Walt Disney Pictures rolled the dice with producer Robert Zemeckis’ “Mars Needs Moms”, which was trotted out in 3-D to great fanfare earlier this year, and took a critical and commercial beating, to the tune of a meager $39 million worldwide gross. The film — produced by the same team behind “A Christmas Carol” and “The Polar Express” — isn’t quite as much of a stinker as that dismissal might indicate, but neither is it a wonderful romp or, as Boxoffice Magazine’s Pete Hammond claims on the cover, “the perfect family film in every way.” The storyline — in which nine-year-old Earthling Milo (Seth Green, but also voiced by another,…

Title: Renee Director: Eric Drath Featuring: Renee Richards, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, John McEnroe, Bud Collins, Neil Amdur, and more The son of two doctors, Richard Raskind was a charismatic scholar-athlete and skirt-chaser at Yale who went on to graduate from medical school and continue his training as an ophthalmologist in the Navy. Raskind was also, however, an inveterate cross-dresser who for more than two decades grappled with confusion over issues of sexual identity. Later in life — after a five-year marriage and even the birth of a son — 41-year-old Raskind completed a sex change operation that he’d contemplated for years. Taking up the name Renee Richards and…

Do you think you can play Tupac Shakur? TooFab has released information about a casting call that will happen next week to find an actor to play the famed rapper. Starting March 21, Skee.TV and Morgan Creek will accept 5 minute audition videos from anyone who thinks they can tackle the role on the website InSearchOfTupac.com. The casting call will last for an entire month. David Robinson, the film’s producer, has stated that he’s looking for a person who has “the right mix of raw charm and charisma for the role.” To whomever lands this role, it will be one that could easily jump start an acting career, and, in…

Although more known for her socialite status than her acting roles, Kim Kardashian is hoping to return to films by being cast in the upcoming John Gotti biopic, www.tmz.com is reporting. Kardashian is currently in unofficial talks to play the daughter-in-law (also named Kim) of John Gotti, who is set to be portrayed by John Travolta. While the reality television star hasn’t signed onto the role yet, TMZ is claiming she is the “front-runner” for the role. The movie, titled ‘Gotti,’ will tell the story of three generations of the Gambino crime family. Gotti, who died in 2002, became the head of the family after the previous boss, Paul Castellano,…

Everyone knows about the famous Madame Tussaud wax museum, but little do people know about the actual Madame Tussaud. According to CinemaBlend via Variety, people will finally learn about the woman behind the famous name and wax shop because a biopic is in the works. According to the sites, producer Stephane Sperry is set to get started on “Madame T”, the first known biopic of Madame Tussaud (a Swiss-born artist who was actually named Marie Grossholz) which will cover Tussaud’s extremely interesting life, which included, according to the two sites, creating death masks for Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV, surviving the French Revolution, and coming extremely close to being beheaded….

R&B singer and “American Idol” winner Fantasia Barrino is expected to play influential gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in an upcoming biopic, according to The Hollywood Reporter. According to the site, Barrino will play the singer in a movie adaptation of the 1993 book “Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel”. Like the book, the movie will chronicle the life of Jackson who was, aside from a gospel singer, was a Civil Rights activist and an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The film will be directed by “A Dry, White Season” director Euzhan Palcy with a script written by Jim Evering. Fantasia’s acting career includes…

Morgan Creek Productions announced Thursday that a biopic about rapper Tupac Shakur, called “Tupac”, is finally in the works. According to the press release, principal photography will start either late spring or early summer. The film will be shot on location in New York, Georgia, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The film will be directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”, “Brooklyn’s Finest”). Casting is underway. The film will follow the dramatic life of the influential rapper, including his rise to stardom, his work in acting, art, and music, and his time at Death Row Records, including the East Coast/West Coast rap war, ending in both the murders of Tupac and…

Variety is reporting that the Nashville-based company 821 Entertainment Group, alongside Strike Entertainment, has embarked on adapting the life of country music icon Hank Williams into a big-screen film. Strike Entertainment partner Marc Abraham will be writing the script based on the book “Hank Williams: The Biography” by Colin Escott, who will be an associate producer on the project. Williams, born in 1923 in during the Depression, was one of the most most influential country music singer-songwriters in music, with 11 No. 1 hits over time, including “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” He also suffered from spina bifidia, which purportedly led to…

According to producer Frank Marshall, the long-brewing Lance Armstrong biopic for Columbia, based on his 2000 autobiography, could start filming as early as the beginning of 2010. Gary Ross has been hired to pen the script, and Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy are producing the pic through their Kennedy/Marshall banner, and there’s still a possibility that Marshall might direct it himself. No other information has been released yet. Stay tuned for more news on this project right here at Shockya.com. By Costa Koutsoutis (Source: Tour De Cinema)

Martin Scorsese will be directing a Frank Sinatra biopic, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Universal announced that they have a script from “Field Of Dreams” writer Phil Alden Robinson and have reached an agreement with Frank Sinatra Enterprises, a joint venture of the late Sinatra’s estate and Warner Music Group. Internal conflict within the Sinatra family estate over how the life story of legendary singer and actor Frank Sinatra, who died in 1998 was what has held up any project beforehand, as well as merchandising rights issues, though those all have been resolved according to the Sinatra estate. “Sinatra” will also allow Scorsese to tackle the life of Sinatra’s good lifelong…