After a decade’s absence from the screen,...

After a decade’s absence from the screen, Marlon Brando heads into his third film in a year with David Lean’s “Nostromo,” shooting in Mexico in January. In the adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s saga of greed and treachery in a mining community, Brando plays the world-weary Dr. Monygham. George Carafas has the title role and Liam Neeson and Irena Brook (director Peter Brook’s daughter) co-star in the Serge Silberman production. . . .

William Hurt and Glenn Close are set for the leads in Warner Bros./Enigma’s “House of the Spirits,” based upon Isabel Allende’s sweeping multigenerational novel of a Chilean dynasty. Directed and adapted by Bille August, the production is scheduled for October filming in Argentina. David Puttnam produces. . . .

Anjelica Huston will portray John Cusack’s mother in Cineplex-Odeon’s “The Grifters.” Donald Westlake’s adaptation of the Jim Thompson novel focuses on a young man trying to go straight but caught between his conniving mother and girlfriend. The latter role is played by Annette Benning, who will be seen in the forthcoming “Valmont.” Stephen Freers directs for producers Barbara De Fina and Martin Scorsese. . . .Jason Patric also heads into Jim Thompson territory in October for Avenue Pictures’ “After Dark My Sweet.” James Foley directs the Bob Redlin adaptation about a man who kidnaps the young son of a millionaire. Ric Kidney produces. . . .

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays Gene Hackman’s daughter in Fox/Interscope’s “Class Action,” filming in December in San Francisco. The courtroom drama finds liberal lawyer Hackman and his yuppie, opportunistic daughter as a opposing counsels in an auto negligence case. Michael Apted directs the Christopher Ames-Carolyn Shelby script. . . .

The irrepressible Ernest P. Worrell is back in business for Disney’s “Ernest Goes to Jail,” a comedy of mistaken identity filming next month in Nashville. Jim Varney does double duty as the title character--a bank janitor--and a look-alike gangster. John Cherry directs the script he co-wrote with Charlie Cohen and Coke Sams, and Stacy Williams produces. . . .

Dennis Waterman and rocker Roger Daltrey star in East End Production’s “Father Jim,” filming in late October in Chicago. The offbeat drama written by Waterman, Ross Cameron and Carry Green, casts Waterman in the title role, who with ex-boxer Daltrey revitalizes the spirit of a slum neighborhood. Cameron directs and Green produces. . . . Moura Tierney plays a clothing designer and Tony winner Jerry Orbach her anxiety-ridden boss in Seagate’s “Dead Women in Lingerie” filming locally in late September. The thriller casts John Romo as a detective tracking a killer of illegal aliens working in the garment industry. June Lockhart and Lyle Waggoner co-star in Romo’s screenplay for producer/director Erica Fox. . . . The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914 forms the basis of Neue Studios’ “Death of a Schoolboy,” shooting in Yugoslavia later this month. The conspirators are played by show-biz scions, namely Christopher Chaplin (Charlie’s youngest), Alexis Arquette (Rosanna’s brother), and Reuben Pilsbury (director Sam Pilsbury’s son). Peter Pochlatko and Irene Robinson produce the Peter Patzak-David Coup script that Patzak directs.

Wayne Crawford is an L.A. cop on the trail of a ring of international car smugglers in “Crime Lords,” to film in Hong Kong and Taiwan in November. Crawford produces the thriller with Andrew Lane, from the screenplay by Rand Ravich. Frankie Schaeffer directs.