Hollywood Roundup: March 7

Mar 7, 2007, 20:34 GMT

Los Angeles - Former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan is abandoning his action hero image for a role opposite Meryl Streep in the movie version of the popular ABBA musical Mamma Mia!, according to The Hollywood Reporter Wednesday.

The stage version has been a huge hit around the world, featuring 22 songs by the Swedish supergroup. The tunes are tied in to an unlikely narrative about a bride-to-be and her once rebellious mother who raised her on a Greek island without ever disclosing the identity of her father.

Things get complicated when the bride invites three men who could be her dad to her her wedding.

Brosnan will play the main father figure while Streep will play the mother. ABBA members and songwriters Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus will serve as executive producers, as will Tom Hanks.

Shyamalan's The Happening heading to Fox

Los Angeles - 20th Century Fox has given the go-ahead for Indian-born director M. Night Shyamalan to direct his first adult-rated movie, a thriller called The Happening, according to Daily Variety

Set to begin filming in Philadelphia in August, the 75-million- dollar movie is described as a paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity.

The deal marks something of a comeback for Shyamalan, whose career was reported to be in the doldrums following the flop of his last movie, Lady in the Water.

Will Smith getting Cooked

Los Angeles - Will Smith is likely to star as a drug dealer turned celebrity chef in a new movie called Cooked, according to Variety.

The trade paper said that Sony-owned Columbia Pictures had purchased the rights to Cooked, a novel by an inner-city drug dealer turned Vegas celebrity chef. The studio intends the project for the team behind The Pursuit of Happyness, Smith's recent hit about a homeless man who becomes a succesful financier.

The new project will focus on the life of Jeff Henderson, who was a top San Diego cocaine dealer until he was imprisoned. Behind bars he discovered a passion for cooking, and eventually became executive chef at the high end Cafe Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Captain America killed in comic but movie version lives

Los Angeles - Patriotic comic book icon Captain America has been struck down by a sniper's bullet to end his 66-year comic career. But the redoubtable symbol of the gung-ho American will live on in a movie version, according to reports Wednesday.

Captain America was first unveiled by Marvel Comics in 1941 as a patriotic crime fighter who battled Nazis in World War II. Also known as Steve Rogers, the superhero was a scrawny nerd considered too weak for the armed forces, who served his country by signing up for a 'super soldier serum,' which enabled him to become the ultimate fighting machine for the US.

Marvel says it is working on a Captain America movie.