Zeta-Jones eyes move to 'House'

'Zorro' thesp to star in D'Works thriller

By ANDREW HINDES

Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, who has been much in demand since her performance as the swashbuckling beauty in "The Mask of Zorro," is in advanced talks to star in DreamWorks' "The Haunting of Hill House."

Zeta-Jones plays Theo in the Jan De Bont helmed chiller about a team of researchers who investigate an old house to determine if a ghost resides there. She joins previously announced cast members Liam Neeson and Lili Taylor.

Susan Arnold and Donna Roth of Roth/Arnold Prods. are producing the pic, which is based on a Shirley Jackson novel of the same name. David Self is scripting.

The book was previously made into the 1963 feature "The Haunting," directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom and Russ Tamblyn.

Paul Lister is the DreamWorks' exec on the production. The studio is tentatively planning to release "Hill House" at Christmas 1999.

Zeta-Jones is currently shooting New Regency and Fox's "Entrapment," in which she plays an undercover insurance investigator opposite Sean Connery, Ving Rhames and Will Patton.

Zeta-Jones is repped by ICM.