German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl plays Jessica Lange’s...

German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl plays Jessica Lange’s father in Carolco/Tri-Star’s “The Music Box,” a January start in Chicago and Hungary. Costa-Gavras directs Joe Eszterhas’ script about a woman lawyer defending her father in a bizarre murder case for producer Irwin Winkler. . . . Eric Roberts lets fly in “The Best of the Best,” the story of how five Americans wound up competing in tae kwon do at the Seoul Olympics. Paul Levine wrote the screenplay which gets under way locally and in Seoul next February for CFC Entertainment and the Movie Group. Philip Rhee, who co-stars as an Asian-American with an identity problem, co-produces with Peter E. Strauss, and Robert Hadler directs.

Film maker Paul Morrissey takes his “Spike of Bensonhurst” principals to South Miami next March for “Urban Renewal” (not a sequel), which centers on a young wheeler-dealer (Sasha Mitchell) who gets career tips from a group of veteran Manhattan businessmen living in a retirement home. Talisa Soto is an adversary who becomes his romantic ally. Producer David Weisman said the film’s retirees will be played by a rogue’s gallery of borscht belt comics. . . . Gabriel Byrne and John Turturro play rival 1920s Chicago gangsters in Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Miller’s Crossing,” a Circle Film release for Fox that starts up in January. Marsha Gay Hardin plays the hoods’ shared romantic interest.

David Lynch directs “You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up” next summer, a satire on contemporary California centering on a Midwestern man who arrives in Hollywood in search of his star-struck wife. Lynch also adapts Eric Knight’s novel--originally set in the 1930s--for Propaganda Films and producers Monty Montgomery, Joni Sighvatsson and Steve Golin. . . . Casting Call: Britain’s Working Title Productions (“Wish You Were Here,” “A World Apart”) are on the lookout for two 10- to 12-year-olds to star in “Shine,” the true story of a shoeshine boy living by his wits in 1943 Los Angeles, which shoots locally in February. Amanda Marmot produces and Matthew Chapman directs the Christopher Robbins screenplay.

Dayle Haddon portrays a psychiatrist working the cancer ward where Martha Plimpton and Jami Gertz are patients in “Silence Like Glass,” filming in Munich and NYC in January. Carl Shenkel directs the Bea Hellman screenplay. . . . Jan-Michael Vincent goes “In Harm’s Way” as a scientist pursued by terrorists who are after his research into nuclear waste disposal. Greg Hofmeyer directs for producer Ray Sargeant on location in West Germany next month. . . . Toho Films kicks off its new production arm with “Gunhed,” a futuristic saga of a fearless female cop in pursuit of energy thieves. Brenda Bakke stars for director Masaro Harada.