‘Little House’ Headed To Big Screen

“Little House on the Prairie” is about to head to the movies. Universal Pictures has acquired the rights to the popular television show’s antecedent, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s nine “Little House” books, and has signed two-time Academy Award-winner Horton Foote (“To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Tender Mercies”) to write a screenplay based on the stories about a 19th-century American girl on the frontier.

Although the books were the basis for “Little House on the Prairie,” don’t expect this project to be another example of rehashing old television fodder. Ed Friendly, who created the television version and sold the rights to Wilder’s books to Universal for an undisclosed sum, indicated he has no plans to bring any actors from the nine-year-long NBC series back to the prairie.

CBS News is teaming with Time magazine to produce six primetime specials during the next two years that will examine the most influential people of the 20th century.

CBS is the second network to announce a millennium-related project out of its news division. ABC has a 12-hour series in the works called “The 20th Century Project” that will air on the network in early 1999.

Kim Basinger is set to star in Woody Allen’s untitled fall project along with Kenneth Branagh, Leonardo DiCaprio and Drew Barrymore, sources said. Although she stars in the upcoming Warner Bros. film “L.A. Confidential,” that will be her first movie since 1994, when she co-starred with husband Alec Baldwin in “The Getaway.”