I found this late last night and wanted to sleep on my anger before sharing with you. As I’ve discussed with you before, Emma Thompson has penned the screenplay for the new adaptation of My Fair Lady, which has been in pre-production for a couple of years now. Nothing is moving forward, and while out promoting her new Nanny McPhee film I suppose Emma wanted to remind everyone that she has a film waiting to be made, and the best way to get attention would be to slag on Audrey. Yes, Emma Thompson trash talks Audrey Hepburn.

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To be totally honest with you, the news is that there isn’t really any news. I mean, the gossip world is still abuzz about remaking My Fair Lady – I guess they really want it to happen – and places from wee celebrity gossip sites to The Guardian are feeding the flames with their “inside news,” but after doing some digging, I can only tell you what’s not happening.

Keira Knightley is not playing Eliza Doolittle.

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While I still haven’t heard anything set in stone and announced officially, it seems to be a widely assumed fact that Keira Knightley is signed to play Eliza Doolittle in the upcoming film remake of My Fair Lady. Information is still scarce, and no other cast has been announced (though wildly speculated on), but now IMDb has a development page up for the film, with a release date of 2010. You have to have a Pro account to see any details, and I don’t really feel like paying to get one piece of information, but Keira’s page also has one developing project on it, which I’m betting is MFL.

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Bad news for those of you who feel that My Fair Lady was perfect the first time ’round on film: it is definitely being remade, and Keira Knightley is definitely going to play Eliza Doolittle. According to The Telegraph, Keira is officially signed to the movie and has already begun singing lessons (though it’s yet to show up on IMDb). Also, it seems that Daniel Day-Lewis will fill Rex Harrison’s rather large slippers as Professor Henry Higgins — at least, if the producers get their wish. He’s at the top of their short list of actors for the role, though there’s no word on whether he’s signed yet.

There have been rumors swirling for years that Keira Knightley was in talks to do a big-screen biopic of Audrey Hepburn, and while nothing has ever come of those, a different rumor seems to have taken root. There were whispers that Keira might also star in a West End revival of My Fair Lady, and while those talks fell through, it looks as though a film remake of the musical will come to pass — with Keira as Eliza Doolittle. The film is currently being looked at by Columbia Pictures, and will be “updated” by mixing the original George Bernard Shaw play script and Lerner & Loewe’s adaptation that became the film we know and love. This remake also promises to improve on the 1964 film by filming on location in Coventry Garden and other spots around London.

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Have you ever dreamed of succeeding Audrey Hepburn in the coveted role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady? That just might be in your future soon. According to The Sun, a British tabloid, the 50 year old musical might possibly be the next in a line of recent successful reality casting shows where average Joes and Janes like you and me compete to be the lead in a big Broadway musical. (You may be familiar with “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” which was a casting show for The Sound of Music revival.) Nothing is set in stone yet, but BBC executives are also looking at Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber to appear on the show. So if you’re in the UK and have absolutely no stage fright whatsoever at the thought of singing on TV in front of millions for the chance to be the next Audrey Hepburn, start warming up those vocal cords now! Read more here.

MTV.com has brought up some interesting articles on Audrey Hepburn lately, but this one irritates much more than it amuses. In “‘Deliverance’ To ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s': Movies We’d Like to See Remade,” the author suggests a few classic movies that, in his opinion, could actually benefit from a remake. Some would do well with the better quality special effects that we have available now, and others would be just plain fun to see with today’s stars (to him). The reasoning behind his idea to remake Breakfast at Tiffany’s takes the cake, though:

Oh, we can hear some of you crying foul. Yes, Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly in the 1961 Blake Edwards original is one of the most iconic performances in film history. Yes, the movie is beloved and acclaimed and blah, blah, blah. It’s also, honestly, not that great, and it bears very little resemblance to Truman Capote’s 1958 book, a far more complex and melancholy tale for which Hollywood just wasn’t ready. Sure, movies and books are different media and shouldn’t be compared with each other, but in this case we’ll make an exception. Why not take a stab at a more faithful adaptation with a less gazelle-like Holly (how about Elisha Cuthbert or Lauren Ambrose?), a less-straight Fred (played by Topher Grace? Owen Wilson?), no happy ending and, most of all, no Mr. Yunioshi. Hey, Sofia Coppola: Whattya think? Good follow-up to “Marie Antoinette”?

[Links to the actors mentioned in the article added by me.] For those of you who have read Capote’s original novella, don’t you think there’s a reason why the film wasn’t a faithful adaptation? I think it was lightened for the same reasons film adaptations of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame will never be true to their classic novel counterparts, and that is because they are too dark for the average movie audience. Perhaps today’s audience is more sophisticated than the audiences of the 50s and early 60s, if only because we can handle a lot more sex and violence. But deep down, everyone still wants to see a happy ending. Films are screened and remade because test audiences still demand a happily ever after, even in our cynical age. Besides, practically everyone knows by now that Breakfast at Tiffany’s isn’t very true to the book, and I’ve met very few people, if any, that actually prefer the book over the film. Most of all, no actress could ever recreate Holly Golightly after Audrey Hepburn has donned her little black dress, and it has actually been detrimental to the few actresses who have dared to remold Audrey’s classic characters (see Julia Ormond and Jennifer Love Hewitt). My opinions aside, please read the article for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

In other, better news, it’s fashion week in India! More importantly, designer Shantanu Goenka has designed his fall 2007 collection on My Fair Lady, both the Audrey film and George Bernard Shaw’s original Pygmalion play that My Fair Lady is based on. The soundtrack to the film played throughout the showing of the collection, and the models themselves went through a flowergirl-to-lady transformation. You can read more about Shantanu’s show here.

Lastly, the shy translator who was good enough to transcribe the French interview clip from Sunday has come forward! So if you haven’t seen the translation yet, click the link directly above to see the clip, click on the comments link to read the transcript, and leave a little thank you for Manuel Martinez for being so good as to copy out the entire conversation and then translate it for us. That’s no mean feat! Merci beaucoup pour votre aide!

It seems that War and Peace has been making some new waves recently. The classic, notoriously long book, which averages about 1500 pages, has recently been cut down and will be re-released as “half as long and twice as interesting.” Before Tolstoy fans start screaming “Blasphemy!” though, it’s worth pointing out that this “new” take on War and Peace comes from an earlier manuscript Tolstoy himself wrote. Worth noting is the fact that two main characters, who originally die in the finished book, live in this earlier draft. The new book shaves off nearly 500 pages, leaving you only 1000 pages to read. (That’s roughly the length of Gone With the Wind, which I’ve read 4 times.) If you’d like to learn a little more information on the new book, go here.

Not only is there a revamped W&P for the busy reader, but there is also a new miniseries coming at the end of the year. So you can read the cut-down book at the beginning of the year, then watch the cut-down version of it on TV in the second half of the year. The only release date planned so far is April 30 for Italy. I’m not even sure if it will be released anywhere else at this time, but I will keep an eye on it. Following in Audrey Hepburn’s footsteps as Natasha Rostov will be Clémence Poésy, a French actress who was recently in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (picture to the right).

Lastly, if you were interested in skimming over War and Peace to see if it would make an interesting read, you can actually read the entire book online here. Though I’m sure the table of contents alone will scare off most readers!