Twentieth Century Fox looks set to break the $1bn (£550m) barrier this summer after Mr and Mrs Smith made a strong opening weekend showing. The film, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, added to the studio's already bulging coffers from Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven and George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the three films have helped to raise the company's 2005 take at the overseas box office to $916m, with Sith contributing $341.7m and Kingdom taking $157.7m so far.

The film industry's eagerness to fuel the videogame adaptation fad shows no signs of abating: with a third Resident Evil film already underway, a fourth has just been announced. The franchise is already the second highest-earning game-based film series after Tomb Raider, with the eponymous first film earning $40m in 2002 and its sequel, 2004's Resident Evil: Apocalypse, taking just over $50m. The third film, Resident Evil: Afterlife, is based on a script by Paul WS Anderson, who directed the first film; Anderson's wife, Milla Jovovich, is reportedly set to reprise her role as the series' gun-toting heroine.

Tim Robbins is in talks to star in Phillip Noyce's new thriller, Hot Stuff. The film centres on an ordinary man forced to resort to terror in apartheid era South Africa. The film, scripted by Shawn "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" Slovo, is set to start shooting in August.