The American Film Institute announced today that the highly anticipated Tom Cruise drama “Lions for Lambs” will be the opening-night film for AFI Fest 2007. Directed by Robert Redford, “Lambs” is the first release under the Paula Wagner / Tom Cruise regime at United Artists. The picture stars Redford, Cruise and Meryl Streep, and is described as a politically charged drama centered around two American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and a U.S. senator with presidential ambitions (Cruise) who May have a hand in their fates. Streep plays a TV journalist poised to land a major story with the help of the senator. Redford appears as an idealistic college professor who is torn by the choices of two of his former students. “We think it’s an exciting film and an important film,” Wagner, UA’s chief executive, said in a statement released today by AFI. “And this is the perfect way to introduce it to the public.” So far, it’s the only festival selection for “Lambs.” It’s scheduled to be in theaters Nov. 9.

James Bond star Pierce Brosnan will swap guns for Abba songs this month when he begins filming a Hollywood version of the hit musical “Mamma Mia” on the Greek island of Skiathos, the show said Wednesday. The Irish actor’s co-star Meryl Streep May also make an appearance when filming begins there and on the neighbouring island of Skopelos on August 29, a production official was quoted by AFP as saying on condition of anonymity. The film is hoping to recreate the success of the British musical, created in 1999 using songs by hit Swedish band Abba, for the big screen. Actor Tom Hanks is producing the film, due to be screened next year, and the stage musical’s British creator, Phyllida Lloyd, will direct, according to the Hollywood trade press. In anticipation of the stars’ arrival, residents of Skopelos have created a blog, www.skopelos07.wordpress.com, dedicated to the film and to promoting the two islands as tourist destinations.

“Rendition” has benn announced as one of the gala presentations at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, which will most likely mark the world premiere of the film. Also, its stars Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep have been mentioned to attend the festival. A full schedule will be released in late July, the press release can be read here. The Toronto International Film Festival runs September 06-15.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amy Adams is in negotiations to star opposite Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley’s screen adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play for Miramax Films and producer Scott Rudin. Adams will play the pivotal role of a young nun in the middle of a tense confrontation in which a Bronx Catholic school principal (Streep) accuses a priest (Hoffman) of pedophilia. Adams received a 2006 best supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her role in Sony Pictures Classics’ “Junebug.”

The Rhode Island Film and TV Office and the Newport International Film Festival have announced a special screening of Focus Features’ Evening during the festival on June 9, 2007 (both closing night screenings of “Evening” have sold out already). “Evening”, which was filmed in Newport, was directed by Lajos Koltai and stars Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. Many members of the star-studded cast are expected to attend the screening at the festival, which will be held June 5-10, 2007. Learn more about the Newport Film Festival by visiting their Official Website.

Meryl has received a nomination for the MTV Movie Award as Best Villain for “The Devil Wears Prada”, sharing her category with Bill Nighy (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest), Jack Nicholson (The Departed), Rodrigo Santoro (300) and Tobin Bell (Saw III). “Prada”‘s Emily Blunt has also received two nominations as Best Comedic Performance and Best Breakthrough Role. The winners will be voted by the fans, so you can visit their website here to have your vote casted. The MTV Movie Awards will be handed out on June 03, 2007.

Yet another stage award nomination for Meryl’s performance in “Mother Courage”. This time she has received as Outstanding Actress in a Play Nomination for the Drama Desk Award. A list with all nominees can be found at their official website. Thanks to Frank for the heads-up.

Meryl Streep’s performance in “Mother Courage” has earned her a nomination for the Drama League’s Performance Award. The award will be handed out on May 11, 2007. A list with all nominees can be found here.

Article courtesy The Times Online: Two Hollywood productions face being shelved indefinitely because their stories so grimly echo last week’s massacre on a university campus. Distributors are refusing to touch the films Dark Matter, starring Meryl Streep, which is about an alienated Asian student who shoots fellow students and professors, or The Killer Within, about an American student who goes on a similar rampage. They are wary of taking on films which bear striking parallels to the case of Cho Seung Hui, the Asian student who this month killed 32 students and professors at the Virginia Tech campus before turning his gun on himself in the worst single gun massacre in modern American history. One British distributor, who declined to be named, said: “These films are too close to the knuckle.” Dark Matter, in which Streep plays a university patron who tries to befriend the troubled student, took its inspiration from a 1991 tragedy in which a Chinese physics student opened fire in two buildings on the University of Iowa campus. He killed 6 people including a student and professors. Read the full article here.

According to Variety, Oscar-winners Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman will star in “Doubt,” the screen adaptation of the John Patrick Shanley play for Miramax Films that begins production in New York on Dec. 1. Shanley wrote the script and will direct. Scott Rudin is producing. Deals are being negotiated with both thesps. “Doubt” takes place in a Bronx Catholic School in 1964, where the principal (Streep), a nun who’s a strict disciplinarian, makes pedophile accusations against a popular priest (Hoffman). Still to be cast is a young nun caught between them. “Doubt” won both the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, and is on tour.