There's quite an assemblance of general announcements today, so this may get a little long. First there's news about Anne Hathaway starring in a new supernatural thriller which sounds as though there's an interesting twist. Then we have news that Johnny Depp's production company is brimming with some very unusual stories and they're chasing some strong talent for the film adaptations.

There's also news that Rick James is set for a biographical film of his controversial and very musical life, and a new story of King Arthur's knights, specifically Sir Galahad...or rather the young Galahad. Finally Ed Harris is joining the Samuel L. Jackson starrer The Cleaner.

That's the announcements-that-don't-warrant-their-own-write-up round up for you and you can see the full stories over the page.

As an aside, do you prefer this sort of round up, or would you rather the smaller stories were just dropped and we stuck to the bigger write ups?

Anne Hathaway has signed up to the supernatural thriller Passengers directed by Rodrigo Garcia and written by Ronnie Christensen. It tells the story of a counselor, played by Hathaway, who helps six plane crash survivors. The survivors start disappearing mysteriously and she suspects a conspiracy and heads out to find the truth. Story fro The Hollywood Reporter through Coming Soon.

Johnny Depp's production company, Infinitum Nihil, has lined up three books for a co-production with Initial Entertainment Group as well as signing D.V. DeVincentis who wrote the screenplays for Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity, to adapt Nick Hornby's comic "A Long Way Down" which is a tale of four people who form a surrogate family on New Year's Eve. From Variety through Coming Soon come the descriptions of the other books:

in talks with Peter Medak (Romeo is Bleeding) to direct the film version of Joseph Gangemi's novel "Inamorata," adapted by the author. Set in Philadelphia in the 1920s, the book revolves around a Harvard graduate student who falls in love with a beautiful psychic whom he is attempting to discredit as a fraud.

..."Affected Provincial's Companion," a compendium of essays, diagrams and poetry written, designed and illustrated by Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy as a treatise on the value of being a refined gentleman in today's unrefined world.

...journalist-author James Meek's "The People's Act of Love," set in 1919 Siberia. The storyline revolves around an escapee from a Russian prison camp who stumbles upon a Christian sect.

The story for "A Long Way Down" follows four desperate people who meet on New Year's Eve and form a surrogate family.

Rick James is next up to have a music based film biography. Called Super Freak and will be written by Sheldon Turner who is also writing Magneto and Wanted. According to Variety through Coming Soon Turner isn't interested in writing the normal sort of success story and will focus on James' troubled and controversial past which includes a lot of legal trouble and a fair bit of cocaine.

King Arthur's Sir Galahad could be set for another film outing, although it's following in the horrendous mould of "the young..." insert appropriate character who has already been successfully seen in films in an older guise. According to that nice bloke Josh at Cinema Blend, Laurence Dunmore who directed The Libertine (and then did nothing else) is looking to direct a coming of age tale about the character. A coming of age tale about Galahad? Eh? The story is to be titled Mortal Armor: The Legend of Galahad. Oh sweet lord...

Let's end on a high note with news that Ed Harris is set to join Cleaner, a film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Samuel L. Jackson. The story looks at a crime scene cleaner (something my brother has actually done!) who cleans a scene before the crime is reported and then becomes embroiled in the murder. The news comes from Yahoo News and has a lot of promise, although I'm a bit concerned about the Harlin part.