Batten Down the Scenery: De Niro, Pacino Back Together

De Niro, Pacino Team Up: $60 million indie Righteous Kill will pair Robert De Niro and Al Pacino onscreen for only the second time ever. Directed by Jon Avnet and written by Russell Gewirtz, film follows two cops chasing a serial killer. The duo will play entire movie together, except for one five-minute scene in which the two actors quietly eat at separate tables in a diner. [Variety]

Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll to Broadway: Tom Stoppard’s West End megahit Rock ’n’ Roll will open on Broadway with much of its London cast — including stars Rufus Sewell, Brian Cox, and Sinead Cusack — intact. Play follows anti-Communist resistance in Czechoslovakia, Marxist philosophy in England, and awesome guitar riffs everywhere. Trevor Nunn again directs. Play begins bedeviling copy editors who prefer “rock and roll� November 4. [Playbill]

Smith, Lucas Premiere at Long Wharf: Long Wharf Theatre in Connecticut announces 2007–2008 season, including world premieres of plays by Craig Lucas (Prayer for My Enemy) and Anna Deveare Smith (medical monologue Let Me Down Easy, directed by Moises Kaufman). [Playbill]

Christie’s Breaks One-Day-Old Record: Contemporary-art sale at Christie’s breaks Sotheby’s one-day-old record for total sales. Andy Warhol’s Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) (1963) sells to phone bidder from Asia for $71.7 million, just short of the Mark Rothko individual painting record set yesterday. Somewhere, the mysterious bearded collector (or whoever) pumps fist, yells “I’m number one (in terms of overspending on nonrepresentational art)!� [NYT]

Long Tail Author Sells Next: Chris Anderson, author of much-cited paradigm-shifter The Long Tail, sells new book, Free, to Will Schwalbe at Hyperion. Agent is John Brockman. New title explores “the most radical price of all — zero — in the context of the economics of abundance.� Times Magazine editors crack knuckles. [PW]

Craig Exercises Defiance: Daniel Craig signs to star in Edward Zwick’s World War II drama Defiance, about a band of Jewish resistance fighters in Poland, for Paramount Vantage. Craig’s resistance fighter is the sexy one with the icy blue eyes. [Variety]

Bateman Remarkable: Jason Bateman will star in The Remarkable Fellows, comedy about two brothers who run a revenge business. Joe Carnahan writes (based on Bateman’s outline) and will direct. The Jason Bateman Career Resurrection cannot be stopped! [Variety]

Bronte Sisters Set: Michelle Williams, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Evan Rachel Wood will play the three literary sisters in Charles Sturridge’s biopic. Wood’s parents just glad she’s hanging around with someone a little more wholesome than that Marilyn fellow. [Variety]

Delpy, Gallo on Last Mile: Julie Delpy and Vincent Gallo will co-star in French director Philippe Rouquier’s Last Mile, a “thriller� about criminals stuck in a traffic jam. The pitch: It’s like Speed, only without anyone moving at all! [Variety]

Hobbit Punk: Elijah Wood to star as Iggy Pop in biopic. Um, what? [Variety]