Final ‘Star Wars’ film likely to get PG-13 rating

New York — George Lucas says the newest — and final installment — of his “Star Wars” films may get a PG-13 rating.

“I don’t think I would take a 5- or a 6-year-old to this. It’s way too strong,” Lucas says of “Star Wars Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” to air at 6 p.m. Sunday. “My feeling is that it will probably be a PG-13, so it will be the first ‘Star Wars’ that’s a PG-13.”

“Revenge of the Sith,” the third prequel to the “Star Wars” trilogy, will open May 19. The movie features Anakin Skywalker’s transformation to Darth Vader, a descent based on Lucas’ vision of hell, a mythical planet composed entirely of erupting volcanos.

“We’re going to watch him make a pact with the devil,” the director says. “The film is more dark … more emotional. It’s much more of a tragedy.”

Florida State uncovers early film of student Morrison

Tallahassee, Fla. — Thirty-four years after Jim Morrison’s death, the state of Florida has found and restored what it believes to be the earliest film of Morrison, shot in the early 1960s when he was a student at Florida State University.

In the FSU promotional film, Morrison plays a clean-cut prospective student who is denied enrollment at the school.

“We would like to accept you,” Morrison’s character is told. “Indeed, we’d like to offer more courses, more sections, but we just don’t have the space — that together with the lack of professors.”

“But what happened?” he asks. “How come my parents, and the state and the university didn’t look ahead?”

Morrison, who became lead singer of The Doors, attended FSU before enrolling in UCLA’s film school. He died in 1971 in Paris at age 27.

The black-and-white clip was discovered last year among films that WFSU, a PBS station operated by the university, donated to the state in 1989. It was recently posted on the state’s film archive Web site after being digitally converted.

It will air today on VH1, Sunflower Broadband Channel 58.

Grisham moves from fiction to fact with new thriller

New York — John Grisham’s next legal thriller will have a new twist: It will all be true. The author of “The Firm,” “The Client” and other best sellers is writing a work of nonfiction, his first, about a death-row inmate who nearly died for a murder he didn’t commit.

The book, not yet titled, is scheduled for publication in 2006.

“It’s a natural story for John to tell,” Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of Doubleday Broadway, said. “It has many of the same themes present in his novels — legal suspense, the death penalty, wrongful conviction, even baseball. It’s the ultimate true legal thriller.”

According to Doubleday, Grisham thought of the book after reading the obituary of Ronald Keith Williamson, a promising athlete drafted in the early 1970s by the Oakland Athletics. In 1986, he was arrested for the rape and murder of a 21-year-old Oklahoma woman. Williamson was convicted. He was within days of his scheduled execution, in 1999, when DNA testing proved he was not guilty.

Williamson died of cirrhosis of the liver in 2004. He was 51.

Birthdays

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is 69. News correspondent Sam Donaldson is 71. Singer Bobby McFerrin is 55. Movie director Jerry Zucker is 55. Singer Lisa Loeb is 37. Actress Thora Birch is 23.