Bette Midler and Cher will pool their...

Bette Midler and Cher will pool their thespian and musical talents to topline Heritage Entertainment’s “Angry Housewives.” The musical comedy--which ran on stage for over five years in its hometown of Seattle and played at Los Angeles’ Odyssey Theatre last year--concerns four fed-up women who transform their lives by forming a punk rock band. A.M. Collins, who wrote the book (her partner, Chad Henry, wrote the music and lyrics), has penned the first-draft screenplay. The film is currently being developed at Disney’s Touchstone Films. . Riding the crest of the huge success of “Uncle Buck,” John Candy may do three pictures in 1990. First up is “Delirious,” an MGM comedy written by Fred Freeman & Lawrence J. Cohen (“Start the Revolution Without Me”) and directed by Tom Mankiewicz (“Dragnet”), in which Candy stars as a soap opera writer. Candy will follow this by co-starring with Dan Aykroyd in an untitled Warner Bros. comedy written by Aykroyd. Meanwhile, the search continues for a director for “On the Air,” the Candy-Rick Moranis comedy for Imagine Films. . . .

Howard Zieff will direct Columbia Pictures’ “I Married an Ax Murderer,” a comedy written by Robbie Fox. . . . Morgan Creek has decided to develop a sequel to its successful baseball comedy, “Major League.” . . . Corky Nemec, Emmy-nominated for “My First Name Is Steven,” joins Charlton Heston, Peter Boyle, Jack Palance and Tim Matheson in the sci-fier “Solar Crisis,” the first film for the Japan America Picture Co. Richard Sarafian directs. . . .

Screenwriter Jere Cunningham will make his directorial debut for New Line Cinema in early 1990 with his original script “Centurion.” The “Predator”-like action tale has elite army robots hunting down a Special Forces squad. . . .

More comic-book heroes are headed for the big screen. New Line has acquired the rights to both the Mask from Dark Horse Comics and Ghostrider from Marvel. . . . Meanwhile, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures are developing “Richie Rich” with Fred Savage of TV’s “The Wonder Years” attached as the poor little rich boy.