Leonardo DiCaprio resolves a $10 million suit

SETTLED Leonardo DiCaprio has settled a $10 million breach-of-contract lawsuit alleging he conspired to keep a low-budget movie he made in 1995 from getting released. Although details of the settlement DiCaprio and fellow actor pal Tobey Maguire reached with a crew of indie filmmakers weren’t disclosed, a released statement confirms that the movie ”Don’s Plum,” filmed before DiCaprio became a Hollywood god in ”Titanic,” will be distributed outside the U.S., Canada, and their territories. The producers had claimed DiCaprio and Maguire had blocked the release of the film, which features a bunch of twentysomething friends talking at a diner, for ”their own egomaniacal purposes.” But at last the producers can start negotiations to distribute the film internationally. Start getting your passports ready, girls!

TV WATCH NBC has ordered a full season of episodes from ”Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and ”Third Watch” following impressive ratings in their respective premieres.

SPECIAL EFFECT To shoot a scene in the new George Clooney drama ”Three Kings,” director David O. Russell used a cadaver to show how a bullet penetrates a body. Warner Bros. almost nixed the scene, but after test audiences approved, the studio decided to keep it, Russell said in this week’s Newsweek. Costar Mark Wahlberg said watching the cadaver’s big scene disgusted him, but we’re guessing Clooney — a.k.a. Dr. Ross — didn’t have a problem.

CASTING Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes, and Jude Law are in final negotiations to join director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s ”Enemy at the Gates.” The project, which was missing a cast for almost a year at Mandalay Pictures, is finally scheduled to start shooting in Germany in December or early January.

REEL DEAL Actor-director Tony Goldwyn (”A Walk on the Moon”) is in final talks to direct ”Handyman,” a Warner Bros. project based on Carolyn See’s novel, which follows a handyman who’s terrible at fixing things, but wonderful at mending his clients’ broken hearts. Aaawwwww.

HONORED Director Norman Jewison will receive ShowEast’s George Eastman Award for career achievement when the movie exhibitor’s fair hits Atlantic City, N.J., next month. Jewison, whose films include ”Fiddler on the Roof,” ”Jesus Christ Superstar,” ”Moonstruck,” and the original ”Thomas Crown Affair,” will also screen his latest effort, ”The Hurricane,” starring Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber, at the trade fair. Past winners of the Eastman award include Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Ron Howard, and Martin Brest, who received it last year.

ANOTHER LIST The postwar drama ”The Third Man” has topped the British Film Industry’s list of the top 100 British Films of the Century. Voted by 1,000 film- and TV-industry people, the list’s top 10 includes ”Brief Encounter” (2), ”Lawrence of Arabia” (3), ”The 39 Steps” (4), ”Great Expectations” (5), ”Kind Hearts and Coronets” (6), ”Kes” (7), ”Don’t Look Now” (8), ”The Red Shoes” (9), and the highest-ranked film from the 1990s, ”Trainspotting” (10).

MEMORIAL After nearly 30 years of devout fans visiting Jimi Hendrix’s simple gravestone, the Hendrix family has announced plans to build a grander memorial at Greenwood Memorial Park outside Seattle. Sketches for the memorial released Friday depict a granite dome supported by nine pillars and a life-size bronze statue of Hendrix as he appeared at Woodstock. The memorial will be dedicated on Sept. 18, 2000 — the 30th anniversary of the rocker’s death.