Today's Film News: Cody and Spielberg Team Up

By Katey Rich

When you're as powerful as Steven Spielberg, you can come up with an original idea for a movie and leave the rest to someone else to figure out. At least he's entrusted his new project to good hands-- Diablo Cody will write the screenplay based on Spielberg's idea, which is so top-secret that Variety reports "even dealmakers involved with the project were in the dark." Cody, you may remember, is writing the Showtime series "The United States of Tara," which is also based on one of Spielberg's ideas. He's a one-man think tank, that guy.

And speaking of screenwriters, Justin Theroux is quickly going from being "that guy from 'Six Feet Under'" to a major Hollywood writer. He penned the upcoming Tropic Thunder, and has now signed on to write the highly anticipated Iron Man sequel-- not a job for just any actor-turned-writer. The Hollywood Reporter confirms that the release date will be April 30, 2010, which means we won't be seeing much of Theroux in the next few months as he pounds out a screenplay as fast as humanly possible. If Tropic Thunder is a hit, as everyone expects it to be, and as long as Iron Man 2 isn't completely miserable, the movies Theroux has written will have grossed infinitely more money than the movies he's been in.

The concert movie tradition is alive and well, at least for baby boomers, who are apparently the only people who will see one of these movies without Hannah Montana in the title. Billy Joel will be the star of the next movie, Last Play at Shea, which documents the two concerts Joel will give at New York's Shea Stadium this week. Variety says the movie will be ready for release in 2009, presumably while the Mets are playing their first season away from Shea, which will be demolished this winter.

And finally, Atonement Oscar nominee Saiorsie Ronan looks to have another great role coming to her in The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, an adaptation of the young adult novel to be directed by Danny DeVito. Pierce Brosnan and Morgan Freeman will also star in the movie, which DeVito told Variety he wants to keep "you on the edge of your PG seat."