PENELOPE CRUZ will team up with director Woody Allen once again, this time on a film set in Rome. There are no plot details yet, but the computer program I wrote says the odds are very high that it won’t be as good as earlier Woody Allen movies. (EW)

THANDIE NEWTON will play opposite Tyler Perry in his next film Good Deeds, which Perry will write and direct as well. The film is about a successful businessman who must choose between his rich fiancée and a down-on-her-luck single mother. Even if it’s bad, Newton can take comfort that it can’t be worse than Norbit. (TheWrap)

JAY BARUCHEL will join Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton, and Paul Giamatti in David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis. Pattinson plays a billionaire who loses everything he has in one day, including his new wife. Bad things happening to Pattinson, I can get on board with. Baruchel plays the original founder and conscious at Pattinson’s company. (Deadline)

MAGGIE GRACE will star alongside Liam Neeson in Taken 2, produced by Luc Besson. And yes, the will-he-or-won’t-he-tension of whether Neeson would take on Taken 2 has been resolved in the affirmative. Eight-time “Namey” award winner Olivier Megaton will direct. (Deadline) (Collider)

Thandie Newton got sexually assaulted by Matt Dillon. In the movie Crash! Whoa, that came awfully close to libel. I should pay greater attention to my punctuation. Anyway, look for Thandie as Laura Wilson in 2012 this weekend, a film guaranteed to sexually assault your senses.

A word from Thandie: “I want more babies.”

(The sound of 10,000 men retreating).

No babies, but more pics after the jump.

Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay should have an explosion war.  Both of them get a sick kick out of blowing up monuments, landmarks, and national treasures.  In fact, they even blow up the same icons in several different movies.  Why not just go back in time and punch Betsey Ross in the kidney while she’s sewing the stars and stripes on the American Flag?  Or better yet, have the Red Coats crash a tidal wave down on top of her. Maybe Emmerich can work that into a redux of the The Patriot.  Until then, we can watch John Cusack and a motley cast of other recognizable faces outrun the end of the world much like the characters do in The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day.

Cast: John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson 

Synopsis: An epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors