Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are going to do a sequel to their 2006 blockbuster “The Da Vinci Code” but it will be based on an earlier novel called “Angels & Demons”. Novelist Dan Brown wrote this first adventure of symbologist Robert Langdon four years before the character found international fame in “Da Vinci” and since there is no sequel to the latter book at the present time Howard is going one step back in the past to base his second movie on.

“Angels & Demons” will see Langdon called to a Swiss research facility to try and uncover why an ancient symbol was seared into the chest of a scientist. As Langdon investigates the mystery he discovers a plot against the Vatican organized by a shadowy underground network that is called the Illuminati.

Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is trying to finish the screenplay before a writers strike is scheduled to hit Hollywood on November 1. Howard wants to start filming “Angels & Demons” in the new year and have it in theaters next December.

Hugh Jackman is pushing ahead with plans to spin his “X-Men” character of Wolverine off into his own series of movies. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is going to be directed by Gavin Hood (“Rendition”) later this year and will be in theaters on May 1, 2009. Circling the cast is Liev Schreiber for the part of Colonel William Stryker. Stryker was played by Brian Cox in the second “X-Men” movie but because this is a movie about the origin of Wolverine’s special metal claws and why he suffers from amnesia the part is being recast with a younger actor. Jackman’s mutant also doesn’t age the same as regular people do which allows him to look just the same as he does in the “X-Men” movies.

It is rumored that the “Wolverine” movie will introduce a host of new mutants familiar to fans of the Marvel comic book series. One character that seems a given is Gambit, a southern gentleman thief who made his base of operations in New Orleans. Coincidentally or not that city is also where Hood will film part of the “Wolverine” movie as well as New Zealand and Australia, Jackman’s home continent. Maybe one or two of the other “X-Men” cast will turn up for a cameo appearance in the “Wolverine” movie. What’s Halle Berry doing right now anyway?

27-year-old Chris Pine has landed the job of playing the new face of Captain James T. Kirk in the eleventh “Star Trek” movie. Pine won the role but at the cost of having to give up another plum part opposite George Clooney in the movie adaptation of “White Jazz” based on the James Ellroy crime novel. Pine joins Zachary Quinto (“Heroes”), Zoe Saldana (“The Terminal”), Simon Pegg (“Shawn of the Dead”), John Cho (“Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle”), Anton Yelchin (“Huff”) and Eric Bana (“Troy”) in the movie which is scheduled to begin filming next month. Rumored to be the frontrunner to play the Enterprise’s chief medical officer Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy is Karl Urban (“Doom”, “Pathfinder”). J.J. Abrams (“Mission Impossible 3”) will direct the movie and he has a budget of $150 million dollars to play with.

Pine has starred in “Smokin Aces”, “Just My Luck” and “The Princess Diaries 2” but this will be his big break. Abrams is recasting the roles made famous by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy in the hopes of breathing new life into the 40 year old sci-fi franchise. Bana will play the movie’s villain, a Romulan time traveler who messes up the timeline and prevents Kirk from taking command of the famous spaceship. Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock in six of the movies and on the original television series, will reprise his role in the new movie as the older Vulcan.

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have collaborated for the sixth time together in the film adaptation of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. Burton has turned the award-winning Stephen Sondheim musical into another must-see event movie. Depp plays Sweeney Todd, a wrongly convicted barber who is sent to prison by the corrupt Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and as a consequence his wife and daughter pay a horrible price. Once Sweeney serves his time he returns to reopen his barber shop and bring revenge upon everyone he believes deserves to pay.

Rounding out the cast is Tim Burton’s real-life wife Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, a romantic suitor of Sweeney who makes diabolical meat pies for the neighborhood, Timothy Spall (“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) plays Judge Turpin’s evil associate Beadle Bamford, and Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”, “Talladega Nights”) plays a rival barber to Sweeney, a flamboyant man named Signor Adolfo Pirelli.

The “Sweeney Todd” movie comes out in theaters this holiday season. You can view the movie’s trailer on the official website.

Fans of Nick Park’s clay-made man and dog Wallace and Gromit are delighted with today’s news that production of a new W&G film will start momentarily. Titled “Trouble at Mill” the 30-minute short will return Park back to the shorter length productions that first brought the world’s attention on the dimly inventor and his smarter pooch. This time the two decide to open a bakery but instead of running his new business Wallace starts spending too much time chasing after a lovely lady named Piella Bakewell. While Wallace is off chasing his heart’s desire it’s up to Gromit to bake breads, run the shop and also solve a murder!

“I’m making this for myself again and the people who love Wallace and Gromit,” said Nick Park at the announcement of the new W&G film. “I love making films for the cinema, but the production of ‘Chicken Run‘ and ‘Curse of the Were-Rabbit‘ were virtually back to back, and each film took five years to complete. ‘Trouble at’ Mill’ will be so much quicker to make, and I can’t wait to get back into production.”

Work will begin on “Trouble at Mill” in January in Bristol and everyone involved plans on having the show complete for broadcast on BBC1 at Christmas in 2008.

The lifestyles of the rich and famous aren’t always as fun as we would like to imagine that they are. That is likely what actor Nicolas Cage is thinking today after he awoke early Monday morning to discover a burglar inside his Newport Beach home. When Cage confronted the man he was clothed only in a leather jacket. The “Ghost Rider” star remained calm and politely asked the stranger to remove his property which he did, then Cage walked the man outside of his home and called security. The stranger was taken into custody and identified as Robert Dennis Furo Jr, 45-years-old. Police charged Furo with a first-degree burglary charge which he surprisingly decided to plead not guilty.

Police still have not discovered the way in which Furo gained entry into Cage’s waterfront home. The actor was asleep when he heard the stranger rummaging downstairs and the only other people inside were Cage’s wife and their young son. Furo has not told police why he went to Cage’s home or what his intent was.

Cage’s next movie is “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” which opens on December 21.

An extra working on the set of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” found himself in hot water after he told revealing secrets about the movie. Tyler Nelson, 24, worked on the highly anticipated new movie recently and was on hand when several scenes featuring Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett were filmed. Nelson played a Russian soldier who celebrated the capture of Indiana Jones with the members of his troop by performing a traditional Russian dance. What landed the young actor in trouble with the film’s makers was an interview he gave to an Oklahoma

newspaper in which he spoiled several plot details from the movie.

Supposedly when director Steven Spielberg learned that the novice actor had shared what happens in the movie with the press he was reportedly so angry that he threatened to cut all of the scenes feauturing Nelson in the film. Spielberg’s press agent Martin Levy also issued an ominous statement about the future of Nelson’s budding acting career: “Who knows if he’s ever going to work in this town again?”

Among the spoilers that were printed by the newspaper was that Indy and the Russians are looking for a crystal skull said to have mystical powers; that Cate Blanchett’s character is a Russian Army interrogator that tortures Indy to reveal the whereabouts of the skull; and that during the course of the movie the Russians kidnap Indy’s old flame Marion Ravenwood (“Raiders of the Lost Ark” co-star Karen Allen) prompting Indy to develop romantic feelings for her once again. The movie is set for release next May.