Unreality Bites

One just finished shooting Mexicans at The Alamo, the other has finally unlaced her corset after causing havoc among the undead with Van Helsing. Now Billy Bob Thornton and Kate Beckinsale are set to appear together in Fade Out, a thriller written and directed by Michael Cristofer. Billy Bob will play a screenwriter suffering from schizophrenia who lives in a quiet New England coastal town with his wife, played by Beckinsale. When he begins to write a script based on his everyday life, the lines between fact and fiction begin to blur. While the whole thing sounds suspiciously like A Beautiful Mind on paper (creative type with improbably beautiful wife finds fact and fiction mixing), we're sure that onscreen it will prove a very different beast. Filming will begin as soon as Thornton finishes shooting Ice Harvest for director Harold Ramis (that's another Christmas-set story of dim conmen like Bad Santa which is due out later this year here in the UK). Beckinsale has finished work on The Aviator, where she plays Ava Gardner, so apart from honeymooning with new hubby Len Wiseman and preparing for Underworld 2, we're guessing that she's ready to roll.