VETERAN 'MAVERICK' filmmaker Robert Altman is developing a movie set in the dog-eat-dog world of... Art. "Ultraviolet" is a thriller about skullduggery on the New York art scene, and could be the "Gosford Park" director's next project, although he is also considering a TV-movie about notorious World War One spy, Mata Hari.

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DWAYNE "THE ROCK" JOHNSON is being lined up for a remake of simple-minded 70s actioner "Walking Tall". The wrestling icon and star of "The Scorpion King" will play a sheriff who returns from serving his country to find his small Southern town beset by drugs. He resolves the problem by beating people up.

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BRENDAN FRASER is getting political. "The Quiet American" star claims that the much-praised adaptation of Graham Greene's novel, about American involvement in Vietnam, could provide valuable lessons for the current crisis over Iraq.

"The Americans came in [to Vietnam] as advisers, offering aid and offering to build infrastructure. We learn from history that this is par for the course, to curry favour and seize and control the power base. These sorts of tactics have been employed throughout history and as we watch what could very well sadly unfold as a similar event, I think that the essence of this film takes on even more significance."

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DUBIOUS REMAKE number 3,459. Peter Sellers' comedy "The Party" is due to be reinvented by "Austin Powers in Goldmember" director Jay Roach.

The 1968 original starred Sellers as an Indian actor who gatecrashes an A-list Hollywood party and trashes the place. Sounds like there's plenty of potential for a cameo-heavy production with Mike Myers or Ben Stiller in the lead (who, dodging the original's dicey racial stereotyping, will no longer be Indian).

We remain to be convinced, though, particularly considering that Roach chose this over the long-awaited big screen adaptation of Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Fool.

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DIGITAL CHANNEL BBC Four has launched a new award for foreign films. A jury of film experts will select the best foreign-language film released in Britain each year. The first winner, for 2003, will be announced in a programme next January.

We bet it's "City of God".