ENTERTAINMENT BRIEFS: Nicolas Cage to star in Palestinian film

Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage will star in the first major studio film by Hany Abu-Assad, the acclaimed Palestinian director of Paradise Now. In Vanished, Cage, 43, will star as a father who goes in search of his college-age American-born Muslim son who disappears abroad. Abu-Assad drew acclaim for Paradise Now, an Oscar-nominated 2005 film about two Palestinian youths drafted to become suicide bombers. Cage will start work on Vanished in April after completing work on director Darren Aronofsky's indie drama The Wrestler. He recently completed work on the film Bangkok Dangerous, as well as the sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets. ************************** Star Wars coming to TV Los Angeles - Star Wars director George Lucas is working on a TV version of the cinematic hit Star Wars, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday. Lucas told the paper that he had "just begun work" on the series, which will not include the films' major characters Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader. "The Skywalkers aren't in it, and it's about minor characters," Lucas told the Times. The live-action series comes in addition to another animated TV series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars. ************************** Citizen Kane Oscar on the block = Los Angeles - The writing Oscar won by Orson Welles for the legendary movie Citizen Kane is to be sold at auction December. Sotheby's auction house estimates that the statue will get between 800,000 and 1.2 million dollars at the New York sale. The golden statue was missing for a long time but resurfaced in 1994 and was returned to Welles' estate, which sold it in 2003 to the Dax Foundation, a Los Angeles-based charity. The proceeds will help fund the organization's worldwide efforts. Citizen Kane, a story about a power-hungry publishing magnate played by Welles and "widely believed to be based on the life of William Randolph Hearst," was voted the number one film in history by the American Film Institute in 2007 and by the British Film Institute in 2002. ************************** Norman Mailer hospitalized New York - Writer Norman Mailer was recovering in hospital Wednesday after having surgery to remove scar tissue from around his lung. The 84-year-old author underwent the operation at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan according to the New York Daily News. Mailer first came on the literary scene in 1948 with the publication of The Naked and the Dead, based on his experiences as a rifleman in the South Pacific during World War II. He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for his highly personal account of a protest march on the Pentagon, Armies of the Night. His second Pulitzer came 13 years later for The Executioner's Song, about convicted murderer Gary Gilmore. His most recent novel, The Castle in the Forest, was published earlier this year. dpa cc