15 Minutes for October 2, 2005

File Under: Entertainment NewsWire

Getting their limelight out of the way first, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are in talks to star in "The Prestige", directed by Christopher Nolan ("Batman Begins"). Prestige has rival magicians in turn-of-the-century London, who battle each other for magic secrets. The rivalry becomes so fierce, it turns the wizards into murderers.

Next up, Renee Zellweger (formerlly Renee Zellweger Chesny) will reunite with one of the craziest people in the public eye, Tom Cruise in the remake of the Japanese thriller, The Eye. The movie centers around a blind woman who has a cornea transplant, only to wind up seeing ghost. Renee Zellweger has also signed on to play children's author Beatrix Potter in the biopic, Miss Potter. Talks are in the works for Ewan McGregor to star in Potter as well, which would reunite the pair who headlined 2003's Down with Love. Expect the movie with Ewan McGregor in it to be nominated for Oscar's.

American Idol Fantasia Barrino revealed in her memoirs "Life is Not a Fairy Tale" that she is illiterate. The 21-year old R&B singer says that she has signed record deals and contracts that she didn't read and couldn't understand. What's the worst part about her situation? Not being able to read to her 4-year old, Zion. "That hurts really bad," she says. She iz now learning to read with tutors. As if that wasn't enough cause for heartache, Fantasia revealed that she was raped in the ninth grade by a classmate. The boy was disciplined, she says, but she blames herself for the attack. That was the same year she dropped out of high school. But now she's a household name and sellings buttloads of records, so hey, there's always the sunny side of life, eh?

Martha Stewart hopes that the third time is the charm when it comes to TV. Her talker Martha has been doing only OK in syndication, and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart hasn't exactly been the BIGGEST thing since the Donald, though it does hold it's own fairly well. Now she's helping to develop a 13-part series, focusing on six women who are coming off welfare programs, bankruptcy, or drug rehabilitation. They then get to restore and redecorate a 125-year old colonial home. They're restoring the home? Yowza. Ty would have just knocked the house down and started all over again.

Finally, over at cineplexes all across this great, vast country of hours were fairly empty, as the box office fell back into a bit of a slump. The Jodi Foster thriller "Flightplan" took in $15 million, making it the number one movie at the box office. Joss Whedon's "Serenity" opened at a less-than-anticipated $10.1 million, taking in second place. And coming in at a very close third place was Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride", with $9.8 million. A History of Violence ($8.2) and Into the Blue ($7) round out the top five.

That's a wrap on the inagural edition of Fifteen Minutes (in Delta-Vision). What TDI is going to try to do with this column is to take some items he might hold over for a typical Entertainment NewsWire, but instead of brief blurbs and then a link, we'll take just a few items, and write up a full paragraph about it. To keep this different from the NewsWire's, this column may later focus in a bit more on the celebrity, giving them their, wait for it, wait for it.... Fifteen Minutes. Clever, eh? TDI thought so.