Robert De Niro teams with director Penny...

Robert De Niro teams with director Penny Marshall on Columbia’s “Awakenings,” the story of a man frozen in the ‘60s as a result of an unspecified disease and de-iced 20 years later. Steve Zaillian’s drama confronts the character’s readjustment and supposed new lease on life. Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker produce with filming planned for the early fall. . . . Barbara Hershey has been cast in the title role of Cinecom’s “Aunt Julia,” a bizarre romantic fantasy based on the Mario Vargas Llosa novel. Re-set in New Orleans, it centers on a young man’s (Keanu Reeves) infatuation for his aunt. Peter Falk is his wild-eyed entrepreneur boss. John Amiel (“Singing Detective”) directs William Boyd’s adaptation in August for producers John Fiedler and Mark Tarlov. . . .

Dudley Moore has taken over John Malkovich’s role in Paramount’s “Crazy People,” a comedy by Mitch Markowitz about an institutionalized ad exec who rallies his co-internees into forming an agency. Tony Bill stepped in for Markowitz last week as director. Daryl Hannah co-stars and Tom Barad is producing. . . . Chevy Chase will play a Mountie who doesn’t always live up to the Canadian corps’ motto in Warner Bros’ “Thin Ice.” Joel Silver produces the mayhem in the fall. . . .

Nicolas Cage and Tom Waits join the ensemble in New Vision’s “Queen’s Logic,” to film in Gotham next July. The action revolves around a wedding that brings together long-separated buddies in Tony Spiridakis’ script. John Malkovich, Joe Mantagna, Elizabeth Perkins, Linda Fiorentino, Chloe Webb as the bride, and Spiridakis complete the cast. Stuart Oken and Russell Smith produce and Steve Rash directs. . . .

Oscar-winning writer Mark Peploe (“The Last Emperor”) makes his feature directorial debut in November with his original story “Out of the Blue.” The romantic-adventure, starring Gerard Depardieu, will be filmed in Paris and Egypt. Angelo Rizzoli produces . . . . “Clean and Sober” scribe Todd Carroll lands the plum assignment of adapting Pedro Almodovar’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” for producer Ray Stark. The Tri-Star release rolls late this year with Jane Fonda starring and Herbert Ross directing. . . .

Soviet youth discover the “new music” back in the ‘50s in Imagine/SC Entertainment’s “Red Hot,” filming in Yugoslavia and Canada this fall. Written by Paul Haggis and Michael Maurer, the story gets hopping when an Elvis bootleg starts to circulate around Moscow. Haggis also directs for release by Fox. . . . First, SC Entertainment ventures to “Rue Morgue” territory with “Still Life”--filming next month in Toronto--with Jason Gedrick playing a serial killer who turns his victims into art pieces. Jessica Steen gets romantically hung up in the script by Michael Taav, Dean Parisot and Graham Campbell. Campbell also directs for producer Nick Stiliadis . . . .

Armand Assante plays Timothy Hutton’s boss in Odyssey/Tri-Star’s “Q & A,” an early fall shoot. The thriller, about a young assistant district attorney whose witnesses in a political scandal are being murdered one by one, marks director Sidney Lumet’s first-time as a solo screenwriter. Nick Nolte co-stars for producers Arnon Milchan and Burtt Harris. . . . Dwyer Brown, Kevin Costner’s father in “Field of Dreams,” gets the male lead in Universal’s “Carmilla,” based upon Dan Greenburg(cq) supernatural thriller “The Nanny.” Jenny Seagrove plays the evil title character in writer Stephen Volk’s adaptation which films next month for director William Friedkin and producer Joe Wizan . . . . Corey Haim plays the title role in Atlantis’ tongue-twisting “The Amazing and Death-Defying Diary of Eugene Dingham,” filming in Ontario in September. Paul Zindel adapted his own novel about a young man’s coming-of-age as a Catskill waiter in the 1950s. Kim Todd produces. . . . Robert Wuhl cast as Red Snyder, the man who introed Gov. Earl Long to Blaze Starr in A & M/Disney’s “Blaze,” filming in Louisiana. Ron Shelton wrote and directs Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovitch. . . .

Everyone from Christopher Lee to former Hef-mate Carrie Leigh will be doing Concorde’s “Transylvania Twist” next month. Jim Wynorski directs the “ultimate vampire spoof” and co-wrote it with R.J. Robertson. Also chomping at this bit of whimsy are Vincent Price, “Phantasm’s” Angus Scrimm, Monique Gabriel and Jay Robinson. . . .

Charlie Sheen narrates his original poetry in writer-director Adam Rifkin’s forthcoming “A Tale of Two Sisters.” Rifkin illustrated Sheen’s volume of verses, “A Piece of My Mind,” when it was published last year.