Julia Roberts No Longer a Steel Magnolia, Now a ‘Hothouse Flower’

Roberts Steps Into Hothouse: Julia Roberts, who seems to be ramping back to being a full-service movie star again, produces and stars in Hothouse Flowers, based on the forthcoming novel by Margot Berwin, about an unhappy advertising executive who goes on an adventure. Doesn’t this sound like the kind of movie where Gerard Butler or Nathan Fillion will turn up playing a ruggedly sensitive forest ranger or something? [Reuters]

Engvall to Bait Cyrus: You’ve heard of Barbershop and Beauty Shop? Well, here comes Bait Shop, from Delta Farce director C.B. Harding, starring Blue Collar Comedy Tour veteran Bill Engvall as the owner of the struggling titular establishment who must take on an evil fishing pro played by Billy Ray Cyrus in a high-profile fishing tournament. Let us know if you hear anything about release dates, so New York can hold the cover. [HR]

Durning Among Amateurs: The great Charles Durning joins the cast of A Bunch of Amateurs, playing a sleazy Hollywood agent who tricks a has-been action star played by Burt Reynolds into starring in a charity production of King Lear in England. This couldn’t be as awesome as it sounds, could it? Because it sounds as awesome as can be. [Variety]

Mouse, National Accelerate With R.E.M.: R.E.M. gives their spring tour in support of their upcoming album Accelerate a booster shot of hip by drafting Modest Mouse and the National to open. [Billboard]

Tatum Both a Duke and a Pretty Boy: Channing Tatum is the man to be in Hollywood this week. Fresh off his casting as gangster Pretty Boy Floyd alongside Johnny Depp in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, Tatum lands the leading role of Duke in Stephen Sommers’s big-screen version of G.I. Joe. [AICN]