‘Hurt Locker’ team on bin Laden project

The filmmakers behind the Oscar-winning war-on-terror drama “The Hurt Locker” are moving forward with an action thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have had the bin Laden project in the works, and now that the al-Qaida leader has been killed, a person close to the filmmakers said the film is more relevant than ever. The film will center on the Black Ops pursuit of bin Laden, the source said.

U.S. forces have hunted bin Laden since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks nearly 10 years ago. A team of Navy SEALs shot and killed bin Laden early Monday at a compound in Pakistan.

Levinson goes ‘Gotti’

“Rain Man” director Barry Levinson has signed on to tell a big-screen story about the John Gotti crime family.

The Academy Award winner is directing “Gotti: Three Generations,” which stars John Travolta as John Gotti Sr. and co-stars Lindsay Lohan and Joe Pesci.

Travolta’s wife, Kelly Preston, will play Gotti’s wife, Victoria. And the couple’s daughter, Ella Bleu Travolta, will play daughter Angel Gotti.

Production starts this fall in New York, with the film expected in theaters late in 2012.

Levinson said he was attracted to the project because it provides an insider’s view. The film is told from the perspective of John Gotti Jr., whose life story was acquired by Fiore Films, which is producing the movie.

Gotti Sr. died in prison in 2002.

“Rain Man” earned four Oscars in 1988, including best picture and director. Levinson’s other credits include “Diner,” “Bugsy” and “Good Morning, Vietnam.”

Spielberg logs Lincoln locale

Steven Spielberg has selected Virginia as the location to film a biography of Abraham Lincoln starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Principal filming is scheduled to begin this fall at various historical locations in Petersburg and Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy.

Sally Field will play Mary Todd Lincoln. The film is scheduled for release in 2012.

The film is based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin book “Team of Rivals,” a 2005 best-seller that examines Lincoln’s presidency and the Civil War. Tony Kushner will write the screenplay.

The Virginia Film Office said Spielberg, who has filmed twice before in the state, selected Petersburg and Richmond because of the abundance of historic properties that date to the period.

The state also offered financial incentives totaling nearly $5 million.