Columbia Pictures has hired Billy Ray (Flightplan, Breach) to write its Somali pirates project, Variety reports. The untitled film will focus on captain Richard Phillips, who was held hostage by Somali pirates earlier this year.

Justin Theroux has signed on to produce Paramount’s Air Guitar, a film about the colorful characters in the world of air guitar competitions. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mike Lisbe and Nate Reger will write the script. Theroux is not expected to act in or direct the film.

Anne Hathaway, Neil Patrick Harris and Rodrigo Santoro are in talks to join the voice cast of 3D digital animated film Rio, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Rio is about a macaw from small-town Minnesota who flies away for Rio. The film – from Ice Age team Blue Sky Studios, Fox Animation and director Carlos Saldanha – is set for an April 2011 release.

DreamWorks has hired writer Laeta Kalogridis to adapt Japanese manga property Ghost in the Shell for a 3D live-action film, Variety reports. The futuristic police thriller has already been made into anime films and manga books and a TV series. Kalogridis wrote Scorsese’s forthcoming Shutter Island.

Bronson Pinchot is trying to explain his way out of the mini-Internet feud that came to light yesterday between himself, Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington after the actor, best known as Balki from the 1980s TV series Perfect Strangers, told the Onion’s A.V. Club that Cruise made “constant unrelated homophobic comments” while the two were on the set of Risky Business. He also is quoted saying Washington is “one of the most unpleasant human beings I’ve ever met.”

Pinchot responded to e-mailed questions from the Wall Street Journal. Some highlights: Pinchot says he wasn’t joking about his comments regarding Cruise, rather he was responding to the question, “What was Cruise like at the time?” Pinchot says he was surprised by Cruise’s homophobic language because of Pinchot’s own theater background where no one talked like that. “In hindsight, for a 20-year-old with no background in theater, such language is actually unremarkable. Which I did not know at 23.” In regards, to Washington, Pinchot amends his statement to say, “I found his willingness to be ungenerous, unkind, knowingly hurtful both mentally and physically to myself and the crew to be the saddest misuse of stardom I have ever experienced or hope to experience.”

Oh, so that’s what you meant. You can read the full-email exchange here.