No G-8 summit for Clooney, Murray

Actors head to L'Aquila for activism, marketing

By NICK VIVARELLI

Even at the heavyweight G-8 summit, there's nothing like a bit of star power to focus attention.

While climate change and inclusiveness were front and center as the confab of key world leaders got under way last week in L'Aquila, Italy, George Clooney and Bill Murray swooped in July 9 with a mix of humanitarian activism and movie marketing.

An April 6 earthquake in the Abruzzo region killed 300 people and left thousands homeless, and the stars arrived by helicopter to support quake victims living in tents, inaugurating a movie theater in a tent camp in San Demetrio, where Fox world-preemed clips from Wes Anderson's animated "Fantastic Mr. Fox," which is voiced by the thesps and tipped to world preem at the Venice Film Festival. The preview was followed by the Italo preem of Fox's "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."Clooney announced that his next movie will shoot in the region in September, "because I think this is the best way to provide a helping hand and relaunch the economy," he said.

That pic is most likely Anton Corbijn's thriller "A Very Private Gentleman," in which Clooney will play an assassin who hides in an idyllic Italian town before a final hit. Pic is being produced by Focus Features.