`OUTTAKES' - ENTERTAINMENT SIDELIGHTS

Weird but true: "21 Jump Street" heartthrob Johnny Depp will team with quirky film maker John Waters ("Pink Flamingos," "Hairspray") - for the musical love story "Cry Baby."

A spoof of '50s-era JD (that's juvenile delinquent) flicks, it is for Imagine Entertainment-Universal. Waters will write and direct with Rachel Talalay producing.Depp will play a gang member who gets his "Cry Baby" nickname when he is spotted shedding a single tear. The picture boasts more than 30 tunes, but Depp may or may not sing. His spokesman reminded, "Johnny broke in as a singer-musician," playing clubs in Hollywood.

Filming is set for Waters' Baltimore stomping ground in mid-April. That is hiatus time for Depp from his work as a sexy undercover cop on "Jump Street," where he has emerged as the hot star at age 25.

But some film offers will have to wait.

"When this season ends," said a Fox TV spokesman, "Johnny Depp's contract continues for three more years."

And Fox's teen beat continues: "The Outsiders" - Francis Coppola's 1983 teen epic, the original Brat Pack movie - may become a TV series, with Coppola as an exec producer. A Fox Broadcasting representative confirmed that an "Outsiders" pilot is in development as a possible addition to Fox's new Monday night lineup, to bow in September.

Casting has begun under co-exec producer Fred Roos, who produced the original film - based on the popular novel by S.E. Hinton, who will also be involved.

Like the film, the series will be set in the 1966 Midwest, depicting rivalries and relationships of the poor "greasers" and the wealthy "socs" (pronounced soashes).

The 1983 film starred C. Thomas Howell (Ponyboy), Patrick Swayze (Darrel), Rob Lowe (Sodapop), Matt Dillon (Dallas), Ralph Macchio (Johnny), Emilio Estevez (Two-Bit), Tom Cruise (Steve), Diane Lane (Cherry) and Leif Garrett (Bob). - PAT H. BROESKE

- The Devil Made Him Do It:

HOLLYWOOD - "Exorcist III," in development for years, is finally getting ready to go before the cameras in May. It is based on William Peter Blatty's 1983 novel, "Legion" - which had no satanic possession in it. So Blatty, who wrote the screenplay for "III" and will direct, put an exorcism in his script to capitalize on the title.

"The question was not to have one or not in the movie," he said, "but what significance to give it."