MILAN (Variety) - Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black) and Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Velvet Goldmine) are in negotiations to star in low-budget vampire picture Johnny Domino.

The love story is set in an isolated fishing village. Rhys Meyers will play the title role, a musician who becomes a local phenomenon after being bitten by a vampire. He falls in love with Forlani's character, also a vampire, and together they fight the village's evil preacher. In a new twist on Romeo and Juliet, they eventually pact to end their eternal lives.

The picture, set to shoot in Europe next year, will be directed by young Irish newcomer Enda Hughes from a script by British writer Max Chipchase. No distributor is believed to be attached.

Claire Forlani gets flirty in the romantic comedy Boys and Girls. Forlani will replace Anna Friel, opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jason Biggs in the Dimension Films feature about close friends who fall in love. Robert Iscove (She's All That) will direct. Shooting is slated to start Friday in San Francisco.

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., July 15 (PRNewswire) -- Universal Pictures will host the World Premiere of Mystery Men on Thursday, July 22, 1999 at the Cineplex Universal City Cinemas atop the hill at Universal City.

Stars from the film scheduled to attend include: Hank Azaria, Paul Reubens, Janeane Garofalo, Wes Studi, Kel Mitchell, Greg Kinnear, Claire Forlani and Lena Olin. In addition, director Kinka Usher and producers Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin and Mike Richardson will be in attendance.

Mystery Men, which opens nationwide on Friday, July 30, is a comedy about seven aspiring superheroes, each possessing a unique -- and bizarre -- superpower, who band together to save Champion City. A Golar/Lloyd Levin/Dark Horse production, Mystery Men is directed by Kinka Usher, DGA commercial director of the year, who makes his feature film directorial debut. The original Dark Horse comic book Mystery Men, upon which the film was based, was created by Bob Burden.

Universal Pictures is part of Universal Studios), a unit of The Seagram Company Ltd., a global entertainment and beverage company.

SOURCE: Universal Pictures

Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Lili Taylor and director Jan De Bont will be among the stars and filmmakers who make Westwood their latest haunt for a special screening of DreamWorks Pictures' supernatural thriller ``The Haunting'' on Tuesday, July 20th.

THE HAUNTING opens nationwide on July 23rd.

WHO: Scheduled to attend are: cast members Liam Neeson, with Natasha Richardson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lili Taylor and Bruce Dern; director Jan De Bont; producers Susan Arnold, Donna Arkoff Roth and Colin Wilson; and celebrity guests Rupert Everett, Salma Hayek, Bill Paxton, Robert Duvall, Kim Delaney, Jason Biggs, Diane Keaton, Tom Sizemore, Marisa Coughlin, Chris Tucker, Gloria Stuart, Francis Fisher, Djimon Hounsou, Oscar De La Hoya, David Boreanaz, Tara Reid, Kathy Najimy, Anna Paquin, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Julianna Marguilies, Kristen Johnson, Jake Busey, Donald Diamont, Robert Forster, Pam Grier, Claire Forlani, Vin Diesel, Kelli Williams, Dennis Haysbert, Paula Abdul, Bai Ling, Scott Bakula, Bruce Davison, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, Heath Ledger, and more to come...

WHAT: A special screening of DreamWorks' THE HAUNTING

WHEN: Tuesday, July 20, 1999
Press Check-In: 5:30 -- 6:30 p.m.
Arrivals: 6:30 p.m.
Screening: 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: Mann Village Theatre
961 Broxton Avenue, Westwood

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (PRNewswire) -- Universal Pictures will host the World Premiere of Mystery Men on Thursday, July 22, 1999 at the Cineplex Universal City Cinemas atop the hill at Universal City.

Stars from the film scheduled to attend include: Hank Azaria, Paul Reubens, Janeane Garofalo, Wes Studi, Kel Mitchell, Greg Kinnear, Claire Forlani and Lena Olin. In addition, director Kinka Usher and producers Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin and Mike Richardson will be in attendance.

Mystery Men, which opens nationwide on Friday, July 30, is a comedy about seven aspiring superheroes, each possessing a unique -- and bizarre -- superpower, who band together to save Champion City. A Golar/Lloyd Levin/Dark Horse production, Mystery Men is directed by Kinka Usher, DGA commercial director of the year, who makes his feature film directorial debut. The original Dark Horse comic book ``Mystery Men,'' upon which the film was based, was created by Bob Burden.

Universal Pictures is part of Universal Studios (www.universalstudios.com), a unit of The Seagram Company Ltd., a global entertainment and beverage company.

SOURCE: Universal Pictures

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - In a deal that will give him and the producers ownership of the film's copyright, writer-director James Merendino (SLC Punk) has signed to take the helm of the indie comedy Magicians.

The film will feature an international cast, starring German actor Til Schweiger (Maybe ... Maybe Not), U.S. actors Alan Arkin (The Slums of Beverly Hills) and Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black), and Italian star Fabrizio Bentivoglio (An Eternity and a Day).

Under the deal, financing for Magicians will be spilt between a subsidiary of German distributor Kinowelt Medien and Los Angeles-based City National Bank. The budget for the project is set at less than $10 million.

The picture, which is slated to begin production later this month, is an ensemble comedy about two untalented magicians (played by Schweiger and Bentivoglio) who make their way to Las Vegas from New York City in the hopes of becoming the next Siegfried & Roy.

In Sin City, they hire a beautiful assistant (Forlani) and sign with an old-school showbiz manager (Arkin).

Under the terms of the deal, Merendino and the film's producers will own half of the film's copyright and all the Italian-language rights. Kinowelt will own the other half, together with all German-language rights.

Merendino's SLC Punk, a comedy-drama about spike-haired rebelliousness in the mid-'80s, had its North American premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival and is being released by Sony Pictures Classics.

The filmmaker's directing credits are are Livers Ain't Cheap and The Upstairs Neighbor.