News

Here's your dose of film news for March 29, 2009:

• Woody Allen is still recruiting for this upcoming untitled movie, and the latest to join the project is Nicole Kidman. She's joining Freida Pinto, Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and Josh Brolin. As usual, plot details are strictly kept under wraps. Kidman will soon be seen in "Nine." (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Isaiah Washington is attached to play singer Lou Rawls in an upcoming biopic. Lou Rawls Jr. wrote a script with Robert Egan and Dimi, and Pathway Entertainment will develop the project. Washington's credits include "Grey's Anatomy" and "Hollywood Homicide." (THR)

• David O. Russell is in talks to direct "The Silver Linings Playbook," based on the novel by Matthew Quick. The story follows a former high school teacher who's put in the care of his mom after leaving a mental institution. Russell recently directed "Nailed," which ran into a bunch of financial trouble.

Legendary singer Lou Rawls is getting the biopic treatment.

Pathway Entertainment has acquired the script "Through the Eyes of a Son," described as an uncensored take on the singer written by his son Lou Rawls Jr., and will develop it as a feature, with Isaiah Washington attached to play the famed crooner.

Born in Chicago in 1933, Rawls sang in a range of styles that included blues, soul, funk and R&B, selling millions of albums and earning legions of fans, as well as the accolades of Frank Sinatra. He also, according to the script, had a traumatic life, enduring a poverty-stricken childhood and, in adulthood, intense marital strife.

"It's the untold side of a glamorous life," said Adel Nur, Washington's manager. "It's like 'Ray'; we knew about the beautiful music, but we didn't know about the turmoil and chaos in (Ray Charles') life."

Pathway's Robert Egan and...