Today's Film News: Grant Gets Lost in Translation

By Katey Rich

While romantic comedies may not be getting any more original, at least one of them is daring to be bilingual. Hugh Grant and Ziyi Zhang will star in Lost for Words, about a British film star who works on a Chinese director's set and falls for the translator-- until he realizes his true love is the director (Zhang). As we learned from Romeo and Juliet, though, having a middleman for communication never really works out. According to Variety, Susanne Bier (Things We Lost in the Fire) will direct.

Sony is going ahead with their live-action and animated take on "The Smurfs," the long-running Hanna Barbera cartoon that originated as a series of Belgian comic strips. Variety reports that David Stem and David Weiss, who wrote the second and third Shrek movies, are in negotiations to pen the screenplay. No word on whether or not Smurfette will finally get some more chicks to hang out with.

After Eight Belles' tragic death and Big Brown's failure to capture the Triple Crown last weekend, the focus in horse racing lately has been on the horses themselves. Now it seems the upcoming film The Cup will bring the focus back to those short guys in the funny-colored jackets. Variety reports that Silver Lion Films and Myriad Pictures are developing the horseracing drama, with Ray Winstone and Stephen Curry in the leads. It's based on the true story of Damien Oliver, a jockey who lost his brother in a riding accident. I don't care how great Winstone looked when he was digitally rendered in Beowulf-- he is not jockey material!

And finally, Steven Spielberg is still planning to pull DreamWorks out from under Paramount's control, and now he's planning to raise $1 billion to do it. Check out The Hollywood Reporter for the full, complicated details.