Vatican grows programs

What's in the Vatican application?Until recently the Holy See's high-tech endeavors -- for instance iBrevary, Pope2You, as well as the JPII application -- are actually about hopes and pontiffs.In a departure, a completely new Vatican application, Lux in Arcana, continues to be dedicated to Giordano Bruno, the 16th century heretic friar burned alive in Rome. It features graphics of Giordano's pyre on Rome's Campo de' Fiori square and what remains in the legendary free-thinker's Inquisition file inside the Vatican Secret Archives.The Accenture-developed application, being launched Feb. 29, also provides multimedia links to Bruno's existence and works also to other Vatican Secret Archives files displayed the first time in the Rome exhibition. The unequalled disclosure, paradoxically, comes similar to the Vatican indicates while using so-referred to as Vati-leaks scandal over leaked documents, plus a memo going for a chance of a plot to eliminate the present pope.Vatican techies started veering in the strictly religious late a year ago when the Vatican Library as well as the National Geographic Funnel launched a Michelangelo application featuring sketches and documents with the Renaissance great.Nowadays, religion-related programs created by outsiders will be the bane in the Holy See. Captured the Vatican lashed out against "Confession: A Roman Catholic Application" created by Indiana-based Little iApps. He reminded Roman Catholics that you can't really confess their sins utilizing a smartphone. Contact Nick Vivarelli at nvivarelli@gmail.com

Tuner version of 'The Bodyguard' set to bow

Heather Headley will play the Whitney Houston role in a stage tuner version of the 1992 Kevin Costner movie "The Bodyguard," opening at London's Adelphi theater in the fall. Houston's recent death might look like the spur to the production but the tuner has been in the works for some time. Produced by David Ian ("Grease," "The Sound of Music") and Michael Harrison, it was originally skedded to open this spring at the Aldwych Theater with Alexandra Burke, winner of TV's "The X Factor" in the Houston role. Thea Sharrock ("Equus") will direct the show, which will have a book by Alex Dinelaris ("Zanna, Don't") and additional songs from Houston's back catalog. The show marks the U.K. stage debut for Grammy winner Headley, who also won the Best Actress Tony for her perf in Disney's "Aida." Further casting has yet to be announced. Although dates have yet to be confirmed, the production will follow the strictly limited engagement of the transfer of the Chichester Festival Theater's SRO production "Sweeney Todd." Contact David Benedict at benedictdavid@mac.com

Roberts, Povinelli on 'Hot' streak

Eric Roberts and Mark Povinelli have signed on since the male leads inside the Susan Seidelman-helmed basketball comedy "The Menopause Flashes," starring Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Melanie Griffith, Wanda Sykes and Camryn Manheim. Principal photography began Monday in New Orleans. Film continues to be produced by Nina Henderson Moore, Kaira Hennig and Seidelman, with Laurie Lacob professional creating. "The Menopause Flashes," composed by Hennig, concentrates on an unlikely team of unappreciated middle-aged Texas women, all former secondary school champs, who challenge the current arrogant secondary school girls' condition champs to enhance money for breast cancers prevention.Roberts may have the estranged husband in the lead character referred to by Shields Povinelli will be the team's cranky coach.Shields plays the Flashes' team captain while Hannah shows a closeted lesbian fighting to manage inside the small Texas town. Griffith shows a five-time divorcee who joins they to have the ability to get even using one of her ex-husbands, your brain coach in the competitors. Sykes might be the mayor and merely African-American inside the small Texas town Manheim is certainly an an overweight teammate getting an idea for cannabis-laced desserts.Lightning Entertainment is handling worldwide sales. Contact Dork McNary at dork.mcnary@variety.com

WB taps Davies, del Toro for 'Beast'

Del ToroWatsonDavies Guillermo del Toro will direct "Beast," a new take on the "Beauty and the Beast" tale that Warners has tapped "Bridget Jones's Diary" scribe Andrew Davies to write.WB's "Harry Potter" star Emma Watson is in final negotiations to topline the period pic. Del Toro was originally on board just to produce. DiNovi Pictures' Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan will produce with del Toro, who plans to write a treatment from which Davies will work. Del Toro, who's currently filming "Pacific Rim" for WB and Legendary Pictures, is credited as a co-writer on both of WB's upcoming "Hobbit" movies. He recently exec produced Universal's "Mama" and DreamWorks Animation's "Rise of the Guardians."Having wrapped her long-running role as Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" pics, Watson will next reteam with "Deathly Hallows" director David Yates. She co-stars in "My Week With Marilyn" and will soon be seen in Summit's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."Davies, who wrote "Bridget Jones's Diary" and its 2004 sequel, most recently penned "The Three Musketeers" and "Brideshead Revisited."WME reps both del Toro and Watson, who are also respectively repped by Exile Entertainment and U.K.-based Markham, Froggatt and Irwin. Davies is repped by CAA. Contact Jeff Sneider at jeff.sneider@variety.com

NBCU, Google to check Olympic games coverage

Aerial images from December show the transformation from the Olympic Park working in london, in which the Summer time Games is going to be held. Searching to create its 2012 Olympic games coverage a testbed for calculating mix-platform viewing, NBCUniversal has arranged Google and Comscore for a number of close ties. Google will appraise the Olympic viewing habits of three,000 customers who've signed up to obtain their multiplatform usage monitored by the organization. Comscore will use a subset of the panel with 10,000 customers to be able to develop on demographic designs. The significance of understanding progressively complex viewing habits was underscored a week ago by new mix-platform Nielsen data that found TV consumption shedding among audiences 18-34. That demo might be shifting its videowatching to digital platforms in ways that existing measurement abilities don't have the sophistication to completely note. "The issue is, as people migrate and employ other platforms, unless of course we obtain credit for your viewing, it is going to have serious implications for that industry," stated Alan Wurtzel, leader of research at NBCU. NBCU has multiple goals for that research initiative. Through getting a handle how eyeballs scatter across different media when consuming the Olympic games, the conglom will receive a better handle on programming the teambuilding, that has been challenging because the 100s of hrs were first spread beyond TV to the web. The Olympic games will also be about as near as scientists could possibly get to catching a peek at what the way forward for media consumption is going to be like because of the sheer amount of content that streams across TV, the net and wireless products for any sustained time period. "It's like Haley's comet, you need to employ this unique chance to know contemporary behavior," stated Wurtzel. That understanding wouldn't simply be answer to giving NBCU an awareness of methods to program mix-platform later on but exactly how to monetize growing interest from marketers who wish to have more ambitious using their marketing beyond TV. Wurtzel rejected to show the other companies is going to be joining up with NBCU but stated that social networking and out-of-home viewing are the key areas that may also be handled. Bulletins which companies is going to be focusing on individuals areas are required within the coming days. The 2012 Games, that will bow in This summer from London, will mark the continuation of the items Wurtzel has named "the billion-dollar lab" -- research assets put on quantifying viewing designs for that Olympic games, which NBCU has compensated massive sums to possess the privileges to for that expected future. The conglom is relying on a brand new batch of information to predict alterations in content consumption the way in which its research unit handled to complete in the 2010 Games in Vancouver. Findings incorporated explosive development in video around the apple iphone along with a preference for content delivery via applications within the WAP-based mobile platform which has since fallen into relative disuse. But individuals findings were learned from the small sample that'll be dwarfed in what Google, Comscore yet others will have the ability to utilize. Furthermore, you will see more platforms to pay for this season given pills such as the iPad which were barely around 2 yrs ago are actually significant distribution points. Mobile viewing generally is continuing to grow in ways which makes the takeaway in the last Olympic games almost obsolete. "It astounds me to consider just how much the earth has transformed since Vancouver this year,Inch stated Wurtzel. NBCU has yet to specify its specific programming plans for that 2012 Olympic games, but has established that live feeds is going to be on digital platforms as the conglom's variety of Television channels may have more programming hrs than ever before. Contact Andrew Wallenstein at andrew.wallenstein@variety.com