Bradley Cooper has been steadily building his profile for years and while his CV is crammed full of comedies, there are a few decent dramatic turns.

Well he’s stepping up to the big leagues now as he’s signed on to star with Robert ‘Raging Bull’ De Niro in Neil Burger’s adaptation of Alan Glynn’s novel, Dark Fields.

Cooper will play a young businessman who becomes addicted to a new drug, MDT-48, that gives him heightened intelligence and success. Things go haywire when Cooper’s cut off from his supply and he must ‘delve into the drug’s dark past to feed his habit.’

Sounds a world away from sappy romcom Valentine’s Day and The A-Team which will Cooper doing the action hero thing.

Variety describes De Niro part as ‘a brilliant financial mogul who begins pursuing Cooper’s character.’

It’s good to see that De Niro shows no sign of slowing down with age; he has a plethora of acting gigs lined up as well as several producing jobs in the works. He just appeared in Everybody’s Fine but has Machete, Little Fockers and cop drama Stone coming soon.

Last year I reported that there was a Smurfs movie in the works and now How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris has joined the project.

The movie will part animation-part live action and Harris will be taking the lead. Unfortunately, he’s the live action star so we won’t get to see him as an itty-bitty Avatar styled smurf.

Previous casting rumours included John Lithgow signing on to play the evil Gargamel but this is yet to be confirmed.

The film will be under the control of Beverly Hills Chihuahua director Raja Gosnell and has had it’s original release date of winter 2010 pushed to July 2011.

Big smurfing deal, we prefer The Snorks anyway.

If you fancy doing something a bit different, then get yourself down to the Southbank between 4th-12th March because there’s loads happening.

Tomorrow will see the opening of the 2010 Birds Eye View Film Festival with special guest host Jane Horrocks. The festival celebrates women in film and will preview short films, feature masterclass talks and screenings of upcoming movies.

Tickets are on sale now so don’t miss out as tomorrow there’s a special screening of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker. They’re pretty jazzed about Bigelow because if she wins in her category at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, she’ll be the first woman to win the best director award.

Closing the festival will be Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut film Whip It!, a teen comedy with Juno’s Ellen Page. Set in a small town in Texas, Bliss (Page) doesn’t fit in with others kids or her parents plans for her. But she ends up feeling right at home in a roller-derby team with Barrymore and Kristen Wiig.

Before the film there’s ‘a roller-derby extravaganza with London’s finest skate girls whipping up our pre-screening excitement.’ Sounds good to us.

So visit the official website and get your tickets now!

(500) Days Of Summer star Joseph-Gordon Levitt is set to replace James McAvoy in Johnathan Levine’s cancer comedy.

According to MTV, McAvoy dropped out of the project after shooting had already begun due to personal problems.

A source revealed that this has caused shooting to be delayed until 8th March, at which time Golden Globe nominee Gordon-Levitt will step into the role.

Seth Rogen, also starring in the project, said in a statement, “It’s incredibly unfortunate that circumstances outside of everyone’s control have taken James away from the project, but, with James’s blessing, we were able to have Joseph step in to take on the [lead] role of Adam. We all look forward to working with James in the future.”

Based around Will Reiser’s experience of battling cancer in his early twenties, Reiser is penning the script himself and the film will be produced by Rogen and Evan goldberg.

While the film is gaining and losing cast members, it still hasn’t even got a title. The film was previously called ‘I’m With Cancer’ but at present is just Untitled Cancer Comedy.

I’m all for unusual pairings, but none are so bizarre as the literary mash ups written by Seth Grahame-Smith.

The author got on the bad side of a lot of bookworms when he wrote ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’. Apparently, some people weren’t too happy with the addition of the undead to Jane Austen’s work, but as we all know, everything’s better with zombies.

But his next book is getting Hollywood’s attention; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter hasn’t even been released yet, but Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov have already got their eye on it.

The basic plot is that when a young Abe’s mother is killed by a vampire, he devotes his life to destroying them, inbetween ending slavery and saving the union.

The project will see Burton and Bekmambetov (we still can’t pronounce that!) pairing up for the second time; their first film together was with Shane Acker’s animated feature, 9.

But will the film be going up against Steven Spielberg’s long overdue Lincoln biopic? Well, Steven’s taking his sweet old-time and still has a few projects to go before he can even get started, so Burton could pip him to the post.

Is anyone else tired of Burton remaking and adapting stuff? He hasn’t made anything original in years and Alice In Wonderland is hardly his brainchild. What do you think? Drop a comment below.

James ‘King of The World’ Cameron has hit a roadblock in his new project.

I previously reported that Cameron was considering making an adaptation of The Last Train From Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino. Now, probably not so much.

Variety reports that recent investigations by the Associated Press have revealed that some of the details in the book are suspicious. The book documents the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the people who survived the blast.

But apparently, the truth wasn’t good enough for Pellegrino, so he fudged the facts a little. Now the book is being pulled from publication and those who’ve already bought the book are being told to seek refunds .

Pellegrino’s publishers, Henry Holt, released this statement:

“It is easy to understand how even the most diligent author could be duped by a source, but we also understand that opens that book to very detailed scrutiny. The author of any work of non-fiction must stand behind its content. We must rely on our authors to answer questions that may arise as to the accuracy of their work and reliability of their sources. Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction.”

Can I order a huge ‘Doh!’ forehead slap for Mr. Cameron please?

Pellegrino also served as an advisor on Avatar. My guess is that it was he who grabbed a copy of the Pocahontas script, crossed out the title and wrote Avatar instead.

Ben Stiller recently told MTV that plans for a sequel to the 2001 hit Zoolander are definitely in motion.

Stiller played brainless fashion model Derek Zoolander who was almost brainwashed into assassinating the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Derek had to rely on his catwalk nemesis Hansel (Owen Wilson) to stop the evil Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell) from carrying out the kill.

“We’re in the process of getting a script written, so it’s in the early stages. But yeah, it’s going to happen.” Thank God, we’ll get to see more really, really ridiculously good-looking people.

But things are going to be different this time around. “I think the idea in the beginning of the movie is that it’s 10 years later, and Derek and Hansel are literally forgotten. Nobody remembers who they are, so they have to reinvent themselves.”

On whether or not Will Ferrell will be involved, Stiller commented that, “If Will says yes, he definitely has to be part of it. To me, Mugatu is one of the classic screen villains of all time.”

But is it too little, too late for a Zoolander sequel? I mean, Owen Wilson still looks as hot as hell but I think Stiller might have lost his sex appeal.

Wild haired comic and sexual tyrannosaurus, Russell Brand, is set to star in a remake of the classic comedy Arthur.

The original 1981 movie saw Dudley Moore play drunken millionaire Arthur, who is forced to choose between the love of Liza Minelli and millions of dollars. I know what I would have chosen.

According to Variety, the film will be helmed by Modern Family director Jason Winer and exec. producers will be Brand, Scott Kroopf, J.C. Spink and Nick Linnen.

But it’s the writer that looks like the most interesting part of the lineup so far. Peter Baynham, writer of Borat and Brass Eye, is penning the script, so there’s a good chance that it’s going to be absolutely filthy.

Brand became known as a scene stealer after a genius comic turn in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which has earned him his own spinoff, Get Him To The Greek. I’m not sure how closely the character of Arthur will be to Moore’s portrayal but if Russell Brand’s playing an alcoholic millionaire, I’m betting there’ll be more than a few giggles in store.

Fox 2000 has won a bidding war to secure the rights to British fantasy novel Incarceron.

Honestly, Id never heard of this book until this morning, but apparently Fox are desperate to get their hands on a franchise that will outshine Harry Potter. Good luck with that.

Written by Catherine Fisher, the novel was first released in the UK in 2007 but the US only got a few weeks ago. Now everybody wants their hands on the book after it gained a spot on the New York Times’ best seller list. While directors and writers are yet to be attached to the project, Variety reports that Hugh Jackman’s company Seed Productions will be involved.

For everyone else who’s never heard of the series, here’s the official synopsis:

Incarceron is a prison so vast that it contains not only cells, but also metal forests, dilapidated cities, and vast wilderness. Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, has no memory of his childhood and is sure that he came from Outside Incarceron.

Very few prisoners believe that there is an Outside, however, which makes escape seems impossible. And then Finn finds a crystal key that allows him to communicate with a girl named Claudia. She claims to live Outside—she is the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, and doomed to an arranged marriage.

Finn is determined to escape the prison and Claudia believes she can help him. But they don’t realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye, and escape will take their greatest courage and cost more than they know. Because Incarceron is alive.

OK, that doesn’t sound half bad to be honest, but can it best Hogwart’s finest? It might not trump Potter but it looks like it has a better chance than Fox’s previous attempts at franchises. Eragon, anyone?

*Runs out to jump on Incarceron bandwagon*.