Chris Tucker Career Shocker!

TUCKER TO MAKE NON–RUSH HOUR FILM!: In what many are calling the most shocking entertainment event of the millennium, Chris Tucker will appear in a movie that’s not called Rush Hour. Tucker stars in an adaptation of Mr. S: My Life With Frank Sinatra, a memoir by Sinatra’s valet George Jacobs. Admittedly, Rush Hour auteur Brett Ratner is set to direct. [Variety]

Women, Women Everywhere: Deep breath: Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, Carrie Fisher, Lynn Whitfield, Joanna Gleason, Ana Gasteyer and Debi Mazar join Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Candice Bergen in the long-gestating Diane English–helmed remake of the 1930 comedy The Women. Just writing this item makes us want to watch the playoffs. [Variety]

Fisher’s Confessions: Wedding Crashers scene-stealer Isla Fisher stars in Touchstone’s adaptation of Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic. What, couldn’t get cast in The Women, Fisher? Had to star in your own movie? Loser! [HR]

Monsters Flee Avatar: DreamWorks Animation will move up the release date of its 3-D animated feature Monsters vs. Aliens from May to March 2008 to avoid directly opening against James Cameron’s 3-D film Avatar. The move averts a battle between DreamWorks and Fox for available 3-D screens and keeps audiences from excessively wondering how much they really care about seeing 3-D movies anyway. [HR]

If I Ordered a Second Printing: Class act Beaufort Books will print an additional 50,000 copies of O.J. Simpson’s If I Did It to meet the new demand stemming from Simpson’s recent troubles and the attendant media coverage. [PW]

Fat Joe Is in the Room: Rapper Fat Joe will release his eighth album, The Elephant in the Room, in early 2008. Sources describe Elephant as a change of pace for Fat Joe: a reflective album contemplating the fragility of human relationships against the onrushing tide of mortality, but those sources are fucking with you. [Billboard]