"Indie distributor New Yorker Films has picked up all domestic rights to Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai's "Free Zone," starring Natalie Portman, from BAC Films Intl. Pic follows Portman as an American living in Jerusalem who meets two women -- an Israeli and a Palestinian -- and becomes a temporary traveling companion with them in a remote area of Jordan. Pic will bow April 7 through New Yorker in New York, followed by a national release..." (full details)

"Jeff Wadlow has inked a deal with Focus Features to direct and co-write a "Hail to the Thief," in which a bank robber uses the 2004 George W. Bush/John Kerry Iowa primary showdown to outfox a distracted police force. The story is loosely based on three similar bank robberies that happened on the same night Bush and Democratic opponent Kerry hosted dueling campaign parties in August 2004. This new fictional caper weaves in elements of political satire as it follows one novice criminal's quest to outfox an overwhelmed Iowan police force and rob several banks with his equally amateurish friends..." (full details)

"Warner Bros. Pictures has bought the film rights to Rick Yancey's young-adult novel "The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp" and set it up with Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road Pictures. Scribe David Iserson ("Saturday Night Live") is attached to adapt. Story concerns an awkward 15-year-old who gets plunged into an Arthurian adventure when his uncle convinces him to steal an ancient sword that turns out be Excalibur..." (full details).