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Rediff.com  » Movies » Keira Knightley to play princess Diana?

Keira Knightley to play princess Diana?

Last updated on: October 18, 2010 14:46 IST

Image: Keira Knightly
Photographs: Toby Melville/Reuters

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Keira Knightly is set to play princess Diana in a new movie called Diana based on the life of the Princess of Wales.

 

Knightley is at the top of the list of a number of actresses lined up to play Diana. And producers at film company Pathe are keen to cast Knightley, 25, as Diana along with The Queen actor Helen Mirren, 65, as her mother and have started work on the project.

 

Expected to release in 2011 on princess Diana's supposed 50th birthday, the year also marks 30 years of Diana's wedding to Prince Charles. It is also reported to be the year when Prince William finally marries his long-term girlfriend, Kate Middleton.

 

'The project is in the early stages but Pathe has chosen 2011 quite deliberately,' the Daily Mail quoted a source as saying.

 

'It will be in the same vein as their movie The Queen and will detail the ups and downs of Diana's marriage and the early lives of the Princes,' he added.

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Michael Douglas' cancer treatment ends

Image: Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas' gruelling eight weeks of treatment for throat cancer has ended.

 

The actor is now determined to go back to a normal life.

 

Doctors have told the actor they are pleased with his progress and no further treatment is scheduled.

 

'After coming off that much radiation and chemotherapy he has to go through six to eight weeks' recuperation. Then hopefully this will all be behind him and he can live his life cancer free,' the Daily Express quoted a doctor as saying.

 

Now Douglas is keen on cooling the media reports that suggested his family was preparing for the worst after he lost weight during the treatment.

 

The friend said such weight loss was normal for someone undergoing intensive treatment.

Homer Simpson is a true Catholic: Vatican

Image: Homer Simpson

Homer Simpson, the fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons, has been declared a true Catholic by the Vatican's official newspaper.

 

The long-running cartoon series explores issues such as family, community, education and religion in a way that few other popular television programmes can match, according to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily broadsheet.

 

The newspaper acknowledged that Homer snores through the sermons of the Reverend Lovejoy and inflicts "never-ending humiliation" on his evangelical neighbour, Ned Flanders, reports the Telegraph.

 

But in an article headlined "Homer and Bart are Catholics", the newspaper said, 'The Simpsons are among the few TV programmes for children in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes.'

 

The family "recites prayers before meals and, in their own peculiar way, believes in the life thereafter".

 

It quoted an analysis by a Jesuit priest, Father Francesco Occhetta, of a 2005 episode of The Simpsons, The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star, which revolved around Catholicism and was aired a few weeks after the death of Pope John Paul II.

 

The episode starts with Bart being expelled from Springfield Elementary School and being enrolled in a Catholic school where he meets a sympathetic priest, voiced by the actor Liam Neeson, who draws him into Catholicism with his kindness.

 

Homer then decides to convert to Catholicism, to the horror of his wife Marge, the Rev Lovejoy and Ned Flanders. The episode touches on issues such as religious conflict, interfaith dialogue, homosexuality and stem cell research.

 

'Few people know it, and he does everything he can to hide it, but it is true: Homer J Simpson is a Catholic,' insisted L'Osservatore Romano.

 

MJ's kids want to 'buy back Neverland'

Image: Paris and Prince Michael with Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson's children want to buy back Neverland, the ranch the King of Pop called home, it has emerged.

 

Prince Michael, 13, and Paris, 12, want to turn the ranch into a shrine to their dad after having made a secret pilgrimage to the late singer's 50 million pounds home.

 

Jackson, who died in June last year, was forced to sell the sprawling ranch after losing control of it to an investment company when he fell into debt, according to the News of the World.

 

'Paris and Prince remembered the rooms from their childhood,' the Daily Mail quoted a source as saying.

 

The source went on to say that the children agreed that when they were old enough they would turn it into ''some kind of community park and center for animals''.

 

The source added that seven-year-old Blanket has also fallen in love with the place after a visit last summer.

 

The singer's three children will inherit millions of dollars at the age of 21, which means they can afford to buy the famous estate.

Source: ANI