Squinty-faced star Renee Zellweger is gonna have to open her eyes a little wider, since she’ll be using those peepers to scope out some spirits.

Zellweger, who I used to think was intensely adorable but now just sort of bugs me, will star in Paramount’s remake of the Chinese/Thai import The Eye.  The movie involves a woman, blind since childhood, who undergoes a cornea transplant to restore her sight. But she gets an unwelcome bonus along with her recovered vision: she sees some rather unpleasant dead people. Together with her handsome young therapist, they try to figure out why.

This is the second project Zellweger has become officially attached to this week — methinks maybe her people are trying a little too hard to draw attention away from her rather public matrimonial detachment.  The puckered performer will also star in a biopic of Beatrix Potter, who everyone knows was the inspiration for the Bride of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.  

The movie is being directed by the original The Ring director Hideo Nakata, and several writers have taken shots at the script’s pants-soiling scares, but when I talked to writer Sebastian Gutierrez (SNAKES ON A PLANE!) a few months ago he thought they might be using his draft.  I have to admit it’s a little weird seeing the A-list chicks agree to horror remakes (Nicole Kidman is currently hard at work on The Visiting, a pseudo-remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers), but I suppose it’s becoming the hip genre.  Besides, Zellweger has a connection to this project – it’s being produced by Tom Cruise, who she previously completed.

Show her the money on our message boards!