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Film News Roundup – October 2009 – Week 1

Fast & Furious Director To Remake Highlander
Summit Entertainment announced that it has tapped the filmmaking team behind this spring’s hit film FAST & FURIOUS – director Justin Lin and producer Neal H. Moritz – to direct and produce respectively the studio’s re-imagination of the cult film HIGHLANDER, being written by IRON MAN screenwriters Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. Peter Davis, long time producer of HIGHLANDER, will also produce the film.

George Clooney To Direct Damon
George Clooney wants to direct Matt Damon in a new movie about the ‘War on Terror’. The film will follow the plight of the chauffer, who was captured in Afghanistan and shipped to notorious US detention centre Guantanamo Bay, located in Cuba. Damon will play his lawyer, who eventually managed to take his case as far as the US Supreme Court.

Resident Evil: Afterlife casting news
With Paul W.S Anderson back on board to direct “Resident Evil: Afterlife,” the fourth film in the franchise and Milla Jovavaich set to reprise her role as the Alice, casting is underway as the films get ready to start shooting in Toronto next month. Recent casting includes: Bodjoe Kodjoe [Surrogates], Wentworth Miller [Prison Break] and Ali Larter, who played Claire Redfield in 2007’s ‘Resident Evil: Extinction.’

Keanu Reeves Says ‘Cowboy Bebop’ Movie Getting A Rewrite
“So the studio went, ‘This movie is fantastic and it would cost half a billion dollars,” laughed Reeves, “so he’s doing a rewrite. Everyone is in there. The only challenge was to make a satisfying western narrative out of the kind of storytelling that happens. There’s a great draft, so we’re just trying to pull it back a little bit now.”

Sam Raimi to produce ‘Refuge’
Pitch from British helmer Corin Hardy set at Mandate
Sam Raimi has signed on to produce a supernatural horror pic of that name, based on a pitch from up-and-coming British director Corin Hardy. “Refuge” centers on a remote town terrorized by a Yeti, the mythological creature native to the mountains of the Himalayas. Hardy will direct from a script by fellow British writer Tom De Ville; both are repped by Paradigm’s Marc Helwig and Trevor Astbury.

Ian McKellen on The Hobbit
The thesp on returning to Gandalf the Grey.
“I don’t want to play Gandalf again. If you play a part that gets an awful lot of attention,” he explained, “forever after you’re being asked by directors to play the same part in their movie. But I played the best wizard, and I’m happy to revisit him, which I shall do in The Hobbit with Guillermo del Toro.”

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe find home at Columbia
Just weeks after “Masters of the Universe” parted ways with Warner Bros., the Mattel toy property is in negotiations to be preemptively picked up by Columbia with Escape Artists attached to produce.

Clive Owen Says ‘Sin City 2′ Production Might Begin Next Year
“I’m hearing it might be next year,” Owen told MTV News. “I heard that from a very good source… recently.” However, Owen wouldn’t reveal where he heard the news (“Maybe one of them,” he grinned, when asked if it was Miller or Rodriguez), and he didn’t let fans’ hopes get too carried away. According to the actor, he hasn’t read a script for the film yet.

Mamet’s Anne Frank in Turnaround from Disney
Developed by the studio’s chief of production, Oren Aviv, the project was recently rejected by the studio as “too dark” and put in turnaround, according to people involved. The writer takes on modern anti-Semitism in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” But the screenplay is not a retelling of the famous Holocaust drama taken from the diaries of Frank, but about a contemporary Jewish girl who goes to Israel and learns about the traumas of suicide bombing.

Kristen Bell gets us excited, about Astro
Perhaps boys fighting evil giant robots might seem like a guy thing. That’s why the movie brought in Cora. “My character’s new to the story, but I think that she helped move it along,” Bell said. “I like that they added a female so that the little girls that saw it might be able to identify with it as a girl.”

Newmarket Lands “Creation” Distribution
Newmarket Films announced that it has acquired U.S. rights to director Jon Amiel’s “Creation”, a film which focuses on Charles Darwin and his family as he struggles to finish his legendary book “On The Origin of Species,” which went on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.

Jason Bateman talks HANCOCK 2, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, Reveals What He Got as Wrap Gift on PAUL
“[Arrested Development is] still being written and my guess would be we’ll do it sometime next year. My fingers are crossed. I would assume it’s not going to be anything more than a long episode. I don’t think there’s any need to go further than that. I think it might be wrong to. Hopefully, people will be willing to pay money to see what will amount to be three or four new episodes all stuck together as one long one. I don’t know. Hopefully interest has not waned cause selfishly we all want to get back together and do it again. So hopefully there will be enough people to see it to break even.”

First Look At Robert Rodriguez’s Predators!!
PREDATORS is considered a reboot and being fast tracked by 20th Century Fox. PREDATORS is slated to be released on July 7, 2010. What’s the verdict on the script? LatinoReview was able to take a peek at the draft dated July 12, 2009.

Barbie headed to the big screen
Universal acquires rights; ‘Julia’ producer on board
After months of negotiations, Universal has acquired the rights to the iconic Mattel toy to make a live-action feature. It is unclear how the toy will translate. Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts; is sometimes a high school teen, but at times a pilot, military officer, teacher or astronaut; drives a slew of cars; dates a man named Ken; and has friends straight out of a United Colors of Benetton ad.

Columbia casts trio in Facebook film
Timberlake, Eisenberg, Garfield added to ‘Network’
Columbia Pictures and director David Fincher have set the core cast for “The Social Network,” the Aaron Sorkin-scripted drama about the formation of Facebook. Jesse Eisenberg will play Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Justin Timberlake will play Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder who became Facebook’s founding president; and Andrew Garfield will play Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who fell out with Zuckerberg over money. Script focuses on the evolution of Facebook, the online social network created in 2004 on the Harvard campus, and how overnight success and wealth changed the lives of the classmates who created it.

Bits and Pieces

The Fine Print

This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive roundup of the entire weeks’ news. All stories are chosen by me for no other reason than that they got my attention and might capture yours. If something you think is more important chime in on the feedback; we’d love to hear comments and have a conversation about it.

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About The Author

Scott From LA

Scott is an art director, writer and comics creator living in Los Angeles. He has been a pop culture maven from a very young age. His very first job was as a manager of a comic book store. He spent several years working in a video store, and yes, we are talking VHS tapes. A student of literature and Writing, he brings his obsessive love of comic book trivia, movie history and science fiction/fantasy writing to bear on the work he does for CoolShite.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
  • Author: Scott From LA
  • Filed Under: Movie News, News
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