FILMHoly Cash Cow!: Batman will return to...

FILM

Holy Cash Cow!: Batman will return to the big screen as fast as a super-hero can, and he’ll bring along director Joel Schumacher. With “Batman Forever” at a more than $300-million gross worldwide, Warner Bros. is planning to begin shooting with Schumacher on a fourth “Batman” movie in fall 1996 and have the film out by summer 1997, the studio confirmed Monday. The script has not been written yet, and no stars have signed deals, but most Hollywood insiders expect Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell to return to their roles as the Caped Crusaders. Schumacher, meanwhile, is filming John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill” in Mississippi.

POP MUSIC

Going Home: The artist formerly known as Prince will now also be the artist formerly known as an Angeleno. The Purple One plans to sell his Los Angeles home and downtown nightclub, Glam Slam, so he can return to Minneapolis where he got his start, a spokesperson for the artist announced Monday, saying he is a “happier, healthier person” there. The artist recently began opening the doors to his Paisley Park recording facility near Minneapolis for alcohol-free club dancing five nights a week, and was said to be encouraged by the community environment that created. Meanwhile, the royal rocker’s “Gold Album,” featuring previously unreleased material, is scheduled to hit stores Sept. 26.

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London Calling: Top British pop stars including the Stone Roses, Blur, Paul Weller, the London Suede, Portishead, the Charlatans and Noel Gallagher of Oasis are to get together to record an album in aid of Bosnian children. The album will be recorded in a single session Sept. 1 in London recording studios that have offered their facilities for the project. Some 300,000 copies will be printed and go on sale in British record shops. Proceeds will go to the charity War Child, which is trying to ensure that insulin and other scarce drugs are available throughout Bosnia.

TELEVISION

HBO Tries On Pants: David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants production company is making its first venture into cable when it begins production this fall on a half-hour comedy for HBO. Titled “Emmett & Earl,” the series is a creation of “Late Show With David Letterman” writer Adam Resnick, who also wrote and directed the Fox series “Get a Life” and the film “Cabin Boy,” both starring Chris Elliott. Though no actors are yet set to star, the show will be about two scheming men who run a storage facility in Pittsburgh during the ‘50s. Worldwide Pants is also producing “The Bonnie Hunt Show” for CBS this fall.

PEOPLE WATCH

Who’s the Boss?: Tony Danza reportedly smashed a car window and grabbed a video camera from two men who had allegedly taped the actor and his kids on a Malibu beach, authorities said Monday. Danza allegedly pursued the men Sunday and got them to pull over by bumping their car with his Cadillac, then kicked and broke the window and made off with the camera after a struggle in which one man received several scratches, the sheriff’s report said. Danza wasn’t arrested, but the case will be forwarded to prosecutors for possible robbery and battery charges, Deputy Fidel Gonzales said. The former star of “Who’s the Boss?” and “Taxi” will star this fall in the new ABC series “Hudson Street,” in which he plays a divorced New Jersey detective sharing custody of his son with his ex-wife.

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Tanner TV: Los Angeles playwright Justin Tanner has signed a multiyear deal with Universal TV to develop comedy programming. While he also acts and directs in his stage productions, Tanner will serve primarily as a producer for the company’s fledging comedy roster. The playwright, whose “The Collected Plays of Justin Tanner” have earned critical raves, will debut his latest play, “Intervention,” at the Cast Theatre on Sept. 8.

QUICK TAKES

Actress Marlee Matlin will reprise her Emmy-nominated role as “the dancing bandit” in seven of the first 13 episodes of CBS’ “Picket Fences” this fall. . . . Orange County PBS affiliate KOCE-TV Channel 50 just concluded its summer pledge drive, topping last year’s fund-raiser largely thanks to three airings of “Dead Ahead: The Grateful Dead Concert,” from 1980. KCET-TV Channel 28, originally scheduled to air the show Aug. 28, has added a broadcast Thursday at 9 p.m. . . . Rob Morrow has dropped out of the production of “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” which is to begin shooting with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer in Australia on Aug. 30. He will be replaced by “Naked” star David Thewlis.