Movie News

General News:

Disney has announced an October 2 double feature release for the new 3-D versions of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in theaters.

Columbia has hired Scott Silver to rewrite Chris Bertolini’s original screenplay Battle: Los Angeles. “About an alien invasion pulverizing its way across L.A.,” Aaron Eckhart will star and Jonathan Liebesman will direct.

Megan Fox has been cast in Mitch Glazer’s Passion Play. In it Mickey Rourke Rourke “will play a down-on-his-heels trumpet player, and Fox will play an angel in 1950s Los Angeles, with Rourke finding redemption in Fox after he attempts to save her from a gangster.”

Amanda Seyfried will drop out of Sucker Punch due to scheduling conflicts after HBO refused to release her from Big Love.

Kyle Newman will replace Kevin Munroe as director of horror comedy War Monkeys. Munroe, who had conflicting schedules with Dylan Dog, will stay on as producer. “During a Christmas holiday two janitors get trapped in an underground research facility after accidentally unleashing military-trained rhesus monkeys.”

Kevin Spacey will star in Trent Cooper’s Father of Invention. It’s about “a humble inventor-turned-egomaniacal billionaire who loses it all when one of his inventions goes horribly awry. After eight years in federal prison, he returns bankrupt, homeless and determined to rebuild his reputation and fortune.” It’s written by Jonathan Krane and Nichole Beattie.

Christina Ricci will star in Tom Brady directed Born to be a Star. The porn-tinged comedy was co-written by Adam Sandler, who will produce through his Miles Deep Prods. “The story centers on a small-town nerd who stumbles upon a family secret: His quiet and demure parents were famous porn stars in the 1970s. This motivates him to leave Northern Iowa for Hollywood, hoping to follow in their footsteps and fulfill his destiny as the biggest adult-film star in the world.”

Tom Selleck, Catherine O’Hara, and Martin Mull have joined Robert Luketic action comedy Five Killers.

James Franco, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Jeff Daniels, Bob Balaban, Treat Williams, Alessandro Nivola, and Jon Hamm will star in Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Howl. The indie film is “about the obscenity trial centering on Allen Ginsberg’s famed poem.”

Brian White will be in Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods.

Anthony Hemingway directed Red Tails will star Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Bryan Cranston, Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Tristan Wilds, Cliff Smith aka Method Man, Kevin Phillips, Rick Otto, Lee Tergesen, Andre Royo, Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, Marcus T. Paulk, Leslie Odom Jr., Michael B. Jordan, Jazmine Sullivan, Edwina Finley, Daniela Ruah, and Stacie Davis. John Ridley wrote the script from a story by George Lucas, who will also executive produce, about “a fictional story inspired by the historic and heroic exploits of America’s first all black aerial combat unit.” Will film in Europe.

Prequels; Sequels & Remakes:

The X-Men Origins: Wolverine leak.

Paramount has announced that the MPAA has given Star Trek a PG-13 rating for “sci-fi action and violence and brief sexual content.”

Jackie Earle Haley will play Freddy Krueger in Samuel Bayer’s A Nightmare on Elmstreet remake.

Sex and the City 2 will be out May 2010.

Sean Penn is set to play Larry in MGM and the Farrelly brothers’ The Three Stooges, with Jim Carrey in negotiations for Curly, which he he already plans to gain 40 pounds for. “The film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts.”

Joss Schwartz will write and make his directorial debut on a remake of Bright Lights, Big City. The novel, first adapted in 1988, “revolves around a disillusioned magazine writer who numbs the pain of a failed marriage and writer’s block with drugs, alcohol and nightly carousing.”

President of Sony Worldwide Distribution Rory Bruer announced during the company’s ShoWest 2009 presentation that it is developing another Men in Black movie for a 2011 release.

Production will start on My Life as a Dog sequel My Father, His Son in 2010. Daniel Fridell will direct Reidar Jonsson’s script, who wrote the original novel.

Sam Raimi on Spider-Man 4: “Right now, David Lindsay-Abaire is working on a draft of the new picture, and he’s hard at work, and hopefully we’ll see something in about three months.”… “I’m not at liberty to discuss the villains yet. I think I have to wait till the finished screenplay, and then it’d really be up to Sony Pictures and the producers to determine when they want to release that information. To them, it’s usually a big, a big, big thing, a big moment where they want to present the villain with the proper respect or fear that he or she deserves.” Also in regards to Spider-Man 3: “They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually. But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn’t really have creative control, so to speak.”…“The best way for me to move forward on films, I realize… and this was a lesson I had to learn for myself… is that I’ve gotta be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film. I love Spider-Man so much that I’d like to continue telling Spider-Man stories but only under those circumstances where I think I can honor him. I don’t think I can honor him any other way.”

Paul Walker on The Fast and the Furious 5: “It’s beyond rumors at this point. I’ve spoken with executives at Universal and they’re pretty serious about it. They’re developing it. They know where they want it to take place. They want to do it in Europe”.

Adaptations:

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland will release simultaneously in IMAX theatres alongside its wide release on March 5, 2010.

Universal Pictures has announced a January 15, 2010, release date for Cirque Du Freak.

Will Arnett and Michael Shannon have joined Jonah Hex. Arnett as “a Union soldier who enlists Hex and is blindsided by the dirty fighting style of his enemies,” and Shannon as Doc Cross Williams, who might appear in any sequels.

Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana are in negotiations to play Roque and Aisha in Sylvain White’s The Losers movie.

Paul Bettany is in negotiations to star in Screen Gems and Scott Stewart’s Priest adaptation. Cory Boodman wrote the script based on Hyung Min-woo’s manwha, it’s “set in a world ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampire and follows a warrior priest (Bettany) who turns against the church to track down a murderous band of vampires who have kidnapped his niece.”

Writer Dave Kajganich on It: “The remake will be set in the mid-1980s and in the present almost equally—mirroring the 20-odd-year gap King uses in the book—and with a *great* deal of care and attention paid to the backstories of all the characters. I think the real twist here is that my pitch to [Warner Brothers]—which they’ve assured me they’re on board for—is that this will not be PG-13. This will be R. Which means we can really honor the book and engage with the traumas (both the paranormal ones and those they deal with at home and school) that these characters endure.”

Giovanni Ribisi and Amaury Nolasco have joined Nomrod Antel’s The Rum Diaries.

Brian White has been cast in Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself as “Randy, the cocky potential romantic interest of Taraji P. Henson’s character.”