“Johnny Utah” is back on the boards...

“Johnny Utah” is back on the boards at Columbia with Matthew Broderick. The thriller concerns an undercover cop looking for a killer among the surf set. Charlie Sheen was set to star for director Ridley Scott, but now producers Robert Levy and Peter Abrams are casting about for a new helmer. . . . Mickey Rourke is in negotiations to play “Johnny Handsome” for Carolco and Tri-Star. About a disfigured convict who, through an operation, gets a whole new look on life. Walter Hill directs Ken Freidman’s script. To film in New Orleans in October. . . .

Robert Duvall and Lukas Haas have a November start date in Texas on Horton Foote’s “Convicts.” Part of Foote’s play cycle that included “1918” and “On Valentine’s Day,” “Convicts” casts Duvall as the owner of a plantation using inmates and Haas is the young man he befriends. Peter Masterson directs and Orion Classics will release next year.

Although nixed by Arsenio Hall as his maiden lead project, tyro writer Tom Flynn’s “Over Under” has been bought by Paramount. The comedy involves two brothers and is being packaged for major stars. Another Hall project, “The Butterscotch Kid,” was being talked about as Eddie Murphy’s directing debut. Now, the studio wants Murphy for the title role. . . . Brad Davis joins the cast of Percy Adlon’s “Rosalie Goes Shopping,” a comic look at love and capitalism in an Arkansas town, filming on location next month. Davis will play Marianne Sagebrecht’s husband.

Jeff Goldblum is “The Camden Town Boy”--an American actor posing as a Brit. He starts filming for director Mel Smith in Blighty later this month. . . . Lance Henriksen plays a cop terrorized by the executed mass murderer he put behind bars in producer Sean Cunningham’s “Horror Show,” filming in Los Angeles next week. Writer Leslie Bohem’s chiller cast Brion James as the terror from beyond the grave and Rita Taggart as Henriksen’s wife. David Blyth directs; United Artists will release.

Never Enough Dept.: Cult favorite “Eating Raoul” will digest another chapter early in 1989 when Paul Bartel and Mary Waronov reprise their roles of the Blands in “Bland Ambition” for Vestron. Bartel again directs from a script by Richard Blackburn. . . .

“Chances Are” is the newest and last title for Tri-Star’s Christmas release with Cybill Shepherd and Robert Downey Jr. The romantic fantasy had been known as “Life After Life” and “Unforgettable.”