Film: Movie watch

Mother knows best

Nearly 40 years after it first opened its doors for business, the Bates Motel is to re-live its glory days - and this time it's no crappy sequel. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Universal Pictures are lining up Gus Van Sant, fresh from the Oscar nominated success of Good Will Hunting, to direct a re-make of Hitchcock's 1960 classic, Psycho. It's thought that the studio is keen to cash in on the surprise success of recent horror pics, Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. As with those two ironic slasher flicks, it seems as if production will start with tongue firmly in cheek - producers are seeking a hip, young cast and word has it that the new Psycho will use the same script and shots as the original.

Talking dumb

Last year, Howard Stern waved his Private Parts in our faces, and this week brings news that another talk show host is poised to commit his life story to film. Variety reports that chat show king Jerry Springer (right) is to collaborate with producer Steve Sabler (whose previous credits include Dumb and Dumber) on a biopic of Springer's life.

A $2 million deal has reportedly been agreed, but the producers will be hoping that Springer's celluloid CV - he was a spin doctor, television news anchor and Mayor of Cincinnati before he began hosting his notorious talk show - will do better at the box office than Stern's flop.

Resurrection day

News comes of the exhumation of yet another horror classic. A re-make of The Mummy will see the Hollywood major-studio debut of John Hannah, who put WH Auden back in the best-seller lists following his sensitive reading of the poet's work in Four Weddings and a Funeral. The Scottish actor has signed up to co-star alongside Rachel Weisz in the Universal project.

Driver me Wilde

Looks like Bill Clinton's troubles will be keeping film-makers in work for a few months yet. Minnie Driver, fresh from her best supporting actress Oscar nomination, is set to star in a big-screen adaptation of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. One of Wilde's final plays before he was imprisoned for sodomy, the plot deals with the threat posed to a politician's marriage by a secret from the past.

See no Evel

1970s icon Evel Knievel has a chequered celluloid history: George Hamilton first saddled up as the world-famous stunt motorcyclist back in 1972, followed five years by Knievel himelf in the best-forgotten Viva Knievel. Now, Matthew McConaughey is revving up for the part in a planned Universal biopic. It's believed that the film will concentrate on the biker's rise to fame in the 1970s rather than his death-defying stunts.