Inqlings: Croce's 'arrrrh'-rated movie deal

Well, shiver me timbers.

Entrepreneur

Pat Croce

is about to walk the plank with

Steven Spielberg

for a major motion picture about pirates.

Croce, producing partner

Barry Josephson

(

Enchanted

,

Bones

), and screenwriter

David Franzoni

(

Gladiator

,

Amistad

) last week got a green light from Dreamworks execs on Croce's idea for a genuine look at

Blackbeard

, the notorious 18th-century buccaneer formally known as

Edward Teach

. The deal is expected to hit the wire tomorrow in Variety.

"It'll be a period piece. Gritty. None of this

Pirates of the Caribbean

stuff," Croce said the other day. "Facts are even better than fiction."

Franzoni, writing the screenplay from Croce and Josephson's treatment, said he envisioned it as a cross between

Gladiator

and

The Last of the Mohicans

. (And not

Booty Call

, I'll guess.)

Asked for a plot synopsis, Franzoni said it was "too good to talk about." The screenplay is worth the high six figures, Josephson said. He and Croce met in Philly in 2002 when Croce got a walk-on part in Josephson's movie

Like Mike

.

How did they sell it? Croce, ever the showman (remember his antics as 76ers president?), went for a visual as they pitched at Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks. He whipped out pieces of eight and flakes of Blackbeard's actual gold to impress the execs. Croce, a pirate authority, owns a pirate museum in Key West, Fla.

Croce also was a producer of the shot-in-suburban-Philly independent feature

Our Lady of Victory

, which stars

Carla Gugino

,

David Boreanaz

, and a cast of nuns from Immaculata. Writer-director

Tim Chambers

says he's about to sell it. Screenings with studio execs are on the books as they return from the Cannes Film Festival.

WYSP (94.1) management may not have been listening to

Kidd Chris

on March 21 when a racist song parody aired on the potty-mouth morning show. But someone from a group calling itself Racial Dignity in Media was. An e-mail criticizing the song, which disparaged African Americans, was sent to radio executives and journalists Monday - about six weeks after the fact. On Friday, CBS announced the firing of

"Kidd Chris" Foley

and the station's program director,

John Cook

. CBS says the station had not seen the e-mail. WYSP says music will air tomorrow in the morning slot, with definitive plans TBA. Perhaps a return of

Paul Barsky

, whom WYSP is paying to sit home after relieving him of his midday show in September?

Was that

Lyndzi Kanter

or

Angela Kinsey

on Thursday's season finale of NBC's

The Office

? Kanter, who grew up in Abington and danced with the Wings lacrosse dance team in the 2006 and 2007 seasons, is a dead ringer for Kinsey, who plays tightly wound accountant Angela Martin. During filming last month, Kanter was body double and stand-in in some scenes for the actress, who was very pregnant. Kinsey delivered a girl May 3. Kanter (who came into the world more conventionally spelled "Lindsey") works at an Apple store in L.A.

Today's planned soft opening of Table 31, the steak house in the Comcast Center from chefs

Georges Perrier

and

Chris Scarduzio

, has been pushed to Thursday, when dinner and drinks will begin; lunch will start a week or so after. Meanwhile, Perrier is now a Philadelphian, according to public records, which show he paid $2.35 million for his spread in Chestnut Hill; he and wife

Andrea

moved this year from Haverford.

Also a Philadelphian is celeb chef

Eric Ripert

of New York's Le Bernardin. Tuesday will mark the opening of 10 Arts, his American restaurant in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, where Northeast Philly's

Jennifer Carroll

is chef de cuisine. Ripert has a deposit on a condo next door in the under-construction Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, where units start at a half-million. Ripert keeps New York hours; he visited Valanni at 13th and Spruce the other night at 12:30 a.m. for a bottle of Vermentino to wash down tapas.

The Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists on June 7 will fete

Michael Days

, editor of the Philadelphia Daily News;

Beverly Williams

, former CBS3 anchor;

Annette John-Hall

, Inquirer metro columnist;

Joyce Evans

, Fox29 reporter;

Vince Hill

, business anchor at KYW (1060); and

Michael Coard

, the lawyer who championed the recognition of slave artifacts uncovered at the President's House site.

Talk-show host

Mary Mason

was given the title "Mother of Philly Radio" at last Sunday's Mother's Day brunch hosted by Radio One - all the more interesting since Mason never worked for Radio One, which operates WPHI (100.3), WPPZ (103.9) and WRNB (107.9). She's on noon to 2 p.m. Saturdays on Beasley-owned WWDB (860).

Jennifer Aniston

, in town to shoot

Marley & Me

, lunched yesterday with four friends (under the eye of two guards) at El Vez, 13th and Sansom. Menu: tuna tostado, Mexican chopped salad, and a margarita with the rim only half-salted. With the prospect of

John Mayer

's joining her, New York paparazzi are out in force.

One of about four people not wearing orange at Thursday's Flyers game was

Owen Wilson

, who sat in Comcast-Spectacor president

Peter Luukko's

seats with a friend and Luukko's teenage daughter,

Dana

, after shooting scenes for

Marley & Me

at The Inquirer. He left in the third period.

Comcast-Spectacor will open the Wachovia Center today free to fans to watch Game 5 of the Flyers-Penguins series on 28 high-def plasmas and the center scoreboard; doors will open at 2 p.m.

Jim Jackson

will host an on-line chat on comcastsportsnet.com beginning at 2:30.

A poster advertising the flick

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets

has been tucked into one book about

Abraham Lincoln

at each of the Free Library of Philadelphia's 54 branches. The first person to check out each branch's book Tuesday will get the movie on DVD.

Jon Bon Jovi

and his Philadelphia Soul arena football team are scheduled to turn up on CBS'

60 Minutes

at 7 tonight.

Steve Kroft's

profile includes concert footage shot here, a tour of Bon Jovi's mansion, and a tour of 15 houses he helped rehab in North Philly.

It's no accident that local lawyer

Tom Gilhool

looks a lot like

C. Everett Koop

. Trying to kick his pack-a-day Marlboro habit a few years ago, the just-retired lead counsel of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia grew his beard for the sole purpose of resembling the former surgeon general, who made his mark as a doc at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "That way, every morning I'd look in the mirror and see the surgeon general telling me not to smoke," Gilhool, 69, told The Inquirer's Gail Shister.