George Lucas is tackling his first musical and it features fairies, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog.

Apparently the project is “untitled” and “top-secret” but THR says it will be a CGI-animated film and is in pre-production at Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch.

THR also says Canadian filmmaker Kevin Munroe is directing the film, which is expected to feature music from a variety of sources. Munroe made his directorial debut in 2007 with the fourth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, TMNT. He made his live-action debut with 2009’s Dead of Night, starring Brandon Routh and Taye Diggs.

David Berenbaum, who wrote the Will Ferrell comedy Elf and children’s fantasy The Spiderwick Chronicles, penned the musical’s screenplay. One known element of the script is that it features fairies.

Lucas has not directed a movie since Revenge of the Sith in 2005. He produced Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Star Wars: The Clone Wars in 2008 and is currently putting the finishing touches on Red Tails, for which he wrote the screenplay and is executive producer. THR says Red Tails is an adventure movie that tells the World War II story of the Tuskegee Airmen, America’s first black pilots.

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Sherlock Holmes might have been overshadowed at the box office by the behemoth that is Avatar but the Victorian era detective tale hasn’t done too shabbily for itself, pulling in $389 million worldwide since its Christmas Day opening. Robert Downey Jr. also nabbed a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Holmes.

Now the Los Angeles Times is reporting that director Guy Ritchie is abandoning his adaptation of the Lobo comics to fast track the Holmes sequel.

Joel Silver, a producer of both films spoke to the Times. “I don’t think he’s going to do it now,” he said of Ritchie directing Lobo. “The studio wants us and Guy to focus on making another Sherlock Holmes. So I think we’re going to be doing that. But we’re seeing what happens with this. Everybody is analyzing everything. It’s all kind of happening right now as we talk.”

Lobo would not be the first movie to get veered off course to make way for the sleuth sequel. The Times also recently reported that Downey Jr. had dropped out of Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens, presumably to free up time to reunite with co-star Jude Law on Baker Street.

Lobo, about an alien interstellar mercenary and bounty hunter, will likely go ahead with a different director, said Silver.

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It may be the closest thing you’ll ever get to an AC/DC Greatest Hits album.

The Australian rockers have eschewed the hits package compilation throughout their decades-long career but will now release 15 tracks onto the Iron Man 2 soundtrack, spanning the Bon Scott and Brian Johnson eras, from 1976-2008.

A press release from Marvel Studios and Columbia Records says the soundtrack album will be released on Monday, April 19, 2010 and will be available through Amazon.com and Walmart. The film opens internationally, beginning on April 28 and is scheduled for a domestic release on May 7.

The debut video from AC/DC: Iron Man 2 is AC/DC’s classic album cut Shoot To Thrill, which was filmed live last month in Buenos Aires during the band’s highly acclaimed Black Ice World Tour, the second highest grossing world tour of 2009. The video also incorporates exclusive footage from Iron Man 2 and debuts worldwide this week. Shoot to Thrill was originally recorded for the band’s 1980 album Back In Black.

Director John Favreau is apparently a big AC/DC fan. “Jon Favreau’s vision and passion for AC/DC’s music blend seamlessly into this incredible film” said Steve Barnett, co-chairman of Columbia Records. “The music really underscores the high energy and excitement of the film.”

Robert Downey Jr. will reprise his lead role in the sequel to the 2008 action flick, which will also star Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke and Samuel L. Jackson.

AC/DC: Iron Man 2 Track Listing:

1. Shoot to Thrill
2. Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation
3. Guns for Hire
4. Cold Hearted Man
5. Back in Black
6. Thunderstruck
7. If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)
8. Evil Walks
9. T.N.T.
10. Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be
11. Have a Drink on Me
12. The Razor’s Edge
13. Let There Be Rock
14. War Machine
15. Highway to Hell

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A representative has dismissed speculation that Jessica Alba is disgusted by her violent new movie The Killer Inside Me, after the actress was spotted walking out of its screening.

The film, which is directed by Michael Winterbottom and based on a 1952 pulp novel by Jim Thompson, has sparked outrage for its depictions of extreme violence against women, according to the Toronto Star and the New York Daily News. It stars Casey Affleck as small-town Texas sheriff/psychotic killer, Lou Ford. Alba plays a prostitute who, in one scene, is graphically beaten for several minutes.

Alba’s walkout from the Monday screening at the Sundance Film Festival, lead to murmurs that even she was unable to handle the violence. But her rep says this is nonsense and that the actress, 28, only left the cinema to catch a plane.

Her rep Brad Cafarelli explains, according to Contact Music, “This rumour is silly and not accurate at all. Jessica had seen the final version of the film just prior to coming to Sundance and was pleased with the outcome. She came in to support the film and the filmmakers by introducing the screening, which she did, and left right after to get home to her family in L.A., as planned.”

The Toronto Star reports that, after the screening, Winterbottom was confronted by angry audience members demanding to know why it was necessary to show such gratuitous violence toward women.

But the story does have fans. The late director of A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick, called the novel, The Killer Inside Me, “Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.”

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3D is quickly moving from a novelty to standard format. Next to get the 3 dimensional treatment may be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog says Warner Bros. will release the next two Harry Potter films in 3D. The studio has been testing footage from its upcoming Clash of the Titans — converted into 3D by an outside vendor — and the tests have reportedly gone so well that execs have decided to take it to Hogwarts.

The official announcement that the Clash of the Titans conversion release will go ahead has yet to be made but one is expected by week’s end. Neither is there official word on the Potter pics, so it’s all technically in the realm of rumour for now.

The expense of transferring to 3D is coming down and the number of 3D movie screens is growing. There will still not be enough screens, however, by the time Titans emerges in April to release it entirely in 3D. Still, executives have pushed the release back a week and believe this will give enough time to establish enough screens in major markets. Heat Vision reports that this will be less of a problem by the time the first Deathly Hallows instalment comes out in November.

It’s likely only a matter of time before most action or adventure movies get an extra dimension. THR muses that a 3D James Bond could be on the horizon. Other recent rumours include a 3D Spider-Man, a 3D Saw, and a 3D Gremlins 3.

Clash of the Titans is scheduled for April 2. Deathly Hallows: Part I is set to hit screens November 19, and Part II is slotted for July 15, 2011.

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Kelly Osbourne is gunning for a shot in the movies, according to Starpulse.

Ozzy’s youngest daughter, 25, has begun auditioning for screen roles in Hollywood. Kelly made her way into the public eye on the MTV reality series, The Osbournes and has since made a handful of appearances on other programs, including Dancing with the Stars, on which she and her partner, Louis van Amstel, finished third. She participated in a stop motion animation musical film about the Manson murders, titled Live Freaky! Die Freaky! And has released two albums, 2002’s Shut Up, later re-released as Changes, and 2005’s Sleeping in the Nothing.

In a column in Britain’s Closer magazine, Osbourne reportedly writes, “I had an audition for a film role last week – I can’t say what it is yet – and I’ve just heard back that I’m still in the running. The audition was pretty scary – you turn up and there’s a room full of people all going for the same role. It feels very competitive as everyone’s checking each other out.”

Starpulse says she also writes that she thought she’d ruined her chances when she took a tumble while waiting for her audition: “Something really mortifying happened – I sat down on a chair in the waiting room and somehow it flipped and I landed on the floor. So embarrassing!”

Marketsaw, a blog about all things 3D in the movies, is reporting that a third Gremlins movie is in development and that will be in stereoscopic 3D.

The site says it is not a 3D conversion of the original comedy horror, which was directed by Joe Dante and executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Chris Columbus, and that it is in very early stages.

The story of the first centered on an adorable creature, a “Mogwai,” purchased at a curious shop in New York City’s Chinatown. But things took a turn for the less cute when the Mogwai, named Gizmo, was exposed to bright light, got wet or was fed after midnight — and spawned a slew of evil monsters.

Marketsaw says Dante will be back at the helm. Dante, however, told MTV he knows nothing about it. “These things come up from time to time,” he said. “I don’t know of anything officially that’s going on.” He also said he is open to the possibility but is “not sitting by the phone.”

Dante’s last feature in wide release was2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action. He made headlines in 2009 for a variety of projects, including the web series ‘Splatter’ and 3D horror film The Hole, which was awarded the first Premio Persol at the 2009 Venice Film Festival’s for the “3-D feature deemed the most creative among those produced globally between September 2008 and August 2009.” A wide release for The Hole is yet to be announced.

Ever wonder how Count Dracula became a vampire? Well, soon you may find out. The gramps of the vamps himself may be set for his very own origin story. And there’s more: Sam Worthington is tipped for the role.

According to the Latino Review, the star of the biggest grossing movie in box office history (before accounting for inflation) might step into the role of Dracula, who was at least partially inspired by Vlad III the Impaler, the 15th century prince of Wallachia, said to be known for his sadistic torture and execution methods.

The film is called Dracula: Year Zero and is the latest in a line of origin stories (Batman, Woverine, Star Trek). According to Latino Review’s source, the flick is budgeted at over $100 million and will likely be directed by Alex Proyas, director of The Crow, Dark City, I Robot and Knowing.

Proyas recently said in an interview with Techland, “I think I’m now working on a movie about the origins of Dracula – called Dracula Year Zero. You never really know until you start shooting, but it sure feels like I’m working on it. We’re still in the budgeting and scheduling right now.

“Why I’m so intrigued by this story – when someone originally suggested it to me, I was like, I’m so not into this; Dracula has to be the most filmed character in the history of movies – is that this script has such an interesting and original take on this character. It’s all about how Vlad of Transylvania became this creature; the choices that he made to make him into this tragic character. It’s so intriguing to me, to approach this as a character study on a huge, epic canvas. The script is from these two young guys who have never really done a script before, but they basically did their thing and have reinvented the whole context of this most familiar personality.”

Worthington’s involvement is not official and, in the meantime, he will soon be seen on screens in the Clash of the Titans remake.

Planet of the Apes is to get another remake, for sure this time.

There has been talk of a new Apes for some time but recent rumours suggested that the plan had been abandoned. New York Magazine says, however, that Twentieth Century Fox has not given up on rebooting the Simian tale and that, in fact, the studio is now more determined than ever to make the film.

Screenwriter Scott Frank (Minority Report, Get Shorty) has left the project, an origin story showing just how the apes became so smart — Frank’s script reportedly showed how genetic experiments on apes led to their evolutionary eclipse of humans. Frank was also supposed to direct. And the Post says Fox has hired another writer, Jamie Moss (Street Kings), to rework Frank’s version. Producer Scott Rudin has also exited.

The project has now been handed to producer Peter Chernin and is apparently high priority. The search for a director is underway.

Meanwhile, Scott Frank has apparently been hired to adapt the forthcoming young-adult novel, co-written by James Frey, called I Am Number Four.

The first Planet of the Apes, released in 1968, was directed by Franklin J. Shaffner and starred Charlton Heston. The 2001 remake by Tim Burton starred Mark Wahlberg.

Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart show some girl-on-girl intimacy in their new movie, The Runaways, which is premiering at Sundance.

The actresses, who play bitter enemies — a vampire and a human — in Twilight: New Moon, talked with MTV about kissing each other in The Runaways, the biopic about the all girl band of the same name, and said they didn’t think it was a big deal, shrugging off the inevitable hype.

“I don’t think it was ever a big deal to me,” explained Fanning, 15 — who plays Runaways lead singer Cherie Currie — adding that the scene between Cherie and Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) “was just a thing, another day” for the characters.

Stewart, 19, echoed Fanning’s sentiment and insisted that the portrayal of Currie and Jett’s relationship wasn’t in any way a movie ploy or a way to shock the audience or Twilight fans. “It was never a big deal to me either … especially the way it was written into the story and the way it wasn’t, ‘And they finally get together,’” she told MTV. “It’s like it was just one night, and they have such an awesome bond that’s so cool to observe, so the fact that they made out when they were teenagers has nothing to do with it.”

HitFix.com, however, has Cherie Currie’s take on the subject. In an interview, HitFix asked Currie, who has mostly positive things to say about the movie, “How did you feel about how they handled your love scenes with Joan? Did you feel that was accurate?”

And she replied, “No. A little overplayed. I mean, Joan and I just had a great friendship. I clung to her. She kept me sane. She had this vision. All her life she knew what she wanted to be. I wasn’t quite sure until I saw my first Bowie concert, which was a few months before I joined the Runaways. We were just best friends. And there were some drugs going on. Back then in the ’70s, if you didn’t do drugs they thought there was something wrong with you. So, and at that time, bisexuality, David Bowie, Elton John, people were coming out of the closet. It was just right in that time when the experimental factor kicked it. That’s really all it was, just a couple of girls having fun. No in-love relationship kind of thing, girlfriend/girlfriend, it wasn’t that way. We were just coping with having fun. And we had a lot of fun on the road, we really did.”