DOUBLE, Double Toil and Trouble; Fire Burn, and Cauldron Bubble...

Four centuries after Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, two rival sets of film-makers are battling to produce a Hollywood version of the "Scottish play". Both have major players in the film world behind them and both have declared similar intentions of appealing to a modern audience with special effects that play up the supernatural elements of the classic drama.

Titanic Director Says, Cinema Should Wake Up To Possibilities of 3D

A leading Hollywood director has called on studios, film-makers and distributors to wake up to the role that 3-D films can play in winning back audiences to the big screen. James Cameron, showered with Oscars for Titanic, is directing a science-fiction 3-D film for 20th Century Fox. He says 3D technology lets cinemas offer filmgoers something home entertainment cannot.

Oscar winning actress  Charlize Theron has convinced legendary British director Alan Parker to helm her pet project, 'Ice At The Bottom Of The World'. The South African born actress is set to star in and produce the project for which she acquired film rights a decade ago, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The family drama about a navy captain who returns home to discover his daughter is addicted to heroin and has had a multi-racial child out of wedlock, is based on a number of short stories by Mark Richard, who also penned the screenplay.

Russia is Creating its Own Version of Hollywood

It is -25C in a disused Red Army hangar in northern Russia. The director is wearing 18 layers of clothing. The cast can act for only a few minutes, before being taken inside to protect them from frostbite. Welcome to Stoliwood, Russia's answer to Hollywood. The director, the Emmy-award winning Brit Tom Roberts, recalls from the relative comfort of North London the tough experience of shooting the film In Transit last winter in St Petersburg. "They were extremely difficult conditions," he says, "but it was worth it."

With no previous film experience, 12 year old Brit Dakota Blue Richards has beaten off 10,000 other hopefuls for the part of Lyra in New Line Cinema's His Dark Materials trilogy. The Cambridge schoogirl got the part after open auditions earlier in the year.

The first film - the Golden Compass (Northern Lights in the UK) - is shortly to go into production with a rumoured budget of $150m. About a Boy and Antz director Chris Wietz is writer-director for the production which has already run into controversy after suggestions that references to God would be removed from the film. In the book, the planned overthrowing of heaven and killing of God and the establishment of a republic of heaven is a central theme. New Line are hoping that the Dark Materials Trilogy will replicate the success they enjoyed with the Lord of the Rings franchise, and fear that religious controversy will limit its box office chances more than would alienating fans of the book.

A remake of the controversial British horror classic The House On Straw Hill (1975) will start shooting this summer, starring Martin Kemp (The Krays), Jane March (Color of Night), Gillian MacGregor (The Sickhouse) and Patrick Bergin (Sleeping With The Enemy), with horror film legend Bob Keen (Hellraiser, Dog Soldiers) directing.

An interrogation chamber has been discovered below ground in Dalston, where people suspected of involvement in terrorism are to be held and questioned prior to rendition abroad in secret flights. Not a real scenario as far as we know, but real enough for the makers of a micro-budget feature film Rendition, filming now in London.

Based on a novel by Rayda Jacobs, winner of the Sunday Times Fiction and Herman Charles Bosman awards, Confessions of a Gambler is currently in production in South Africa. The film tells the story of Abeeda, a feisty, independent, pious Muslim woman who confronts the prejudices of her community and wrestles with her faith and the issues that face women in the modern world.