Young Da Vinci Action Movie Still Planned, and 5 Other Stories You'll Be Talking About Today

Happy Tuesday! Also in today's edition of The Broadsheet: Christian Bale's awards horse enters the gate... A rare unadaptable Stephen King book may yet find its way to the screen... Andy Samberg and NBC draw an SNL lawsuit... and more.

· I'm not exactly sure what happened to Warner Bros.' grand idea to turn Leonardo Da Vinci's youthful exploits into an action franchise, but now Universal has picked up screenwriter Jonny Kurzman's spec Leonardo and parked it with producers Larry and Charles Gordon. Something about a young artist/scientist/inventor's quest to keep Renaissance Europe from reverting to the Dark Ages, etc. etc. Starz reportedly has another young Da Vinci thing in the works. Get excited? [Variety]

· The Flowers of War -- China's Christian Bale-starring, Zhang Yimou-directed submission to the year's Foreign-Language Oscar race -- will have its qualifying run at the end of December thanks to distributor Wrekin Hill Entertainment, which will expand the film nationally in the ensuing weeks. [Deadline]

· Stephen King's trippy 1995 fantasy Rose Madder could finally get the screen treatment long thought too challenging to attempt, with Palomar Pictures and Grosvenor Park pairing up to produce Naomi Sheridan's screenplay. [Variety]

· Perhaps emboldened by the Cardinals' recent heroics, a pair of St. Louis songsmiths are finally suing NBC, Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island ensemble for copyright infringement over songs featured in two sketches in 2009. [THR Esq.]

· The petition to replace Nickelback in a Thanksgiving Day NFL halftime show is nearly at 45,000 signatures. Ah, democracy. [Change.org via Time]

· Some dead singer's doctor in Los Angeles was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. [AP]

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