News Briefs

• Producers Sara Risher and Stephanie Austin have teamed to form indie production shingle Chickflicks, aimed at generating two to three pics annually aimed at the female demo. (Variety)

• Katie Jacobs, Executive Producer of House, optioned Girls Like Us the Sheila Weller biography of Carly Simon, Carol King and Joni Mitchell. (Variety)
  

• Joan Allen will be back on Broadway in 2009 co-starring with Jeremy Irons in Impressionism by Michael Jacobs. Can it be that Allen hasn't been on the stage since the Heidi Chronicles in 1989? (Broadway World)

• Army Wives broke the record for Lifetime series with its second season premiere this past Sunday. 4.5 m viewers tuned in. (Variety)

• Justine Bateman is now writing sitcoms (NY Daily News)
  

• DVD Box sets of Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve are now available (NY Times)
  

• A roundup on women at the Cannes Film Festival (Alliance of Women Film Journalists)
  

• Zeitgeist has picked up Sundance doc prize winner "Trouble the Water" by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal for a late summer release, the company unveiled Tuesday. It will open August 22 a week before the anniversary of Katrina.

• Katherine Heigl will star in and produce the feature film adaptation of "Escape," the bestselling memoir of Carolyn Jessop, whose testimony helped convict polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs. (Variety)

• Lifetime Television ordered thirteen episodes of the new original comedy, Rita Rocks. With a premiere date slated for this fall, the series stars Nicole Sullivan as Rita Clements, a busy mom and wife who finds herself by starting her own garage band. Also starring is Richard Ruccolo and Tisha Campbell-Martin. The series will be paired in a one-hour comedy block with Reba. (Cynopsis)