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Was Julia Roberts pigeon-holed into a career she didn't want? Did motherhood and a break from Hollywood change her? Or, does she simply have a much different eye for projects to produce than projects to star in?

Variety reports that Roberts' Red Om Films has grabbed the rights to a nonfiction book called In the Neighborhood. Written by Peter Lovenheim, the book focuses on his concern over the disappearance of community. When he realizes his suburban hometown is lacking it, he decides to get to know his neighbors better. But rather than simply befriending these people, he proposes sleepovers and boop fests. "His goal: to facilitate something more than the feeling of strangers living with strangers in modern suburbia." It will hit shelves this April.

The sleepover party is the latest in a really diverse list of projects set up between Roberts' Om and Reliance Big. There's Jesus Henry Christ, where a petri dish boy follows Post-It notes hoping to find his biological father, My Mother the Cheerleader, about a 13-year-old girl whose mom is part of a group that harasses the first black student after court-ordered integration during the Civil Rights era, Mallory, a look into the life of English mountaineer George Mallory, and The Journey of the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon, the story of a young photographer who chronicled Somalia's famine until he was chased down and murdered by a Somali mob at the age of 22.

While Morgan Freeman has dabbled in comedy in his long and illustrious career, I don't think he's ever really gotten a chance to really cut loose. He certainly hasn't gotten to play in the raunchy end of the pool, but it sounds as though he's taking the leap in Dirty Old Men. The Hollywood Reporter says that he's attached to star as an aging playboy in the tentatively titled project, and we'll either be laughing or horribly traumatized by his efforts.

Men was penned by Josh Cagan and Greg Coolidge, and is said to be similar in tone to The Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year Old Virgin. It centers on two aging playboys who have been each other's wingmen for over 40 years. One of them meets the love of his life, leaving the other (played by Freeman) to chase skirts on his own. Well, that just won't do. The lonely playboy does everything he can to break up the new couple. I will bet money there's at least one I-hid-the-Viagra scenario. No, I don't like to think about it.

Peter Segal is in talks to direct, and the hunt is on for the playboy-husband-to-be. Warner Bros is hoping Jack Nicholson will take the part and reteam with his Bucket List buddy. But if he turns it down, may I humbly suggest they look to Freeman's real life wingman, Clint Eastwood? If Viagra jokes must be made, let them be the two that make them.

Back in August, we reported that the Terminator franchise was in some serious legal and financial trouble. The rights are currently owned by the Halcyon Company, who have managed to make more court appearances than they have films. They were in danger of losing the rights to their hedge fund, Pacificor, who was poised to claim them if Halcyon defaulted on their loan.

But according to The Financial Times, Halcyon has now filed for bankruptcy after their lawsuit with Pacificor, and is selling off the rights to Terminator. It would appear that filing for Chapter 11 afforded their precious franchise some protection from the hedge fund, and they can now sell it to bail themselves out. The sale will be conducted by FTI Capital Advisors, and does not cover rights to the earlier Terminator films.

The Times notes that this auction is coming at a particularly tough time for Hollywood, who is feeling the economic crunch just like everyone else. But it notes that Terminator is one of the rare "blockbuster brands" not controlled by a big studio, and that alone has may drooling at the chance to control future properties. Summit is said to be particularly interested (they can probably pay for it just out of Twilight proceeds), as is Sony and Media Rights Capital. But remember, this is America! Everyone has a chance at destroying mankind, and if you have millions (estimates put the sale beyond $60 million, the benchmark set by the sale of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), you can buy them for yourself. I would have faith in something other than John Connor if a Cinematical reader took the reins of this franchise.

Comics legend Warren Ellis is all over Hollywood these days. He has Red in development at Summit, Gravel was just recently optioned by the top-notch crew at Legendary Pictures, and Ocean is in the works with Hollywood Gang, for whom Ellis is also penning a King Arthur script. Now Variety reports that Ellis' miniseries Black Summer has been optioned by the fledgling banner Vigilante Entertainment. Ryne Pearson is set to adapt it for the big screen.

Black Summer kicked off in 2007, and walks some familiar Watchmen ground as it examines the darker implications of vigilante heroes. It centers around a superhero team called the Seven Guns, a group of ordinary humans who have willingly undergone severe surgery to become superhuman vigilantes. They take to the streets of a West Coast city to battle a corrupt city government, its equally sleazy police force, and greedy private security forces. But by the time we meet them, those days are gone. But one member, John Horus, decides to go after the man he feels is committing the biggest illegal act of all -- the President of the United States. His violent decision puts the rest of the Guns in danger, In typical Ellis fashion, the blood begins spraying and the bodies drop, and everything becomes very politically murky. If you'd like to see some previews or check out some interviews with Ellis, it's all been neatly collected at Avatar Press' site.

This project is in pre-pre production right now, so it's hard to get too excited as to how (or if!) it will end up on the big screen. But it's great to see more and more of Ellis' work being picked up for adaptations. Let's hope it meets better fate than most of Alan Moore's work.

No super-successful comedy series can stay away for long. Back in April, ShoWest brought news that the aliens were coming back for Men in Black 3. There was no word on which stars would return, or anything other than the faintest murmurings of a plan, but now things are coming together. THR's Risky Biz Blog reports that Etan Cohen, the scribe behind Tropic Thunder, will pen the script while director of the first two, Barry Sonnenfeld, returns for the third bout.

With a script and director slotted into place, naturally, the next question revolves around Will Smith. As of now, the actor has no solid plans to return, but buzz says he is interested. As for Tommy Lee Jones -- his involvement is "uncertain." Smith has nothing pressing right now, so he's wide open (save from helping along his son's blossoming career), and Jones has only got two in-development features in his future.

Read the rest at SciFi Squad

In the glorious, not-too-distant future, your cinema screen will soon play host to a legion of rippling abs, biceps glistening with oil, and pelvic thrusts set to a synthesized beat. No, it's not the sequel to 300. It's the rags-to-crazy tale of Steve Banerjee, the creator of Chippendales. According to Variety, Banerjee's strange and violent tale is set become a biopic directed by Tony Scott, with a screenplay by Lisa Schrager.

Banerjee's story is one of success, excess, paranoia, and murder. He emigrated to the U.S. from India, and operated a humble Mobile gas station. But he decided that flesh sold better than gas, and bought a failing L.A. club named the Destiny II. He initially traded in female strippers and mud wrestling before realizing that women liked to tuck dollar bills into a well-fit pair of briefs. With some help from Las Vegas musical veterans Steve Merrit and Mark Donnelly, Banerjee created Chippendales. All those gleaming torsos made him very wealthy, but it also made him paranoid. Banerjee began putting contract hits out on those "threatening" his franchise. Former business partner (and Chippendales dancer / choreographer) Nick DeNoia was murdered on Banerjee's orders, others dodged the bullet due to a well-placed FBI informant. Arrested and charged with attempted arson, racketeering, and murder for hire, he never made it to trial due to committing suicide.

Though you might expect this to be shot as flashily as Domino, Scott reportedly intends to return to his True Romance restraint. While that's a blessing, I hope he allows one or two moments of yellow-drenched and sweaty insanity at the end. If there's any movie begging for a bit of painful visuals, it's this one.

What's the best way to make Hollywood see past your sexy looks? Star in a sex comedy! No? Well someone's in for a shock then... The Hollywood Reporter posts that Jessica Biel will star in a new comedy called F***ing Engaged.

The brainchild of new screenwriter Julia Brownell (developed with Dan Halsted and Cameron Bunce), the flick is aiming to be "a raunchy comedy about a couple who make a pact to have sex every day leading to their wedding so they don't turn into their crusty old parents." Correct me if I'm wrong, married folks, but isn't the whole sexless crustiness due to sexless lives after the marriage, rather than before? If anything, I'd imagine that overdoing the sex pre-wedding would kill the hormones quicker. And who will play the lucky bloke?

Should this be in a different vein than her last comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, it has promise. But really, this whole thing just makes me wish for Nailed. Remember that comedy? The plagued David O. Russell flick where Biel plays a waitress-turned-sex addict making waves in Washington D.C.? That's the Biel sex comedy that should be hitting our eager eyes. Oh well. At least this would make for an apt double-bill with Young People F**king.

Indie Roundup, your weekly dose of what's happening (slightly) outside the mainstream.

Deals. Via our friends at indieWIRE, we learn that Brian Baugh's faith-based To Save a Life will be released by Samuel Goldwyn Films in January 2010. The film follows an "all-American teen" boy dealing with the aftermath of a friend's death. Cross-cultural romantic drama Cairo Time, starring Patricia Clarkson, will hit theaters and on-demand home viewing systems sometime in the new year, courtesy of IFC Films. Bradley Rust Gray's The Exploding Girl will open in early 2010 through Oscilloscope Laboratories. Zoe Kazan stars as a young college woman dealing with conflicting romantic feelings while home in New York for spring break.

Online / On Demand Viewing. Two recommendations this week, both for titles that are newly available through Amazon's VOD service. Susan Seidelman's Smithereens is a quintessentially New York picture and a fiercely independent experience from a time when indies were few and far between. It's a blast of fresh air about Wren (Susan Berman), a rough-talking young woman, and her travails through the seedier side of life as she tries to make something of herself. It's essential viewing, especially if you've been disappointed by one too many slick faux-indies. Musician Richard Hell is great, too.

Much less essential, but no less vital viewing, is Arlene Nelson's Naked States, which trails along as Spencer Tunick engineers massive works of art composed by live, naked human flesh. Tunick is a fascinating photographer / hustler, and so are the people who decide to bare all for the sake of art.

Activity of a different kind, Chilean cleaning, and AFI Fest -- after the jump!

Historical settings are severely underused in films today. Once upon a time in a cheesier Hollywood, you could find pulpy adventures set among knights, Vikings, or cowboys. They were horribly inaccurate, but I admire and appreciate their desire to just run with another time or place. Nowadays, historical films are considered too expensive. No one makes a movie set in Rome or medieval England just for fun. But I think we're starting to see a shift towards that mentality (after all, how much more expensive are Roman breastplates over CG?) with films like Centurion, Ironclad, Season of the Witch and now a little project called Mortis Rex.

Variety has the scoop on this intriguing movie-to-be, which will be the directorial debut of Hellboy writer Peter Briggs. Mortis Rex is set in 122 A.D. (or C.E. if we want to be proper), and centers on a disgraced Roman war hero. He's given the chance to redeem his reputation when he is sent to a Roman garrison that's being besieged by unexplained and brutal killings.

Sure, it could be lame, but a supernatural thriller set in the days of Hadrian? That's something you don't see every day, and a concept I'd like to see more filmmakers run with. Movies should have as much fun and license with history as literature does. If we're going to plunder the past for new movies, we could at least go back a little further than the 1980s.

It seemed like maybe Adam Sandler was looking at ripping that crap-of-a-comedy stigma from him when he starred in Funny People, reminding the world that the old Sandler was a mix of ridiculous laughs and dramedy. But here's another reason to assume that was just a random blip in lowest common denominator fare: Variety reports that Columbia Pictures has grabbed the actor to star in a romantic comedy called Jack and Jill.

Rom-com can mean many things, and potentially even something good for the actor, but get a load of this: He will "play Jack as well as his twin sister Jill." And it was written by Steve Koren (old SNL scribe behind the Almighty flicks, Night at the Roxbury, and Superstar.) That's all we know. Considering the "rom" part, I'd hope that there's a love interest outside of this duo, because who would want to see Sandler-on-Sandler incest? Yes, I'm being negative, but it all comes from how the project was positioned and revealed. Should we expect anything more from a romantic comedy when the powers that be decide to kick things off by talking about Sandler cross-dressing? If that's the notable part of the news designed to start perking interests, there's definitely a Happy Madison bend to the whole thing. And yes, his company is producing .

Can you think of a way that this film could be anything more than another Chuck & Larry sort of offering? Could this possibly be more Tootsie than The Hot Chick? Do you want to see Adam Sandler in Hollywood drag?