News From Hollywood

PITT STOP
Watch out, Jennifer: Brad Pitt may have commitment issues. Last fall, the actor attached himself to the dark drama Urban Townie, about a screwed-up rich-kid writer. Mike Figgis (Time Code) agreed to direct the $10 million film for Warner Bros. (Pitt and Figgis were to settle for hefty back ends), but when Pitt dropped out, Figgis soon followed suit. Now Pitt is said to be reexpressing interest in the film, which a source close to the project compares to The Catcher in the Rye. Pitt is also sniffing around Seared, based on chef Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, a comical tale about his travails in a New York City restaurant.

DIGGING FOR DINOSAUR DIRT
Oh, we’re so sneaky. Despite the filmmakers’ attempts to keep details of Jurassic Park 3 under wraps, we’ve got the goods on the flick, which stars Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Laura Dern, and Tea Leoni. J3 begins with a plane crash and focuses on the search and rescue mission. While greenscreen was originally going to be used to augment the finale of the movie, the filmmakers have now decided that the cast will return to Hawaii in January for additional last-minute photography.

SMART MONEY
Dumb and Dumber 2 isn’t going to get an intelligent new take from South Park‘s Trey Parker and Matt Stone; after signing on with New Line, they changed their minds — ”It’s just not what we’re about,” says Parker — and returned the money. A studio source said, ”They never really found the time to develop it, so they did the honorable thing.”

— Additional reporting by Dan Fierman