Film Flash!

We all know how intelligent and clued up This is London readers are, so we're making sure you've got the inside track on what's under development in Tinseltown with our weekly updates! Every Friday...

Updated Friday 28 May 2004...

New mother Gwyneth Paltrow is to produce and star in a film about German screen idol Marlene Dietrich, based on a biography written by Dietrich's daughter Maria Riva.

Jessica Simpson has beaten Britney Spears to a starring role in The Dukes Of Hazzard. She will play Daisy Duke in the movie version of the cult Eighties TV show, according to the Daily Record. Britney was rumoured to be the front-runner for the role alongside Mandy Moore.

Jude Law has joined the cast of Brideshead Revisited. According to Comingsoon he will join married couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolly in the movie version of Evelyn Waugh's romantic novel.

Harrison Ford is set to star in space thriller Godspeed. Titanic director James Cameron will produce the film. Godspeed takes place on an international space station, where a life-threatening situation develops that could kill all the inhabitants on the station.

American Pie director Chris Weitz, is in talks to direct His Dark Materials, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The Phillip Pullman trilogy - The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - revolves around two children who live in parallel worlds surrounded by a cast of shape-shifting creatures.