Today's Film News: Murphy Pinch Hits For Lohan

By Katey Rich

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Brittany Murphy may be joining the cast of Poor Things, an independent caper comedy about older women who work as con artists. Shirley MacLaine had been set to star with Lindsay Lohan, who delayed the production indefinitely last summer when she entered rehab. Murphy would be replacing Lohan in the role. Rosario Dawson and Olympia Dukakis are also part of the cast.

Kate Hudson will be taking a step in a different direction from her upcoming movie Fool's Gold with a role in Big Eyes, an independent drama about 1950s-era painter Margaret Keane. Variety says the drama takes place during Keane's "awakening" through the feminist movement, when she sued her husband for trying to take credit for her works. Ed Wood scribes Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who also wrote the script, will direct.

Emilio Estevez, director of the earnest Bobby, will take on another serious subject with his next writing and directing project, Public. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the movie intends to address the real-life social issue of Los Angeles homeless people using public libraries as makeshift shelters after budget cuts leave them with nowhere else to go. Like Bobby, the film will be an ensemble drama, set during the two coldest days of the year in one particular library.

There's a new photo from Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull! It doesn't answer any mysteries about exactly what that gosh darn skull is, but it does give us a good look at yet another Cate Blanchett metamorphosis. This time she's playing a villainous Russian spy, and you only need to take one look at those icy eyes in the photo to know she's for real. Empire Online has the full-size image.