay afloat in the USA. Needless to say, it's openly sympathetic to their struggles.

It just goes to show: It's not about left-wing or right-wing. It's all about the almighty dollar, people.

Rosemary's Baby was that most rare of beasts: A horror film set on the Upper West Side. It's also a time capsule of New York maternal anxiety c. 1968 filtered through the minds of Ira Levin and Roman Polanski. You know, a classic.

A classic which may very likely be remade by Michael Bay (Transformers, Armageddon, Bad Boys).

Paramount, the owner of the Rosemary's property, is close to completing talks with Bay's Platinum Dunes production company to approve a remake. Platinum Dunes, which is helmed by Bay alongside Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, has been on a horror movie remake kick as of late. The other films they've landed the rights to include:

From the truth is stranger then fiction file: Ridley Scott is in talks to direct a film based on Monopoly. Yes, Monopoly the board game. Universal Pictures has signed a partnership with toy firm Hasbro to produce at least four movies based on the following properties:

Once upon a time, John Grogan was a newspaper columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Then he wrote a book called Marley & Me and became very, very rich. Along the way, Grogan sold the movie rights to Marley.

Now it turns out that in March, Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston are slated to start filming Marley & Me. It will be Wilson's first movie post-suicide attempt.

Two quick pieces related to NYC journalist cult books/movies — yeah, we heard you discussing these at Radar parties/Von/Drop Off Service/Lolita. Don't even front.

FishbowlNY has learned that a film deal has been signed to bring the Smurfs to the big screen that will include a massive, Viacom-funded media blitz. IMPS — the Belgian company that holds the copyrights to the beloved characters — has reached an agreement with Nickelodeon Films (Paramount Pictures/Viacom) to develop a computer-animated Smurfs film for worldwide distribution. Jordan Kerner (Charlotte's Web, Inspector Gadget) will be producing. The formal agreement ends years of speculation over a possible resurrection of the beloved children's franchise.

But these new Smurfs will be different. Smurfette is getting a lot of female company. A lot more. At a press conference on Monday, IMPS head Hendrik Coysman explained that the new Smurfs will be gender balanced:

"There have been dramatic changes in socio-cultural values in the past 20 to 25 years [...] One of these is girl empowerment. There will be a greater female presence in the Smurf village, and this will, of course, be a basis for new stories. This will probably turn upside down certain traditional situations within the village.

By that, we assume he means that those damn Smurf jokes are coming to an end.

Despite the fact that The Smurfs cartoon has been off the air for nearly 20 years, the Smurfs are big money: Royalties generated for the brand range from $5 to $12 million annually.

(Image via X-Entertainment)

Freakonomics: The movie? Yes. Shooting begins in January and will wrap up in summer.... The Freakonomics movie will be made up of short documentary segments based on on chapters from the uber-popular book. But the awesome thing is the filmmakers working on the project:

In other words, it's an indie documentary all-star team. More info is available over at Variety & (natch) Freakonomics. But directors Ewing and Grady need your help. C'mon, the Jesus Camp girls need you:

Are you a Freak for Freakonomics? Has the Freakonomics movement changed your life significantly? Do you find yourself running experiments to prove your suspicions about human nature? What did you find? We are documentary filmmakers adapting the book to the big screen and are looking for your stories. If you or anyone you know has been deeply influenced by the book and has a good story to tell please e-mail us at freakonomicsmovie (at) gmail (dot) com.

Documentaries circa 2008? They're interactive.

For Morgan Spurlock's follow-up to Super Size Me, the documentarian submitted his new film Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden? to Sundance. In the documentary, Spurlock tries to beat the US government at their own game and find Bin Laden.

Although the film is under a crazy NDA, the whole quiet viral marketing campaign is starting. According to Slashfilm, the film's director of photography, Daniel Marricone claims that Spurlock "definitely got the holy grail." Then another blog reported that the Weinstein Company bought the movie after only seeing 15 minutes of it. Spurlock said in a YouTube interview "you have to watch the movie" to see whether he found OBL or not.

As previously mentioned the film is under a press embargo and information is sketchy... However, we can confirm that Morgan Spurlock has filmed in Pakistan, Egypt (pictured) and Israel along with other undisclosed nations for WITWIOBL.

If anyone can offer additional information on the film, by all means let us know.

(WITWIOBL still via Slashfilm)

The ink is drying on a new $100 million + expansion project at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, the Post reports. Located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Steiner is home to the largest soundstage in the Northeast and is the city's main indoor film shooting facility.

The new project will more than double the studio's size from 16 acres to 36 acres and will include the following: