All the latest movie news from Alan Jones

The Guru of Sex
Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei will star in the Working Title Films comedy The Guru of Sex for director Daisy Mayer. Based on an idea by Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur, and written by Tracey Jackson, the story follows Ramu, a young man from India who comes to America in search of fame and fortune. But upon settling in New York, Ramu discovers that achieving his goal will be more difficult than he imagined.

Through a series of mishaps, he winds up becoming a guru who teaches spiritual enlightenment through sex. Graham and Tomei will play the two women involved in the guru's life, with Graham playing his love interest and Tomei as a woman who is instrumental in his rise to fame. Graham will segue into the film the moment she wraps the thriller Killing Me Softly opposite Joseph Fiennes.

Hotel Figgis
Director Mike Figgis has brought together an ensemble cast that includes Salma Hayek, Lucy Liu, David Schwimmer, Saffron Burrows, Burt Reynolds, Rhys Ifans and Max Beasley for his latest film Hotel. The feature will have the same real-time technique Figgis used in Timecode and it will all be shot on location at the Hungarian Palace Hotel in Venice. The 93-minute, split-screen film will feature an ensemble of more than 40 actors including Julian Sands, Ornella Muti, Valeria Golino, Chiara Mastroianni, Valentina Cervi and Danny Huston. The story follows various escapades going on inside a hotel: a film being shot, an entertainment news crew tracking the film's production, a mysterious surgical operation and a torture chamber in the hotel basement. All this is tied to a murder subplot. "It's not like anything you've ever seen before - it's a wild ride," said co-producer Ethie Stroh, adding that portions of the complex film will be split into four screens, some in two and some with only one screen, depending on the importance of the scene.

Foster Home Cinema
Bridget Jones's Diary's Renee Zellweger will star opposite Michelle Pfeiffer in White Oleander for British director Peter Kosminsky. Based on Jane Finch's 1999 début novel, it tells the contemporary story of Pfeiffer who murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life. Her daughter Zellweger must then navigate a new reality through a series of Los Angeles foster homes before being eventually asked to falsify her testimony at a trial to free her mother.

No Third Mummy for Rachel
Rachel Weisz has bowed out of a third Mummy movie before the second film in the series has even been released. The 29-year-old British actress, who stars in the sequel The Mummy Returns alongside returning Brendan Fraser, says making the second movie was a lot of fun. But although there is already talk of putting the second sequel The Scorpion King into production very soon, sexy Weisz insists she will have no part in it. She said, "If there is another one it will be without me. I loved doing The Mummy Returns because it was like a wonderful family reunion. And my character has really evolved, so it was also quite challenging. But twice is definitely enough!" Word on the street is that The Mummy Returns is an even better picture than the first and that Weisz will probably change her mind come the first weekend of release and it reaps an anticipated fortune.

Just a taste of Alan Jones' extensive news section.
Read the full news pages every month in Film Review.