Peter O’Toole joins previously-cast John Goodman in...

Peter O’Toole joins previously-cast John Goodman in Universal’s “King Ralph,” scheduled to film in the U.K. in mid-April. The comedy’s based on a novel, “Headlong,” by the late Welsh actor-writer Emlyn Williams, which has the entire Royal Family wiped out in an electrical storm during the photographing of a family portrait. A trace of the royal bloodline leads to Goodman, a Las Vegas lounge pianist. O’Toole will play royal secretary to the new, improbable King of England. David S. Ward writes and directs. Then, in July, Goodman reunites with filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen for “Barton Fink,” a ‘40s murder mystery in which Goodman will play a Hollywood screenwriter from Kansas City. He last worked with the writing-producing-directing Coen brothers team on “Raising Arizona.” . . .

Isabella Rossellini has landed the lead role in Imagine Entertainment’s “Closet Land,” written and to be directed by Radha Bharadwaj, a Temple University film school grad with TV credits in her native India. The script, originally developed at the Sundance Institute, is an intense drama that takes place in one room with a man interviewing a female prisoner. Because of its anti-torture theme, Amnesty International is reportedly supporting the script in Hollywood. The film, produced by Janet Meyers, will start production by or before May.

Carl Reiner has cast Kirstie Alley as a repressed housewife who embarks on her first extramarital affair in “Sibling Rivalry.” The comedy, written by Martha Goldhirsch, begins filming in May for Castle Rock/Nelson Entertainment. Columbia will release.

Exotic locations: Producer Jeffrey Sneller will soon find himself producing films virtually at opposite ends of the globe. First comes “The Ice Runner,” rolling April 30 in Murmansk, U.S.S.R., near the Finnish border, under the direction of James Fargo. Timothy Bottoms stars as a CIA agent imprisoned in the Soviet gulag in 1986; Pat Morita plays a Mongolian trader. Negotiations are under way with Rod Steiger and Joanna Pacula for the other key roles. Four Seasons will handle U.S. distribution. . . . Then in June, Sneller and producer Raju Patel launch production in Africa on Sneller’s own adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s journey into colonialist depravity, “Heart of Darkness.” Michael Wadleigh, best known for “Woodstock” and “Wolfen,” will direct the Allied Entertainment production. Negotiations are under way with Liam Neeson to play the main protagonist, Marlow. Filming will take place in Kenya, Zaire, Uganda and Zimbabwe. . . .

Also filming in Africa--in Burundi, a country which has never before witnessed Western film making--is “Snake Eyes.” Malcolm McDowell, Sydney Penny, Lois Chiles, French star Philippe Leotard and Jason Cairns star in this modern-day fable for Jaques SandozFilm Prods. At $5.5 million, the film is said to be the most expensive Swiss-backed film ever.

Writer-producer Paul Rapp and Teleview Prods. have set Joe Sirola in the title role of “The Commissioner.” This film biography of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Major League Baseball’s first commissioner, goes into production this fall. No director has been set.

Moshe Mizrahicq, whose directing career in Israel and France has resulted in three Oscar nominations for best foreign film, including the Oscar-winning “Madame Rosa,” has come to L.A. to prepare for his first American film. “Paradise Man,” to shoot this fall mostly in New York (with some locations in France), is based on a detective novel by Jerome Charyn, an American writer more celebrated in France than here. Casting for Rosa/Guy Prods. will get under way in a few weeks.