DIRECTOR WILL DELIVER BILLY BOB THORNTON'S `THE GIFT'.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

It looks like Sam Raimi's directorial follow-up to Kevin Costner's ``For the Love of the Game'' will be ``The Gift,'' written by Billy Bob Thornton.

``It's about an Arkansas woman who is a psychic and gets involved with the local police to try and solve a murder,'' says Brent Briscoe, who co-stars in Raimi's current ``A Simple Plan'' with Thornton and Bill Paxton. ``The story is based on Billy Bob's real mother.''

``The Gift'' is set to go before the cameras for Paramount in late spring, after Raimi wraps ``Love of the Game.'' The Paramount film is just one of the projects on Briscoe's upcoming plate.

The actor/writer, who went from ``A Simple Plan'' to roles in ``The Green Mile'' with Tom Hanks,'' Jim Carrey's ``Man on the Moon'' and HBO's ``Jack Bull'' with John Cusack, is next going to concentrate on getting his original screenplay, ``Wakin' Up in Reno,'' off the ground. Billy Bob Thornton is producing the project, which was bought by Miramax last year. ``We're going through the process of finding the right director now,'' Briscoe says.

Hot ice

Olympic ice-skating champ Brian Boitano will finish a one-week holiday break by watching his Jan. 1 CBS ``Holiday Skating Spectacular'' special in San Francisco with his parents - and then it will be back to the grind that includes four months of touring and four 1999 TV specials.

``Brian Boitano's Holiday Skating Spectacular,'' which was taped in Reno on Dec. 18, features several of the world's top ice skaters - including Kristi Yamaguchi, Todd Eldredge, Brian Orser and Lu Chen. Plus singers Al Jarreau and Linda Eder.

Boitano makes the point that he - and his skating peers - are lucky to have been born when they were. Not too long ago, he notes, ``Skaters didn't have many options besides joining an ice show. But today ... well, I'm so busy that if I were twins, both of us could be performing every night of the year. I call it the golden age of ice skating.''

Person to person

It's been a huge year for me,'' notes MTV ``Total Request Live'' host Carson Daly. ``I've been lucky. I've been getting a lot of interest for a variety of other things - acting offers, things like that.'' But the affable Daly, who co-hosts the music network's live New Year's Eve party/show with his real-life girlfriend, ``Party of Five's'' Jennifer Love Hewitt, won't be going into Jennifer's line of work full-time. He says he'd consider ``playing roles that are really me. Like Courtney Love's role in `The People vs. Larry Flynt' - how much of that was a stretch for her?'' Daly says, ``In a perfect world, I could see myself in 10 years with my own late-night show, like Conan O'Brien or David Letterman.''

First things first, though. Carson makes it clear he loves his MTV. ``There was a newspaper article about three years ago saying, `What happened to the M in MTV?' The network was full of too many other things than music. About a year and a half ago, they opened the Times Square studios. They began a face lift, and I came on the first year of that face lift. This has been a remarkable year for MTV, with the largest audience it's ever had. I know my fellow hosts know their music and are passionate about it. We're paid to be a liaison, to be part of, the pop culture - not to spend three hours in makeup being a star, as some of our predecessors apparently did.''

New directions

Lisa Loeb, who popped up on ``The Drew Carey Show'' and ``Cupid'' recently, continues training as an actress even as she readies material for the album she'll begin recording early next year. And then there's her new interest, golf. Lisa and Dweezil Zappa recently returned from a golf weekend in Atlanta. She set him up to play a round with golf great Davis Love as a birthday present - and wound up taking lessons herself.

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Sam Raimi

Wraps Costner's ``Game''

(2) Brian Boitano

Golden age for skaters

(3) Lisa Loeb

Different strokes