Here's a novel marketing ploy: Shoot a movie, ramp up the buzz and never release it. Such is the fate of All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, a slasher flick that, despite gathering dust for two years, has worked wonders for its star, Amber Heard.

"More people comment on it to me than anything else and it hasn't even come out yet in America," the 22-year-old tells Sun Media. "It's really remarkable that the movie has such a cult following."

Not that Heard has been idling in the meantime. The past two years -- highlighted by the short-lived TV series Hidden Palms -- have been "all work. It's been non-stop."

And she reached a pop-culture tipping point of sorts this past summer when she appeared in the Judd Apatow-produced comedy Pineapple Express opposite Seth Rogen and James Franco at the same time she landed on the cover of Maxim magazine.

"I was expecting to get tables (at restaurants) faster, but no, not so much," she laughs. "I'm going to get (the Maxim cover) silk-screened on a shirt to let people know."

A self-described drama club "nerd" in high school, Heard left Texas for Los Angeles when she was still a teenager.

After a smattering of bit roles, she landed the lead in Mandy Lane, which went on to bow in 2006 at the Toronto International Film Festival before it got snared in distribution woes.

Making that film, she recalls, "was such a good feeling. I'd work 14 hours a day, get home and then just wish I was back at work. I'm lucky that I've found that feeling at a young age. Most people I don't think have that."

Indeed, unlike most young starlets, Heard sounds a lot more interested in acting than clubbing -- or much else of what Hollywood has to offer. She doesn't even own a TV. "No, no, not at all. I don't want to poison myself with the s--- that's on there. But if there's an art-house cinema in my town or near me, I'll make it there to see a foreign film once in a while. And if I need some relief, I'll go to the Grove (theatre in L.A.) and watch a comedy."

Next up for Heard: The Joneses with David Duchovny and Demi Moore.

CIRCLE OF STRIFE: We doubt there's a nude bathhouse knife fight in Denzel Washington's future, but you never know, now that David Cronenberg -- bolstered by A History of Violence and Eastern Promises -- is expected to direct The Matarese Circle. Early casting speculation: How about Cronenberg's frequent collaborator, Viggo Mortensen, as the Russian spy who teams up with Washington's CIA operative against a common threat?

HERE THEY GO AGAIN: Sounds like a lot of people are getting too old for this s---.

Add Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins to the cavalcade of actors apparently looking to re-capture some 1980s-era glory. The trio is circling a sequel to its baseball comedy Bull Durham, reports the New York Post.

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are expected to make Lethal Weapon 5 very shortly (after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Live Free or Die Hard, did you really expect them not to?) while Jeff Bridges has signed for Tr2n, a sequel to the groundbreaking 1982 classic, Tron.

Meanwhile, in the works is a remake of (not sequel to) the 1987 supernatural thriller Angel Heart. Terrifically chilling but underrated, the movie is probably best remembered for the mini-scandal it created thanks to its explicit sex scenes between Mickey Rourke and The Cosby Show's Lisa Bonet.

kevin.williamson@sunmedia.ca

Amber Heard cannot be seen in All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, which is held up by

distribution woes. But she is in Pineapple Express and has been on the cover of Maxim.