Odds & Ends

Akiva Goldsman has been offered a record-breaking $4 million to adapt Dan Brown's Angels & Demons into a sequel to last summer's nauseatingly bad Da Vinci Code, which despite its epic horrible-ness grossed a quarter of a billion dollars at the global box office.

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Baz Luhrman's long-gestating "outback epic," inching closer to a March start date for principal photography, now has a name: Austrailia.

Shooting on a budget of a reported $100 million-plus, "Australia" is deep into pre-production, with all variety of script, costume and riding tests scheduled in December in advance of the five-month filming, which will begin in March.

Nicole Kidman will play a British aristocrat in Australia to sell a massive cattle property. She has to enlist an uncouth cattle-driver (Hugh Jackman, stepping in for Russell Crowe) to get the cows across the country. The couple ends up experiencing the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces.

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Talented writer Rick Cleveland (West Wing, Six Feet Under) will write and executive produce the pilot for a series version of Thank You For Smoking. Katie Holmes sold separately.