Movie Notes: Woody's New Troubles

June 27 -- Woody Allen's fight with his longtime producer Jean Doumanian has reached a new level of acrimony — and a showdown in civil court is looming.

Allen brought a suit against Doumanian, claiming that she cheated him out of profits on eight movies they made together since 1993. Now she is countersuing, claiming she overpaid him.

Doumanian says her company, Sweetland Films, began financing Allen movies when the directors personal life was plagued with scandal.

At the time, Allen had left his longtime girlfriend, Mia Farrow, and embarked upon a relationship with Farrow's adopted college-age daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Farrow accused Allen of sexually abusing the little girl they adopted together. Allen, who denied the allegations, sued unsuccessfully for custody of the girl, another adopted child and his biological son with Farrow.

Doumanian claims that TriStar stopped financing Allen's pictures after his controversial marriage to Previn. She says her company stepped in to fill the void. But not all of Allen's pictures have been successful.

Allen says the movies earned "substantial revenues" that totaled millions of dollars, but he was not sure exactly what Doumanian owed him because she refused to give him accurate financial information.

Benigni's Pinocchio

Pinocchio is coming to life in Italy.

Actor/director Roberto Benigni started shooting the most expensive Italian film ever. Shooting began Monday amid tight security in in the southern village of Pignone, near Terni.

Benigni won three Oscars in 1998 for Life Is Beautiful for acting, directing and writing.

Moreover …

Haley Joel Osment, who plays a boy robot in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence, is already at work on another Spielberg project, Minority Report, with Tom Cruise. The film will be released next year. … Do you think Americans are the only ones obsessed with reality TV? "It's everywhere, sadly, and it isn't going away," says Thekla Reuten, who is in the United States promoting Miramax's Everybody's Famous, the story of a man who kidnaps a Flemish Britney Spears clone to jump-start his daughter's career. … Vin Diesel, who has a No. 1 box office hit to his credit with The Fast and the Furious, is rumored to play the villain in Terminator 3. Arnold Schwarzenegger is committed to the project. In original drafts, the role was written for a woman.