French Icon Audrey Tautou to Play French Icon Coco Chanel

Mambo No. 5: Warner Bros. is co-producing Coco Before Chanel, a Coco Chanel biopic based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s biography L’irreguliere. As it’s a French co-production, Audrey Tautou seems to be starring almost by default, and fashion colossus Karl Lagerfeld will re-create the designer’s attire. You can be sure Chinese bootleggers are already gearing up to sell pirated DVDs bundled with Chanel sunglasses for only 75 cents. [HR]

Swank’s Up to Something: Hilary Swank’s production company has picked up the rights to Emily Griffin’s novel Something Borrowed as a potential starring vehicle for the million-dollar baby. Story follows a Manhattan lawyer who gets romantically entangled with her best friend’s fiancé, which is totally hilarious because she’s borrowing him! But seriously, the deal also includes the rights to Giffin’s sequel, Something Blue, so we can only hope that Clint Eastwood euthanizes Swank before these movies get made. [Variety]

Columbia Hot for Teacher: Columbia has picked up Bad Teacher from The Office producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. Comedy follows a trash-talking, annoying seventh-grade teacher who’s dumped by her sugar-daddy boyfriend and turns her flirtatious interests toward a fellow teacher, only to find a romantic rival for his affection: the school’s model teacher. Can someone please start an Internet campaign to make this a starring vehicle for Mindy Kaling? Hey, you guys made magic happen for Jon Favreau. [Variety]

Landon’s Palm Sunday: Disturbia screenwriter Christopher Landon will make his directing debut on a script he wrote, Burning Palms. Indie movie is described as “a subversive tale� of interweaving stories set in Los Angeles, wherein “no taboo is left unexplored as each character careens toward a dark and often comic fate.� “It’s Southland Tales meets Crash,� Landon didn’t say, because he’s no dummy. [Variety]

Hamptons Chicks Are Easy: Indie director Austin Chick (XX/XY) will write and direct a box-office friendly “Hamptons-based thriller� for Sony Screen Gems that’s being described as A Simple Plan meets Cruel Intentions. Here’s what he has to say about it: “I’d like to continue doing more specialty movies in the future, but with the business hitting such hard times I wanted to try something a little different.� Whoa, you’re not on trial here, Chick. All you had to say was you’re sick of driving that Hyundai to your day job at Hot Topic. [HR]