Melanie Griffith is completing negotiations to star...

Melanie Griffith is completing negotiations to star in Morgan Creek’s “Pacific Heights,” screenwriter Daniel Pine’s thriller, scheduled to film early next year. The story casts Griffith as a woman who sublets her apartment and is subjected to a game of terror by the new tenant upon her return. John Schlesinger directs for producers Scott Rudin and William Sackheim.. . .

Cheech Marin cooks up Vestron’s “Shrimp on the Barbie” next month Down Under. The fish-out-of-water tale finds him heading to Oz to open an authentic Mexican restaurant. Ben Efraim produces the social comedy to be directed by Michael Gottlieb. . . . Jean Claude Van Damme flexes his muscles again in Pathe’s “Dusted” in August. In the action yarn, Van Damme portrays an undercover cop in prison posing as an inmate, trying to ferret out a serial killer. Mark DiSalle produces; Deran Sarafian directs. . . .

Del Shores’ play, “Daddy’s Dying,” is headed for the big screen in September with Judge Reinhold, Beverly D’Angelo, Beau Bridges and Tess Harper set for the principal roles. The black comedy, adapted by Shores, centers on the avaricious children of a rich Southerner who gather at his death bed. Jack Fisk directs for MGM/Propaganda Films on Texas locations. . . .

Tim Curry and Peter Firth join Sean Connery as the Soviet sub crew in Paramount’s “The Hunt for Red October.” John McTiernan directs the Larry Ferguson-Donald Stewart script for Producer Mace Neufeld. . . . Luke Edwards (TV’s “I Know My First Name Is Steven”) plays Fred Savage’s younger brother--a video game fanatic--in Universal’s “The Wizards.” Jenny Lewis joins them for a trip to a national championship in the David Chisholm script, directed by Todd Holland. Also cast: busy Beau Bridges as the boys’ father and Christian Slater as an older brother. . . .

Horror meisters George Romero and Dario Argento join forces to direct two updated vintage Edgar Allan Poe tales next month in Pittsburgh. Romero’s segment, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” casts Adrienne Barbeau as the wife of an insanely jealous man; Argento reworks “The Black Cat” with the feline phobic character cast as a news photographer. . . .

Corey Feldman enrolls next month in Concorde’s “Rock ‘n Roll High School Forever.” Debra Brock writes and directs the satiric sequel