Screen Gems and Lakeshore have signed Swedish directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein to direct “Underworld 4.”

Marlind and Stein helmed supernatural thriller “Shelter,” starring Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Kate Beckinsale signed in September as the lead in the fourth installment of “Underworld.”

Production on the latest tale of vampires vs. werewolves is set to start in Vancouver in March. Screen Gems has already set a Jan. 20, 2012, release date.

Lakeshore’s Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi are producing with Len Wiseman. John Hlavin penned the script with revisions by J. Michael Straczynski.

The three “Underworld” pics — released in 2003, 2006 and 2009 — have combined for about $300 million worldwide B.O.

- Thanks JJ for pointing out the article

Contraband (Thriller) A former smuggler is lured back into the business by financial troubles. Starring Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale. Casting: Sheila Jaffe, Walken and Jaffe Casting, c/o Working Title Films, 9720 Wilshire Blvd., 4th floor, Beverly Hills, CA 90212. Shoots in January in New Orleans.

- backstage.com

The last time we checked, Universal wasn’t the most popular or successful studio in Hollywood. Over the past few years they’ve had more than a fair share of bombs, but that’s not stopping them from taking risks. According to Deadline, the studio has emerged as a financier for the Kate Beckinsale, Mark Walhberg film Contraband, the American remake of the 2008 Icelandic feature Reykjavic-Rotterdam.

In the original version of the film, it centered on a security guard and former alcohol smuggler on the Iceland-Netherlands route who is tempted back into illicit business by a dubious friend after the security guard encounters financial problems. Contraband has been bouncing from Universal, to Working Title, to Relativity Media before ultimately ending up at Universal.

The budget is set at a modest $30 million with Wahlberg and Beckinsale in the package. Contraband will be directed by Baltasar Kormakur, but we’re awaiting info on when production will officially start. Even though we’re happy that the film has found a home, we’re not sure if Universal is the best place for it to be. How will they market the film? Do they expect it to bring in a large commercial audience? These questions need answers.

- screenCrave.com

Actress Kate Beckinsale has signed onto the upcoming remake Contraband, which was formerly entitled Reykjavik-Rotterdam.

Latino Review reported the casting news for this upcoming thriller, which also stars Mark Wahlberg. The story centers on a reformed criminal who used to be an alcohol smuggler along the famed Iceland-Netherlands route. Now, he is a lowly security guard who is tempted back into his life of crime due to money troubles. It wasn’t clear what role Kate Beckinsale will take on in the movie.

Aaron Guzikowski wrote the script, which Baltasar Kormákur will direct from. Baltasar Kormákur starred in and produced the original Reykjavik-Rotterdam movie.

No production schedule was given at this time.

Contraband comes to theaters in 2011 and stars Mark Wahlberg, Kate Beckinsale. The film is directed by Baltasar Kormákur.

Underworld 4 has been bumped back — perhaps to fine-tune the 3-D effects? — from September 23, 2011 all the way back to January 20, 2012. Kate Beckinsale reportedly will return to reprise her role as Selene, but in a much smaller capacity as she passes the torch on to her (yet-to-be-cast) daughter.

- Please remember that we do not know if Kate is indeed going to be in Underworld 4 or not, this is a rumor.

Kate Beckinsale may be from the UK, but you wouldn’t know it from her IMDB page. Unlike everyone else with a British accent, since hitting it big she’s mostly avoided their national obsession by being one of the few Brit actresses not to play some sort of princess or queen. That may be about to change.

OK! claims she’s “lined up” to play Princess Margaret in The Princess and the Gangster, a movie about the royal’s love affair with notorious gangster John Bindon. They allegedly met on a Caribbean getaway in 1968 and the press went nuts with tales of wild sex, though Princess Margaret denied meeting him.

OK! claims the movie is being written by Louis Mellis, the mind behind Ray Winstone’s Sexy Beast. This story has actually been told before, in a 2009 BBC TV movie of the same name. Not surprising, given the British fixation on their royal family.

— Oh boy! This sounds like a great film. I can’t wait to hear more, can you guys?

Everything wasn’t fine for Everybody’s Fine at the box office, but the movie is getting another go-around on DVD. On February 23rd Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will try to warm your heart by making Everybody’s Fine available to own.

When his children bail on a family reunion at the last minute, recent widower Frank (Robert De Niro) decides to pay them each a visit. During his effort to reconnect with his family, Frank finds out that the joyful and happy lives they’ve told him about aren’t entirely accurate.

With a cast including De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell, and Kate Beckinsale, Everybody’s Fine is a DVD that’ll be hard to pass up. The disc will cost you $29.99 and comes with some deleted and extended scenes, as well as “The Making of Paul McCartney’s ‘(I Want to) Come Home.’” Oddly, there’s no Blu-ray addition to trade in more cash for more material. Of course, Everybody’s Fine isn’t the type of film you must see in the clarity of Blu-ray, but it is odd for a wide-release film not to be available on both formats.