Thanks to Riikka for the news.

Christina Ricci will star in a comedy titled Penelope, to be produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Type-A Films and financed by Stone Village Pictures, reports Variety.

The script, a modern-day fable about a woman under a curse who tries to end a lifelong string of bad luck, is the first by Everybody Loves Raymond supervising producer Leslie Caveny. Witherspoon will also play a supporting role.

The film will be helmer Mark Palansky’s feature debut. The movie is scheduled to start filming in January, after Ricci wraps Black Snake Moan, in which she stars opposite Samuel L. Jackson for Hustle & Flow direct Craig Brewer.

From ComingSoon.Net.

From MTV and thanks to the wondful Riikka. Click on the MTV link for a video with Ricci talking about her character.

Christina Ricci is one of only a handful of Hollywood actors who have successfully made the leap from child star to critically acclaimed box-office bait. She’s done so by tackling, shall we say, rather unconventional roles — and the indie queen won’t be veering far from that strategy with her upcoming dramatic flick, “Black Snake Moan.”

Helmed by “Hustle & Flow” writer-director Craig Brewer, “Black Snake Moan” depicts an anxious white girl (Ricci) who’s “cured” of her self-destructive nymphomania by Lazarus, an older black bluesman played by Samuel L. Jackson.

“Some people in my character’s town don’t know anything about panic disorders or post-traumatic shock syndrome, so they call her a nymphomaniac,” Ricci told MTV News at the recent red-carpet premiere of “Hustle & Flow,” where she was showing support for her new director. “But the term ‘nymphomania’ is so broadly and incorrectly used that I hesitate to sum her up that quickly. It’s basically about a girl who suffers physical flashbacks to a childhood rape. Some women and young girls freak out, panic, and need to cut themselves. [My character] needs to cause herself the same kind of pain when she has panic attacks by having anonymous sex.

“It’s basically about how two people can save each other and free themselves from the places they’ve been reduced to in society,” the actress explained. “There’s very intimate communication between my and Sam’s characters. It’s really moving.”

“Moan” is slated to start shooting in about seven weeks, and boy-bander-turned-thespian Justin Timberlake has signed on to play Ricci’s love interest (see “Justin Timberlake In Talks To Co-Star In Flick With Samuel L. Jackson”). “Justin’s a Memphis boy, so we had to work together,” Brewer joked. “But I think people are going to be surprised by Justin. This movie really pushes the envelope, and it’s about the blues — which means it’s about race and sex and God and the devil. So, you know, it’s going to be big.” Timberlake will don military garb for his role. “Justin plays a soldier who’s going off to Iraq,” Brewer said. “The movie explores his and Ricci’s characters’ unique relationship.”

“Justin’s going to be great,” Ricci said of her co-star-to-be. “He seems perfect for the part. He’s a really sweet guy. Me and my sister are like, ‘Do you think Justin will teach us how to pop and lock?’ I really want him to.” “Black Snake Moan” is scheduled for a 2006 release.

Check out everything we’ve got on “Black Snake Moan.”

Visit Movies on MTV.com for more from Hollywood, including news, interviews, trailers and more.

— Brandee J. Tecson, with reporting by Kelly Marino

Christina attended the Premiere of “Hustle And Flow” in Los Angeles last Wednesday, we have the pictures.

We’re extremely sorry for the downtime the last couple of days. The domain expired and we’ve had some troubles transferring and renewing it. But all’s well now… thanks to Jen for paying for another year of C-Ricci.com!
Look out for loads of updates now that the site’s back!

I added a couple of appearance pictures and movie stills to the gallery, but most importantly some great magazine outtakes!

I have added 3 videos into our video section from Christina promoting Cursed on various talk shows. We now have the complete appearances from Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Late Night With Conan O’Brien and the Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Thanks to Salvador for the Tonight Show and Late Night videos! I have the rest of Christina’s appearances (and even her Joey episode) that I will be turning into videos soon! Enjoy and feel free to comment.

Thanks to Wilson for the following article.

“While talking about his upcoming film, Hustle and Flow, which is now coming out on July 22nd, Director Craig Brewer gave me an insight as to his next film, Black Snake Moan. The film will star Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci and Justin Timberlake.

Harry Knowles of www.aintitcoolnews.com had reported earlier that the film you are about do next, Black Snake Moan, is something similar to the cult classic I Spit on Your Grave? Is that true?

Craig Brewer: Yeah, I want to clear that up because Harry’s right to report that but it’s really in the visual esthetic. What blaxploitation movies were to Hustle and Flow, your dry then mud-slap honey moon shiner southern girl in daisy dukes shorts, that gator bait, I spit on your grave, that’s kind of a visual esthetic, but I’m not doing a revenge pic. It’s not like “Kill Bill” or anything like that. This is a movie where we are taking some of the most sexual and racially charged imagery and putting it into a movie where you look deeper and you find that these are human beings, but it is a movie that deals this wave of sexual addiction; this wave of heat that hits this character that Christina Ricci plays. At its core come fear and a place of addiction that she feels comfortable with; and then you have this old black man named Lazarus who used to play the blood buckets back in the day. He used to play the juke joints and he used to be a bluesman that would drink and would really go to dark places, but he’s put that behind him now, and now he’s found this girl, sort of beat up, on the side of the road and it’s about him keeping her prisoner so she won’t go out and have the whole town use her like a dusty doormat. Even though you think he has these good intentions in doing what he wants to do, he still wants to control the woman and his woman just left him and he’s feeling a little bit cut off at the gut and he’s angry and he wants to tell some little run around switch that you can’t be doing that shit. It’s this war where two people are looking at each other and they are chained to each other. Literally, he chains her on this long chain with about 20 foot of slack to this radiator and she can’t leave. She can walk all throughout the house but she can’t leave this little house in the country. So you look at the imagery of this old black country man with a white hot redneck girl on the end of a chain, and you are going to go “What?” But the same thing was said about a black pimp and a white hooker trying to make rap music. That’s not all what the movie is about. The South is a collision course. There are so many things that have collided but that is ultimately what makes us all family. It makes us connected to each other where normally we wouldn’t be connected. Music is very important in my work. The film movie I made was on DV and I was inspired by classical music even though it had a blues and some rap in it, it was primarily about classical music because it was about a car thief who stole a car from a girl who was a cello player and when he took her car she had this tape of cello music that she made; so he’s a bouncer at a strip club and he’s seen all these strippers dancing, and now he bought a walkman and listening to this classical music and his world has changed. He’s like seeing it through a different soundtrack; and it’s almost making him see the art in life. So if that film, Poor and Hungry, was about discovering art, then Hustle and Flow is about discovering creativity about making art. Black Snake Moan is about being caught in that wicked place. Everybody’s thinking that the title is sexually suggestive, and sure, there is that twinge to it, but it an old Blind Lemon Jefferson Blues song called “Black Snake Moan” and “Black Snake Moan” is one of the wickedest blues songs ever. This is a song from back in 20s with,

I – I ain’t got no mama now She told me late last night, “You don’t need no mama no how” Mmm, mmm, black snake crawlin’ in my room Mmm, mmm, black snake crawlin’ in my room Some pretty mama better come and get this black snake soon

It’s this thing that’s in your mind; that’s in your soul, that’s in your gut, that’s coming to get you because it knows yourself; and that what both of these characters that Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci play and they are battling their black snake moan. ”

Read the rest at blackfilm.com