Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Blame Harry.

I don't know why, exactly, and I don't care. Elston Gunn's a consistent team player, filing weekly recaps in the face of any circumstances, and this week, when his hard drive crashed, what did he do? Did he give up? Did he blow off the weekly recap? No, damn it! He did what he's done for three years now. He wrote his recap and he got it to us. Never mind the fact that he had to write the entire thing on a sheet of skin he shaved off his own back. Never mind that he had to train a carrier pigeon in only 36 hours, especially to deliver the sheet here to the Labs. He did it, and he didn't complain. So if you want to point the finger at anyone for this thing being late, blame Harry. Because it sure as heck can't be Elston's fault.

TAKEN FROM VARIETY AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

CASTING

* Eric Bana (CHOPPER, upcoming BLACK HAWK DOWN) is in talks to play Bruce Banner in Universal's THE INCREDIBLE HULK, an adaptation of the popular Marvel Comics franchise. Ang Lee will direct.

* Rory Culkin joins Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix in SIGNS for director M. Night Shyamalan and Touchstone. The pic, set in Bucks County, Pa., deals with the mysterious appearance of a 500-foot array of circles and lines found carved into the crops of a family's farm.

* Steven Seagal will star in the actioner HALF PAST DEAD for Franchise Pictures and writer/director Don Michael Paul. It's about a man, to be played by Morris Chestnut, who plans to infiltrate a high-tech prison in order to get a death row inmate to tell him where he can find $200 million worth of gold from a legendary heist that the FBI hadn't solved. Seagal will play an undercover FBI agent who must stop him. Production begins next month in Berlin. Seagal is also set to star in FOREIGNER, also for Franchise, though no director is attached.

* Jennifer Esposito (SUMMER OF SAM) will star opposite Dana Carvey in the comedy MASTER OF DISGUISE for Revolution Studios and director Perry Andelin Blake. It's about a man who discovers he comes from a long line of masters of disguise. He tries to learn and use these talents to save his folks from an evil black-marketer. Production begins later this month from a script written by Carvey and Harris Goldberg. Robert Loggia and Edie McClurg also star.

* Will Ferrell is in talks to star in ELF, written by David Berenbaum, for New Line about a man who is raised from infancy as an elf after falling into Santa’s bag at Christmas.

DIRECTOR/WRITER ATTACHMENTS

* Roland Joffe (THE KILLING FIELDS) will direct THE ART OF WAR for RKO Pictures from a script by Kirk Ellis ("Anne Frank: The Whole Story"). The romantic adventure is set in the 1880s and centers on a runaway Chinese refugee girl and the son of a Jewish sheriff.

* Milos Forman will direct BAD NEWS, based on the novel by Donald Westlake, for Warner Bros. and Phoenix Pictures. Doug Wright (QUILLS) wrote the adaptation. The story centers on a career crook who takes part in an underhanded takeover of an Indian gambling casino. However, he ultimately finds out that he's set himself up to be ripped off, if he isn't able to rip off his partner first.

* Keenen Ivory Wayans is in talks to direct MGM's remake of the Jerry Lewis comedy THE BELLBOY with Jackie Chan attached to star.

* Howard Deutch (THE REPLACEMENTS) will direct THE TREE for MGM and Daybreak Prods. Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow wrote the script about the misadventures of a lumberjack and a presidential aide assigned to haul a gigantic national Christmas tree from Washington state to the nation's capital in time for Christmas.

* Chris Gerolmo (MISSISSIPPI BURNING) will write and direct THE KING INCORPORATED, a pic based on the story of Leopold II, the Belgian king whose rubber factory was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Laura Bickford and Steven Soderbergh will produce the project based on Neal Ascherson's book about a group of employees who lost it all when they tried to expose the torture and dismemberment of locals in the Congo who were forced to harvest rubber. The king paid his employees based on the number of hands they cut off from workers who resisted them, and he was equally ruthless in ruining the people who tried to uncover his secret and caused his downfall. Gerolmo will also direct OVER THE EDGE for Universal about American climbers taken hostage.

* Steven Soderbergh will direct a biopic on revolutionary Che Guevara to star Benecio Del Toro. Production is expected to begin next year.

* Coleman Hough (upcoming HOW TO SURVIVE A HOTEL ROOM FIRE) will pitch two projects. The first script, SUNNYVALE: THE RISE AND FALL OF A SILICON VALLEY FAMILY, is based on Jeff Goodell's book about the breaking apart and mending of his family after he got entangled in the computer boom of the late 1980s. Hough will also pitch THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM AT A ROUND TABLE, about a group of upper-middle-class women looking for love and a group of homeless women looking for a place to live.

* Jon Amiel will direct the sci-fi thriller THE CORE about a group of “terranauts” recruited to pilot a ship to correct a dangerous flaw in the Earth’s core. Production begins Dec. 10.

* Writers Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring (EL DIABLO) have sold their script BLACK FLAG to Warner Bros. with Simon West attached to direct. It’s set in the Indian Ocean in the 17th century and focuses on a former British Royal Navy officer who becomes a pirate after being unjustly marooned for participating in a mutiny with a rival officer and friend who then turns against him.

* Bruce Beresford will direct Pierce Brosnan in the drama EVELYN, based on the true story of Desmond Doyle who fought with the Irish government to overturn a custody law as well as the Catholic church to get back his four children. Shooting begins Oct. 15. Beresford will then direct MGM’s REUNION about an 1880s couple who lose their daughter but find that another young girl can apparently channel their deceased child's spirit. Brosnan will shoot the next James Bond film (20th installment, 40 year anniversary) in January.

* Steve Carr is in talks to direct GATE TO THE GODS, a Paramount/Nickelodeon comedy about Greek gods who descend on modern Manhattan after the discovery of a gateway to Mount Olympus. Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi wrote the script.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTION TIDBITS

* Terry Gilliam's GOOD OMEN script, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, is getting good buzz in Hollywood and the director is eyeing a March start date for the project. It's the story of an epic battle between two angels for the soul of mankind.

* Kate Hudson has mysteriously dropped out of Mike Newell's project GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING, which has also lost its financing from Intermedia Films. The project was scheduled to begin production in a month. Archer Street Productions is trying to seal a new financing and distribution deal for the project as well as recasting Hudson's part.

* The Warner Bros./DreamWorks pic THE TIME MACHINE, based on the H.G. Wells classic, has been pushed back to a Feb. 8 release as opposed to Christmas Day due to the crowded holiday period. Also, in light of recent events, the movie will be recut, as it originally ended with pieces of the moon falling on New York City.

"Moriarty" here again. This is inaccurate. The film has never ended with chunks of the moon falling on New York. The fact that every single media outlet I've seen says the same thing, reports that same inaccuracy, just proves that one wrong rumor really can make it into every paper in the world if people don't check the resources available. As we've said in script reviews on this site, and as I've seen reported in other places on the 'Net a while back, the moon sequence is early in the film, before the whole Morlocks/Eloi thing. Not at the end. Never was.