HispanicBusiness

Aaron Sorkin, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Facebook movie The Social Network, has another tech project to chew on. According to trade paper Variety, he will adapt Walter Isaacson's bestselling biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs into a Hollywood movie.

"Steve Jobs' story is unique: He was one of the most revolutionary and influential men not just of our time, but of all time," said Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "There is no writer working in Hollywood today who is more capable of capturing such an extraordinary life for the screen than Aaron Sorkin."

Sorkin has a long track record of success in turning seemingly difficult subjects into entertainment hits. Apart from The Social Network, he wrote last year's acclaimed Brad Pitt movie Moneyball as well as Charlie Wilson's War, A Few Good Men and the television presidential drama The West Wing.

Sorkin is currently working on Broadway musical about legendary magician Harry Houdini, as well as a Hollywood feature on disgraced 2004 Democratic vice presidential John Edwards.

Sorkin's new TV series, The Newsroom, will debut next month on US cable channel HBO.

- Channing Tatum to star in White House Down

Los Angeles (dpa) - 21 Jump Street star Channing Tatum is returning to his action roots.

According to trade paper Variety, he will take a lead role in Sony's White House Down, playing a US secret agent who must save the president when terrorists take over the presidential mansion in Washington.

The movie will be helmed by disaster film specialist Roland Emmerich with production due to start in late summer. No actors have yet been cast for the roles of the US president or secret service chief.

- John Woo readies Day of the Beast

Los Angeles (dpa) - Hong Kong film director John Woo is to remake the 1963 Japanese classic Youth of the Beast, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The film centres on the dealings of the Yakuza, or Japanese mafia. It follows a Western outsider with a grim past who becomes embroiled in a vicious Tokyo turf war between a new breed of ruthless Yakuza and old school Russian mobsters. The film will mark Woo's first English-language project since Mission: Impossible II.

- Scorsese to drive Rolls Royce pic

Los Angeles (dpa) - Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese is to produce a movie about the men who created the legendary British car Rolls Royce.

The film, to be called Silver Ghost after an early model, will tell the story of the founders of the car company Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. It will focus on an affair between a British aristocrat and his secretary, who later modeled the winged Spirit of Ecstasy figure that adorned the car's bonnet.

Ghandi director Sir Richard Attenborough is co-producing the film.

"When I read the story of Silver Ghost, I was mesmerized. I immediately thought, this is a picture that has to be made," Scorsese said. "And when I was asked to come aboard as a producer I didn't hesitate for a moment."

No cast or director have yet been signed up.

- Michelle Monahan joins Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan in The Coup

Los Angeles (dpa) - Michelle Monahan has joined Owen Wilson and Pierce Brosnan in the thriller The Coup, according to the film website Deadline.com.

The movie, to be helmed by Devil director John Eric Dowdle, centres on a family who moves to South-East Asia looking for peace and quiet. Instead they find themselves entangled in a violent coup with merciless rebels attacking the city where they live.

Monaghan, who starred in Source Code, will play Wilson's wife in the action thriller, which is scheduled to begin production in October.