Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, September 10. Mountain stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as cowboys who begin a forbidden love affair. David Strathairn won the fest's award for best male performance as journalist Edward R. Murrow in George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck. Clooney also shared the award for best screenplay with co-writer Grant Heslov. Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno won the best female performance award for The Beast in the Heart (La bestia nel cuore), and Philippe Garrel won the Silver Lion for directing for The Regular Lovers (Les amants reguliers). French actress Isabelle Huppert (I Heart Huckabees) was given a special award for her contributions to cinema as well. For Clooney's next project, he plans teaming up with the Coen brothers once again for Hail, Caesar!. The film is set in the 1920s and is about a bunch of idiots attempting to put on a play of the Greek tragedy. Clooney and the Coens previously worked together on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Intolerable Cruelty.

     Pierce Brosnan has signed on to star in Columbia Pictures' The Topkapi Affair, a sequel to his 1999 hit The Thomas Crown Affair. Brosnan's Tomorrow Never Dies co-star, Michelle Yeoh, will star in filmmaker Danny Boyle's sci-fi thriller Sunshine as a botanist.

     Ewan McGregor has signed on to star in The Great Pretender. McGregor will play four roles in two time settings, 1938 and 1745. Pretender is about two ambitious producers in the 1930s who hire hell-raising Hollywood legend Leslie Grangely to play Prince Charlie in a movie about Scotland's Jacobite Rebellion in the 18th century. Grangely starts drinking a lot and disappears, so the producers hire an extra with an uncanny resemblence of the star to fill the role. McGregor plays Grangely, the extra and the two characters they play in the film.

     Claire Danes is joining Richard Gere for the thriller The Flock. The movie follows a federal agent (Gere) who is training his young female replacement (Danes) during an investigation of a possible sex crime.

     The Transporter's Jason Statham has signed on for Lakeshore Entertainment's action-thriller Crank. The film tracks a hit man's one-day rampage through the streets of Los Angeles after learning he's been poisoned.

     Marvel Enterprises is changing its name to Marvel Entertainment, as the comic book company plans to produce a new series of feature films starring characters such as Captain America, the Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye and Power Pack.

     MTV Films has acquired the film rights to Surreal Software's action-horror videogame The Suffering, which follows an inmate sentenced to die for a murder he may or may not have actually committed.

     The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has upheld its decision to give a NC-17 rating to Atom Egoyan's new film Where the Truth Lies, which stars Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon, because of an explicit three-way sex scene.

     Robert Redford is among the entertainers who will receive lifetime achievement awards from the Kennedy Center December 3.

     Ben Gazzara and Willem Dafoe will receive lifetime achievement awards at Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival, which runs September 15-24.

     Matt Dillon will receive a Gotham Award from the IFP for his work in Crash at the 15th Annual Gotham Awards November 30.

     Despite the slumping box office, Paramount Pictures had its best summer box office this year with more than $503 million, beating 1994's record of $412 million.

     Pulp Fiction star Bruce Willis will head the jury for the Miss Italia pageant later this month in Rome.