Organizers of the 28th Toronto International Film Festival have announced the final lineup, and just like every year, it promises to be a glittery, celebrity-packed 10 days.

Oscar winners Nicole Kidman, Denzel Washington, Anthony Hopkins, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Marcia Gay Harden, Nicolas Cage and Benicio del Toro, Meg Ryan, Robert Downey Jr., Ian McKellen, Jerry Bruckheimer and Canadians Dan Aykroyd, Mary Walsh, Neil Young and Sarah Polley are just a few of the big names that will stroll the red carpet when the festival rolls into town Sept. 4th.

In all, 336 films from around the world will be screened during the festival, starting with Les Invasions Barbares by Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand and ending with Danny Deckchair, Australian Jeff Balsmeyer's directorial debut, as the closing night gala Sept. 13th.

After Toronto spent months battling the fallout from the SARS crisis, festival director Piers Handling says he breathed "a great sigh of relief" at the stronger-than-ever expected turnout for this year's fest.

"A couple of months ago, we were wondering what the festival was going to look like this year, whether the films would be offered to us, whether stars would be coming," Handling told reporters following Tuesday's news conference.

"(SARS) obviously made this a very different year in terms of assembling the festival. We've obviously worked very hard to allay those fears, as have the health authorities in this country.

"I think it's just going to be a normal year now," he added.

Included in the films announced Tuesday were: the gala screening of A Pearl Earring, the fictional story behind Vermeer's famous painting starring Colin Firth and Tom Wilkinson; Richard Linklater's The School of Rock in which Jack Black turns a class of Grade 5 overachievers into a band of rock'n'rollers; Jean Paul Rappeneau's Bon Voyage and Gus Van Sant's Elephant, which won a Palme D'Or at Cannes.

The prestigious Director's Spotlight program will feature three filmmakers from Turkey while award winning Broadway and film director Julie Taymor will teach a "master class."

As part of the festival's Dialogues program - an annual feature where directors discuss works that have influenced them - Francis Ford Coppola will present a newly restored print of the 1982 romantic comedy One From the Heart and Ridley Scott will present a director's cut of the Oscar-winning 1979 film Alien, complete with never-before-seen footage.

2003 Toronto International Film Festival by the numbers:

• 3193 - total number of submissions worldwide
• 336 - number of films to be screened at this year's festival
• 184 - feature films that are world, international or North American premieres
• 145 - number of non-English language features
• 55 - countries
• 37 - Canadian features
• 28,340 - minutes of film.

"Barring a rain of frogs or a plague of locusts, I think we're good to go," Michele Maheux, managing director of the festival, told reporters.

"While we hope for great weather, frankly we don't care if it rains because you're all going to curl up in cinemas watching great movies for 10 days," she said. "So let it pour."

Granted, after last Thursday's blackout left all of Toronto's movie theatres in the dark, it's not likely rain that's on the minds of most. But Handling said he's confident the festival's organizers are ready for just about anything.

"We've been through some pretty major crises over the last little while as a festival - air strikes and postal strikes, projectionist strikes, we went through 9/11. … I think we'll roll with the punches."

Still, with hydro officials warning this week that Ontario residents and businesses could face more power outages unless they conserve energy, Handling joked: "We're certainly switching lights off in our office and I'll have no power on in my home during the film festival."