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While the world will soon be treated to Lindsay Lohan's sure-to-be acclaimed performance as a murdered stripper (remember, it's important that all evidence of acting talent be amplified so that her personal problems feel tinged with the tragedy of a squandered gift), we may never get to see the Oscar-caliber work she surely would've turned in as a con-lady who slaughters the homeless to collect on their insurance policies. According to today's Page Six, Poor Things, the project that believed in Lohan's ability so strongly that it was willing to alter its production schedule to accommodate her Promises hiatus, has been shut down, with at least one crew member blaming the star's post-rehab trip to Vegas for the crushing of their cinematic dreams:

Lohan was supposed to start filming "Poor Things" with Shirley MacLaine when she was out of rehab. But last week, product vendors including GE and Dell computers, who had been promised placement in the movie in exchange for cash, got a disturbing e-mail from set designer Fontaine Beauchamp Hebb.

Hebb's e-mail, with the subject line: " 'Poor Things' has been cancelled," said, "Sorry to be the harbinger of bad news, but I just received a call from Jacky Gilardi, the producer, pulling the plug on the ill-fated film.

"Apparently, Ms. Lohan's antics in Las Vegas over the weekend have scared the bond companies and all of the funding has been pulled . . . I look forward to working together in the future and trust our next project will not be as fraught with difficulty." [...]

But a Lohan friend fumes: "She had nothing to do with that movie shutting down. It was a mess to begin with. They randomly fired Channing Tatum for Giovanni Ribisi, and then financing fell through because producers spent money like water. It was only supposed to cost $4 million - Lindsay was being paid nothing for that role.

"Lindsay is proving to everyone that she is - and will remain - sober by voluntarily wearing the ankle bracelet and taking drug tests. This is not about her work. It's about her being able to live her life and go out with her friends without people writing nasty items about her."

Even though the "friend's" impassioned defense of Lohan sounds suspiciously like the words of a publicist (perhaps someone's been reinvigorated by a little role playing?), her point is a good one: In voluntarily wearing a highly unfashionable sign of her sobriety, the actress is finally nearing the maturity of an ordinary individual of the same age, indicating that her latest stint in rehab may have started to reverse the developmental retardation inflicted upon her by fame. If one requires further evidence of this emotional growth-spurt, one needs look no further to her quiet surrender to the Beverly Hills police of yesterday afternoon for her May DUI incident; the old, wild-child, insurance-liability Lohan certainly wouldn't have turned herself in so peacefully, preferring to act out by crashing her Mercedes through a police department window, then blaming the accident on marauding paparazzi trying to get a photograph of her embarrassing booking.