Now I can’t wait to see this movie! Cate makes any movie great!

Cate Blanchett is looking for a few good Merry Men.

Per Variety, the Oscar winner has signed on to play Maid Marian in the tentatively titled Nottingham, director Ridley Scott’s big-screen reimagining of the Robin Hood story opposite Russell Crowe.

Blanchett will replace Sienna Miller, who dropped out due to “creative differences.”

Crowe will play the lead, which, depending on how the script turns out, could either be Robin Hood or a reinvented Sheriff of Nottingham.

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The $130 million romantic adventure starts production in April in London for a 2010 release.

Kate looks amazing!!

Splash

To play a manipulative CIA boss in Body of Lies (out Oct. 10), Russell Crowe had to pack on 63 lbs.

“‘I’ll have the cheeseburger for breakfast, thank you,’” he recalls thinking, according to a new Extra interview. (He adds that he also had his share of Sprinkles cupcakes.)

The spy thriller marks the first time Crowe has worked with Leonardo DiCaprio since 1995’s The Quick and the Dead.

“[It’s] pretty much exactly the same… except [DiCaprio] can drink legally now and he’s no longer a virgin,” Crowe jokes of their reunion.

Crowe says he couldn’t stop pranking his co-star in between takes.

“I’d wait until he was sitting in the makeup chair, and I’d walk past him and go, ‘A-choo!’ and I’d squirt the atomizer so just little bits of fine mist would form on his face and he’d obviously assume it was mucus.”

DiCaprio laughed it off.

“I’m really happy. It’s been bothering me for days,” he says sarcastically.

Crowe also opens up about being dad to sons, Charlie, 4, and Tennyson 2.

He says boozing has taken a backseat since having kids.

“The drinking thing has sort of taken a different place in my life since I had kids,” he tells Extra. “There’s a whole lot of things I don’t do anymore because it affects my level of patience.”

He adds, “I don’t want to be in that place where I’m exasperated with these beautiful children.”

Of fatherhood, he says, “It’s the most fantastic thing I’ve ever experienced. And um, it continues to get more fun and complex with every day.”

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Russell Crowe is set to play Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchie’s new film.

The Gladiators star is lined up to star opposite Robert Downey Jr. as the legendary fictional sleuth’s confidante and storyteller in the forthcoming flick.

A source tells British newspaper The Sun, “Russell wants the part, Guy wants Russell. All they’ve got left to do is dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

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WENN

Meg Ryan was so upset by the way America turned on her during her 2000 romance with Proof Of Life co-star Russell Crowe she needed to take a break from Hollywood to recover.

The actress had long been considered America’s sweetheart until the break-up of her marriage to Dennis Quaid and her fling with Crowe turned her into public enemy number one - and she struggled to cope with the backlash.

She tells Parade magazine, “It’s a very big surprise in life when you learn that not everyone is rooting for you. It’s a very scary thing when you figure that out. I never imagined that worrying about what other people think of me would be a big part of my day. But, when you get that much negativity thrown at you, you go, ‘Whew, I’ve got to cope with that.’ Nothing I heard in the press resembled the truth. What an insight for me. I took time off. I wanted to get simple and quiet. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to travel.”

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WENN

Production on Russell Crowe’s upcoming Nottingham film has been postponed because of fears the leaves in Sherwood Forest will be the wrong color.

The Ridley Scott movie will see Crowe playing the Sheriff of Nottingham and Sienna Miller taking on the role of Maid Marion in a new take of the famous Robin Hood tale.

But filming has been delayed with movie bosses citing the threat of an actors’ strike this summer and “location problems” for the move.

And it has been revealed that a major factor in the decision to move the shoot back until next year is that the leaves in the original area of woodland where the Robin Hood legend was born would have turned brown by the end of filming.

A source tells British newspaper the Daily Express, “The thing about the leaves is absolutely true. It may sound silly but Sherwood Forest needs to be green - it’s central to the plot. They could have filmed in the autumn, but the post-production team would have had to retouch every leaf and that alone would have blown the budget.”

The movie is now slated for a November 2009 release.

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WENN

Russell Crowe has a business lunch with Peter Holmes à Court, his joint owner in the National Rugby League team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, before walking back to his apartment on the Sydney Harbour waterfront.

WENN