EXCLUSIVE! Todd Haynes - director of much-praised melodrama "Far From Heaven" - is working on a biopic of legendary singer Bob Dylan.

Unusually the legendary singer has sanctioned the movie, which Haynes promises will be very unconventional.

"It will be a very Todd Haynes kind of approach," says Haynes. "It won't be a traditional biopic by any stretch of the imagination, which is why Dylan has agreed to it and has given me permission to do it. It's the first time he's done that for any film that's related to his life in any way. It will be refracted into seven different characters, who are all aspects of Bob Dylan standing in for parts of his life."

Sounds, er, interesting. No word on casting yet, but Haynes told BBCi Films he's looking for various actors to personify different aspect of Dylan's life: "There'll be many. There'll be different actors who play different sides of him. It will be great. I'm excited!"

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"THE TWO TOWERS" star Andy Serkis could be set to make Oscar history. The British actor, who plays all-CG creation Gollum in Peter Jackson's epic, has been included on the initial ballot for Best Supporting Actor. If nominated, it will be the first time a computer-generated character has been up for an Academy Award.

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"28 DAYS LATER" director Danny Boyle is still musing over adapting "Porno", novelist Irvine Welsh's follow-up to "Trainspotting".

In the meantime, he's working on "Millions", a comedy about Britain's transition from Sterling to the Euro, written by "24 Hour Party People" scribe Frank Cottrell Boyce.

According to Screen International, he's also awaiting the greenlight on US-based murder drama "The Texas Killing Fields" and "Solomon Grundy" - a romantic yarn based on the US nursery rhyme about a man with a seven-day lifespan. Adam Sandler is being sought to play the lead.

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WINONA RYDER has inked her first deal since being convicted of shoplifting. She'll star in "Eulogy", a black comedy about a dysfunctional family who gather for a funeral, where "family secrets and hidden relationships" become evident. Sounds like "Festen" meets "The Royal Tenenbaums".

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EMINEM HAS PROVED a cinematic hit with UK audiences, with his semiautobiographical rap odyssey "8 Mile" knocking "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" off top spot, with a mighty impressive gross of £4.4 million.

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LEGENDARY SHOWBIZ caricaturist Al Hirschfeld has died. The artist, who drew celebrated pictures of stars from Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen, was 99-years-old.

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"PLUNKETT & MACLEANE" director Jake Scott finally has a follow-up to his 1999 dud. Scott Free Productions - run by his father Ridley and Uncle Tony - has snapped up the rights to Joe Lansdale's novel "The Big Blow", and Jake will helm the drama about a racially charged boxing match in turn of the 20th century Texas.