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The last time they worked together, Scarlett Johansson and director Rupert Sanders made Ghost In The Shell . Their new collaboration could hardly be more different, as it'll tell the fascinating true-life tale of a woman who became a crime kingpin through owning massage parlors and more. And the title will raise more eyebrows than just the story alone: Rub & Tug. Whether that name survives to cinema marquees is a question for another day, but for now, New Regency is happy to put up the money for Johansson to star and Sanders to direct Gary Spinelli's script. It'll follow the experiences of Jean Marie Gill, a larger-than-life character in 1970s Pittsburgh who took on the mob and ran a chain of illicit massage parlors offering prostitution, plus an anabolic steroid ring that helped power NFL team the Pittsburgh Steelers. And she did it all with the help of her allies in the gay community, often dressing as a man to help her cause. In addition to her criminal activit...

The competent but unremarkable Ghost in the Shell is nothing you haven't seen before. Review by Matt Cummings At what point do all movies feel like you've seen them before? When I look at some of my fellow reviewer colleagues, I see their fatigue on display and with good reason. In their decades-long evaluation of cinema, they've seen better versions of every film in theaters right now, including Director Rupert Sanders' big screen American adaptation of Ghost in the Shell , a competent but all-too-familiar Frankenstein of every important Sci-Fi film of the past 30 years. Set in a dystopian future in which everyone seems plugged into the Internet with enhancements, Ghost in the Shell introduces us to Major (Scarlett Johansson), a humanoid whose brain is real but whose body is totally synthetic. This gives Major incredible strength and intelligence, as demonstrated by the film's first ass-kicking sequence. Her boss Armaki (Takeshi Kitano) has surro...

Rupert Sanders is on board to direct. Avi Arad and Steven Paul are producing the film from a script by Bill Wheeler. Mark Sourian is exec producing. Insiders also tell Variety that Paramount has the option to come on as co-producer and financier and that decision is expected in the coming weeks. DreamWorks principal Steven Spielberg is a huge fan of the original and has long wanted to get this film off the ground. A commitment from a star like Johansson should help in getting the pic greenlit for production. Besides Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lawrence, Johansson is becoming one of the few actresses in town with the clout to get a project greenlit on her name alone. “Lucy” made $394 million worldwide and Johansson can be seen next in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” bowing in May. Johansson has also done a nice job of balancing action-heavy tentpoles with serious dramas and comedies. Please Leave A Comment-

Kristen Stewart the Twilight star is on the list for the role of Snow White in Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman . The movie, being directed by Rupert Sanders , is in deep casting mode, with Viggo Mortensen entering negotiations to play the Huntsman earlier Wednesday. Charlize Theron is in negotiations to play the evil queen . Stewart is a name that Universal has kept coming back to since acquiring the project even as it went through a series of screen tests with actresses such as Riley Keough, Felicity Jones and Alicia Vikander . Emily Browning tested this past weekend (Stewart has reached a point in her career where testing isn't required). Stewart, arguably one of the biggest stars in the world thanks to the Twilight movies, has focused on indie projects in between the vampire romancers, and this could become her first studio project since becoming a name. It also would put her in the shoes of an iconic character. The actress is currently shooting the Break...