Hollywood Ink: No Ding-Dong For Hugh Jackman

Also today in Hollywood Ink: Hangover screenwriters go back to the drunken well (twice)... Robert De Niro may go back to Italy... A Sundance darling walks out on its distributor... and more.

· After a little more than a year's attachment to the product-placement bonanza Avon Man, star Hugh Jackman has shoved off the project about a laid-off car salesman who supplements his income as the smoldering, successful cosmetics hawker of the title. (It appears he will remain on board as a producer, however.) He's reportedly preparing instead for the next Wolverine film, which has neither a script nor a director but is on track to shoot next year anyhow. Replacement suggestions welcome; Keanu Reeves comes immediately to mind, I sincerely have no idea why. Who else? [Deadline]

· Hangover co-writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore are stepping out of their comfort zone, developing a pair of scripts about a raucous, alcohol-fueled office holiday party and a raucous, alcohol-fueled 21st birthday on the eve of the honoree's medical school exam. Nice niche, sorry about your livers. [LAT, Variety]

· Robert De Niro is in talks to star in something called Manual of Love 3, an Italian romance franchise (no, not porn) which will feature the actor as "a divorced American professor living in Rome." Part of his role would be spoken in Italian. [Variety]

· Not long after Hannover House demonstrated its fearsome box-office power with the $463-per-screen grossing Twelve, the producers of the Josh Radnor-directed Sundance darling Happythankyoumoreplease have fled the distributor in terror. They're hoping to strike a deal with Anchor Bay, which is having a reasonably successful run with equally modest-budget festival fare (City Island, Solitary Man, The Disappearance of Alice Creed). [Deadline]

· David "Son of Oracle founder Larry" Ellison has rounded up $350 million to help finance Paramount efforts like Mission Impossible 4 and the next Jack Ryan film. His father gave him an undisclosed chunk of it. That's life, folks. [LAT]