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"30 Days of Night" director David Slade, who also helmed this Summer's "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse", is being targeted to direct the new film adaptation of "The Shadow" at 20th Century Fox reports Latino Review.

Previously set up at Sony Pictures, the reboot will go back to the comic book and radio serial roots of the character. Sam Raimi was linked as producer, with this move to Fox I understand that's still the case. Universal released the previous film adaptation in 1994 starring Alec Baldwin.

Slade himself meanwhile has hit an issue with the aforementioned third "Twilight" feature. Entertainment Weekly reports that Art Jones, the editor who has worked with Slade on this and two previous films, has been replaced by Nancy Richardson.

Seems that Jones delivered a cut that the studio found "very good" but they wanted a "stronger edit". Richardson edited Catherine Hardwicke's original "Twilight" and was brought in because she's apparently better at balancing the action and emotional elements of the story. Will Jones' rough edit ever see the light of day sometime?

Francis Lawrence ("I Am Legend," "Constantine) will direct a feature about Marco Polo for Warner Bros. Pictures reports Variety.

More fantasy/adventure epic than serious biopic drama, the film will be most set in "the Orient of our imagination" according to scribes Adam Cooper and Bill Collage who are penning the script.

Polo, a 13th century Venetian merchant, who essentially introduced Europeans to Central Asia and China after his father and uncle travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. The trio set of on extensive travels throughout Asia on behalf of the Khan for twenty-four years.

Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell may be teaming up for an untitled comedy that "Bad Santa" and "I Love You Phillip Morris" filmmakers John Requa and Glenn Ficarra will direct says LaineyGossip (via The Playlist).

Gosling has apparently signed on to the film about a "father whose life unravels as he faces a marital crisis and tries to manage his relationship with his children". Gosling will play the father's best friend.

Dan Fogelman ("Bolt," "Fred Claus") penned the script. Denise Di Novi and Carell are producing.

Catherine Hardwicke ("Twilight") is apparently considering directing "Dot War" for Paramount Pictures says Pajiba.

Laura Harrington's script follows a video-game programmer who becomes trained by the government to use virtual technology to fight terrorism.

Hardwicke is waiting on a rewrite of the script, if it goes well she will then determine if she will direct the film. Hardwicke is also attached to "The Girl With the Red Riding Hood".

Guy Ritchie ("Snatch," "Rocknrolla") is apparently looking into directing a new take on the King Arthur legend "Excalibur" for Warner Bros. Pictures reports Pajiba.

The project is not to be confused with the remake of John Boorman's 1981 King Arthur epic "Excalibur" also in development at the studio and which Bryan Singer has been attached to. That project is still in very early development and without a script or writer attached.

This "Excalibur" is based on a rather wild treatment by comic author Warren Ellis which is said to be "more in the tone of Star Wars". Unlike other Arthurian adaptations, this one is "very specifically about the gathering of the Knights". A writer is being sought to turn Ellis' treatment into a full script.

The project will likely go forward after Ritchie finishes work on the "Sherlock Holmes" sequel.

After success with "1408", scribe Matthew Greenberg is adapting another Stephen King property, the "Pet Sematary" remake at Paramount Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter.

This long-gestating new adaptation of King's 1983 novel follows a family who move to a small Maine town along a highway often used by high-speed trucks. Nearby lies a pet cemetery and further beyond that an ancient indian burial ground which can resurrect the dead, but those who come back aren't quite right. When the toddler son is killed in an auto accident, the grieving father uses that power - but at the cost of several lives and his own sanity.

Paramount previously adapted the book in 1989 starring Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby and Fred Gwynne. George Clooney at one time was apparently circling this remake.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Steven Schneider are producing the new version.

New Regency and Summit Entertainment are teaming for the thriller "The Darkest Hour" says Deadline New York.

A more sci-fi spin on "28 Days Later" in tone, the story follows a group of kids struggling to survive somewhere in Russia after an alien invasion.

Chris Gorak ("Right at Your Door") directs from a script by Les Bohem and Jon Spaihts he re-wrote.

Timur Bekmambetov and Tom Jacobson will produce with filming kicking off in Russia in June.

Jonah Hill ("Superbad") has apparently replaced Demetri Martin ("Taking Woodstock") in the latest attempt at getting the baseball-themed "Moneyball" off the ground reports ESPN.

Author Michael Lewis, who wrote the book on which Aaron Sorkin's script is based, apparently delivered the news that Hill will take over the role of ex-football player Paul DePodesta.

Brad Pitt is apparently still attached to play the lead role of Billy Beane and shooting kicks off in June under the helm of Bennett Miller ("Capote").

Šokantna vest!


Variety: This thumb's for you
By
Roger Ebert
on March 9, 2010 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Left_thumbs_down.jpgI flew home from the Oscars to find half a dozen e-mails awaiting with the same unbelievable message: Variety had fired its chief film critic, Todd McCarthy. Its spokesman was hopeful Todd and its chief theater critic, David Rooney, who was also fired, could continue to review for the paper on a free lance basis. In other words, Variety was hopeful that without a regular pay check, McCarthy would put his life on hold to do a full-time job on a piecemeal basis.

Todd McCarthy reviewed films for Variety for 31 years. He was the ideal critic for the paper -- better, we now realize, than it deserved. His reviews and the reviews of Kirk Honeycutt at the Hollywood Reporter were frequently the first reviews of a new film to see print. Honeycutt fortunately continues.

            Films are traditionally screened for the "trades" before anyone else. Historically, when independent theater owners around the world booked their own theaters, they depended on Variety's advance reviews to plan their bookings. These days theaters are booked by accountants in Hollywood, often before a film has been completed. Now that it's "product," it doesn't matter so much if it's any good or not.


            Todd was always mindful that his review might be the first objective opinion a film received after emerging fresh from the lab. The first notice for a new director or star. The bellwether of a film's future. His reviews and all Variety reviews contain some judgment about a film's box office potential. In his recent review of the forthcoming "Remember Me," he predicted it "should enjoy a short but sweet B.O. life." That's about right. Todd was level-headed and fair. I am searching for a word. He was judicious.



            He knows everybody. He is known throughout the film world. He was Variety's ambassador at film festivals, always the best-known Variety person there. He stood for Variety. We now discover it did not stand from him.

            I met him so long ago. When I was new in my job at the Chicago Sun-Times, I got a letter one day from a high school kid who said he loved the movies and wanted to have a talk with me about them. The letter struck a note. I met Todd and his friend Charles Flynn at Andy's, a place with pretty good hamburgers, outside the back door of the Sun-Times.

            They knew everything about the movies. They had seen them all, debated them all, written about half of them. They became for me examples of a species I thought of as "Doc Films Kids," named after Doc Films at the University of Chicago, the nation's oldest film society. Other Doc Films Kids included Dave Kehr, now at the New York Times. They'd seen so many movies I didn't see how it was possible in such brief lifetimes. Once at O'Rourke's, Flynn was telling me how much Otto Preminger hated over-the-shoulder shots, and I nodded wisely while asking myself, how in the hell does he know that?

            McCarthy and Flynn later edited Kings of the Bs (1975), a landmark anthology of writings and memoirs about auteurs of B movies past and present. Copies now sell online for as much as $186. In 2000, Todd wrote Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood.



            I ran into Todd in the early 1970s at the Sunset Marquis, the legendary hotel half a block down from Sunset near La Cienega. Elaine May had been in seclusion there for months, editing her "Mikey and Nicky." As I recall, the problem was that she had photographed the entire film in master shots, and it was a challenge to assemble. Todd was her assistant. We logged time at poolside, but he spoke only in prudent terms of Elaine May's project; he betrayed no confidences. He follows that sort of code.

            In the 31 years he wrote for Variety, I saw Todd countless times at film festivals. Every year at Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, Telluride. Those were just the ones I went to. How he produced such volumes of high-quality copy, I do not know; I was running as fast as I could, but he lapped me.

            Todd is tall, looks grave except when he smiles, is handsome in a Clint Eastwood way. He always has information to share about a last-minute screening or who has just arrived in town. He was the master of festival logistics. Quick, Todd! What in God's name is a "VIP screening room" at Toronto's Varsity? "Up that little ramp."

            Todd directed four documentaries inspired by his love of film. The first three were "Visions of Light" (1992), the most intelligent film I've seen about cinematography; "Claudia Jennings" (1995), about the Playmate of the Year and B movie actress, tragically killed by a car on Pacific Coast Highway, who I believe Todd went to high school with; and "Forever Hollywood" (1999), described by Variety itself as "a valentine to both the movies and the town with which they've become synonymous," and intended to play daily to welcome visitors to the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles.



            Then there was "Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient" (2007), an extraordinary film about an extraordinary man (at left above at Telluride, with John Simon and Todd). I have written much about the film and its subject, and the links are below. Todd made this film as a labor love about a man who has tirelessly campaigned for the films and directors he loves (and often discovered) among a circle that apparently includes, for example, at least half of the directors, festival programmers, exhibitors and critics at Cannes. Pierre very often wears a T-shirt, and Todd liked to wear one quoting Pierre: "It is not enough to like a film. You have to like it for the right reasons."

            Todd always had reasons behind his reviews. They were clear and potentially helpful to filmmakers. His prose was considered. It began in the closing days of slangy Varietyese and evolved into a style fresh and witty. He didn't miss a thing.

            What I'm saying is that Todd McCarthy is not a man Variety should have lightly dismissed. He is the longest-serving and best-known member of the paper's staff, and if they made such a drastic decision, we are invited to wonder if Variety itself will long survive.




            Variety used to cover everything. I remember a magical night in Rome in 1967, when I sat late at night on the Via Veneto and gawked at the last remnants of la dole vita. A held a copy of Weekly Variety, all black and white on newsprint and easily more that 100 pages thick. I became fascinated by the back pages, the items two paragraphs long about cabaret performers in Boston, dancers in Miami, magicians in Philadelphia, lounge acts in Las Vegas, jazz clubs in London. Variety got its name from variety artists, and for decades they lived off a favorable notice in its pages. The paper then truly was "the showbiz Bible."

            Well, those days over with. The glory days of the famous Variety critics are finished. I knew one of them, Gene Moskowitz, who signed his reviews Mosk., and was the Paris bureau chief who directed coverage at Cannes. In the 1970s, dying of cancer, he came to what he knew was his last Cannes, bringing along his wife and the young son he was so proud of. Under an umbrella on the beach, he looked toward the old Palais and said, "I saw a lot of good movies there." Another man of the cinema, another lover of T shirts.

            About Todd McCarthy I am not very worried. He's one of a kind. I can think of no better candidate as the director of a major film festival. Or as a professor, or of course as a film critic. What I lament is the carelessness with which his 31 years of dedication were discarded. Oh, the paper cites its reasons. "It's economic reality," Variety President Neil Stiles said of the move. Some "downsizing" is necessary cost-cutting. Some symbolizes the abandonment of a mission. If Variety no longer requires its chief film critic, it no longer requires me as a reader.

Chris Evans and Anna Faris will team for the R-rated comedy "What's Your Number?" at New Regency and 20th Century Fox says Variety.

Based on Karyn Bosnak's book "20 Times a Lady," the story follows a woman (Faris) who thought she'd find her perfect guy by the time she'd slept with a maximum of twenty men.

Waking up after a drunken night in her boss's bed, she realises she's reached that limit but hasn't achieved it. Rather than increasing the number or staying celibate, she tracks down all her ex-partners in an attempt to make things work with one of them.

Bosnak adapted her own work which Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan polished. Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson are producing.

Mark Mylod ("Entourage") is directing with shooting to kick off in May.

Juno Temple ("Year One," "Wild Child") has joined Bradley Rust Gray's indie lycan lesbian drama "Jack & Diane" says Bloody Disgusting.

The story follows two teenage girls in New York City - the charmingly innocent Diane (Temple) whose affection manages to pierce the heart of the tough and closed off Jack (Olivia Thirlby).

About to leave the country, Diane struggles to keep their love alive but hides the fact her newly awakened sexual desire has given her werewolf-like visions.

Temple replaces previously attached stars Ellen Page and later Allison Pill. Filming kicks off this May in New York.

Out doing press for "Repo Men", actor Jude Law tells Coming Soon that we can expect the "Sherlock Holmes" sequel with relative speed.

"I think we are probably going to make another one. I haven't been given the absolute... it's not like next week but I think it's sometime this year is what I get" said Law who seemingly had a ball doing the first one..

Law also talked about his role in Steven Soderbergh's pandemic thriller "Contagion". The actor says the film looks at a worldwide infection from the perspective of all sorts of different people, and he plays "someone online, a blogger, who is kind of a fearmonger".

He adds that his role in the ensemble only requires ten days of shooting, likely in San Francisco, which he'll do at the end of the year.

Following on from "A History of Violence" and "Eastern Promises", Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg will re-team for a third time on "The Talking Cure" says Deadline Hollywood.

Based on the play by Christopher Hampton, the story revolves around famed psychoanalyst Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), his relationship with a young Russian girl (Keira Knightley) driven mad by her past, and Jung's esteemed mentor and father of modern psychology Sigmund Freud (Mortensen).

Mortensen will replace Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz who opted out to star in "Water for Elephants" instead. Filming on 'Cure' kicks off on May 17th.

Kevin Macdonald ("State of Play," "The Last King of Scotland") will direct the rather blatantly titled "Murder Mystery" for Tower Hill Entertainment and ContraFilm reports Variety.

The story revolves around an American couple on their honeymoon in Europe who witness a murder, become suspects and end up caught in a conspiracy of international intrigue.

Filming will take place on-location in Europe with casting now underway. James Vanderbilt ("Zodiac," "The Rundown") penned the script and will produce along with Beau Flynn, A.J. Dix, William Shively and Tripp Vinson are producing.

Trailer de Treme, nouvelle série d'HBO écrite par David Simon, papa de The Wire.

Treme - Trailer - HBO

Gravity Draws In Downey Jr
Alfonso Cuaron's space flick nabs a star
Source: Deadline Hollywood

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It was beginning to look like Alfonso Cuaron's 3D space thriller Gravity was having real problems leaving the launch pad, given all the back and forth around Angelina Jolie allegedly starring and then not. But now it appears to be back on track with word that Robert Downey Jr is ready to dock with the film.

Gravity, which was written by Cuaron with son Jonas, plans to feature Dosney Jr as the commander of a team working at a remote space station. Tragedy strikes when he and a female colleague are working outside the structure, and debris from a destroyed satellite kills most of their crewmates.

With time running out, the isolated pair must find a way to get back to Earth.

If all the deals work out, RDJ will shoot the film in London this summer, before sticking around to crank out another Sherlock Holmes with Guy Ritchie.

Ti 3D filmovi postaju baš hit. Negde sam pročitao neki članak u kome pišše da će za 10 godina or so 3D biti standard, da će se svi filmovi tako raditi.

verovatno u politikinom zabavniku.

THE EXPENDABLES

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/

Stalone, Svarecneger, Vilis, Stetam, Treho, Lundgren, ... u jednom filmu!

PLOT: A team of mercenaries head to South America on a mission to overthrow a dictator.

Avgust 2010.

Da citiram Seanbabyja:

Sylvester Stallone is making an action movie called The Expendables. It stars himself, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Mickey Rourke and Danny Trejo as mercenaries in South America. Hold on, my spell checker just told me that the last sentence should actually be spelled, "Impossible eyeball orgasm."

David Fincher Eyes Dragon Tattoo
Carey Mulligan for Lisbeth Salander?
Source: New York Magazine

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The books are still flying out of the bookstores, and the Swedish film trilogy has just begun its UK release. But lest we forget, Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, has also caught Hollywood's attention.

After some difficult rights negotiations with the still-in-flux Larsson estate, Sony inked a deal for the English-language versions late last year, with Scott Rudin producing and Steve Zaillian having a crack at the first screenplay. And now, according to NY Magazine's Vulture, David Fincher is circling the project. Having delighted the Sony brass with his Facebook founders story The Social Network, it sounds as if Dragon Tattoo is his for the asking.

Also mentioned in Vulture's piece, connected to the heroine role of snarky Asperger's hacker genius Lisbeth Salander is current hot ticket Carey Mulligan, said to be top of the producers' wish list (although it's pointed out that practically every young actress in Hollywood and the UK would kill for the role).

Like Let Me In, this sounds at the moment like a bit of a redundant exercise, following so hot on the heels of a lauded and widely seen original version. But the source material is super-strong, and the involvement of Fincher, back on the crime territory he made his own with Seven and Zodiac, makes this something to look out for regardless.

The Swedish The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, directed by Niels Arden Oplev and starring Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace, is out now (click here for Empire's five star review). The paperback of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is published in the UK on April 1st.

But that's not the only project he's got vying for his attention. According to Variety, the busy director is also attached to Sony's press drama Pawn Sacrifice.

Charting the life of American chess champ and cultural icon Bobby Fischer, Pawn will follow the period up to his historic world championship victory against Boris Spassky.

And if that wasn't enough, there's also word that he's still trying to get his new, CG-flavoured version of sexy/violent sci-fi 'toon Heavy Metal back up and running. Kindly make up your own "chess pawn or 'toon porn?" joke here.

Owen Williams

Mike Fleming followed up his scoop with news that Chloe Moretz (Hitgirl from Kick-Ass, and leads the upcoming Let The Right One In remake) and Brit Asa Butterfield (The Boy With The Striped Pjama's) have joined Scorsese's adventure movie.

Moretz, who has considerable Kick-Ass buzz, will play the lead. As Fleming says, so strange to see Scorsese handle a kids movie when there probably isn't one of his features you would ever show to a kid.

So Sir. Ben Kingsley (as silent filmmaker George Melies in a major role) and Sacha Baron Cohen (as a train inspector) are the first two names cast in Martin Scorsese's next picture, a children's fantasy adventure based on Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabaret.

Great, no complaints here.

Selznick's illustrated novel centers on a 12 year orphan who lives within the walls of a Paris train station in 1930, which by my account makes it Scorsese's first ever family orientated motion picture.

With the novel celebrating gorgeous black-and-white images reminiscent of the silent movie era, and because of the  setting; classic French movies – do we expect Scorsese;  the walking film encyclopedia to reference these genres in Cabaret as much as he did Val Lewton and film noir with Shutter Island?

The movie based on John Logan's screenplay (Sweeney Todd, The Aviator) films in Paris on June 1st.

Busy finishing up post-production on Seth Rogen vehicle The Green Hornet, director Michael Gondry has chatted about what we can expect from him in the next few years.

First up, The We And The I is an experimental project based on his book, You'll Like This Film Because You're In It. Says Gondry: "When I wrote this book, I always wrote 'I did this,' or 'we did that,' and my publisher said, 'We have to do something for the we and the I.'"

Okay. So what's it about? "It's about the group effect, how people in groups transform when the group is dislocated, because everyone jumps out of the bus at different times, there is a smaller group and how the relationships evolve."

"It's kids on a bus, it's more like a social thing. It's not [well-known] actors, it's going to be kids from a school in the Bronx. I love kids and just [regular] people too because they are not polluted by the medium. They come as they are and they have beautiful stories to tell, so I want to show that."

So far so typically odd. But Gondry is never one to stay in the same place too long, so he's got another idea in the making, this one an untitled time travel flick that he wants Ellen Page to star in.



Talking to MTV, Gondry says:

"I'm developing a screenplay with a writer right now about kids who travel [into] the future by mistake and a machine [that] keeps people younger... ehhh, it's complicated to explain."

"Ellen Page is supposed to be the main character. She'd play Nancy... a young woman who participates in the discovery and changes the world."

So, Back To The Future meets Cocoon? Knowing Gondry, it won't be quite so clean-cut as all that.

Showtime's announcement of an exclusive output deal with Disney that includes up to 35 DreamWorks films through 2015 begs the question: will Steven Spielberg get behind the camera and deliver one before that deal is up? A flirtation with Paramount to do Matt Helm with Jon Hamm cratered, as did an attempt to do Harvey with Robert Downey Jr. at Fox 2000. Since then, guessing Spielberg's next move has become a parlor game at the agencies.

The latest title gaining steam among speculators is Robopocalypse, now that Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard has been hired to adapt the Daniel H Wilson epic about the human race's attempt to survive an apocalyptic robot uprising. Wilson hasn't finished the book yet, but word is Goddard has gotten underway and that it's a serious candidate. Let's face it, a big ticket Spielberg-directed tent pole would be a smashing way to start DreamWorks' new partnership with Reliance. There continues to be a lot of chatter about War Horse, which started when Spielberg traveled to London recently to see the stage adaptation of the Michael Morpugo novel . DreamWorks acquired the book last year and hired Lee Hall to write the script. Fading on the speculation meter is Gershwin, which had way more buzz a month ago when Deadline revealed Zachary Quinto--the Star Trek and Heroes star--would play the composer. Studio insiders say Spielberg hasn't chosen, and candidates like The 39 Clues, and the Lincoln Civil War project should not be dismissed. "We're all waiting, we'd all love to know," said the source.

The Spielberg-directed The Adventures of Tin Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn won't be part of the Showtime deal, because the film was financed by Paramount and Sony. Because Paramount has domestic distribution, Tin Tin will be an Epix title. The first DreamWorks film in the new Showtime contract will be Real Steel, with Hugh Jackman starring and Shawn Levy directing.

German director Christian Alvart ("Case 39," "Pandorum") will adapt Edmond Hamilton's 1940's pulp sci-fi magazine serial and later 1970's anime series "Captain Future" into a feature film reports Quiet Earth.

Alvart says he's developing the film as a "big fun space opera for the whole family". The character of Captain Future, aka. Curtis Newton, is a brilliant scientist/adventurer who roams our solar system to help people and take down various villains.

The storyline will essentially be an origin story, following Newton's first adventure. Though Alvart doesn't specify, it will probably deal with the murder of Newton's parents at the hands of criminal scientist Victor Kaslan and his subsequent upbringing under the tutelage of scientist Simon Wright, an intelligent robot and a shapeshifting android.

Alvart says a sequel storyline is being developed concurrently so should the film be a success, they can get started on a follow-up right away. He himself has been pursuing the project for several years and now with the necessary development financing having come together, things are ready to move forward with the script.

In terms of scale he compares it to "The Fifth Element" - "a big budget science-fiction movie developed and produced out of Europe with an international cast". The project marks one of several sci-fi pulp hero properties of similar ilk in development at the moment including "Doc Savage" and "Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future".

Lionsgate has scored the North American rights to the horror feature "Dibbuk Box" which Ghost House Pictures will produce reports Deadline.

A feature film spin on LA Times writer Leslie Gornstein's article "Jinx in a Box", the film follows a woman who mistakenly purchases a cursed relic and must solve the mystery behind it to save her family from evil spirits tied to it.

Juliet Snowden and Stiles White ("Knowing") have penned the script while Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert will produce.

Producers Scott Mednick and David S. Ward are teaming on a feature film about the secret women's space program in 1960 reports Variety.

Based on Margaret A. Weitekamp's acclaimed and very detailed "Right Stuff, Wrong Sex", the story deals with the Mercury 13, a group of women who underwent some of the same physiological screening tests as male astronauts for a privately-funded program.

The action unfolds against the context of the Cold War and the rise of the women's movement in America. Despite passing strenuous physical exams and the Russians beating them to the punch two years later in 1963, it would be another twenty years before an American women was able to fly outside Earth's atmosphere.

The film is also expected to deal with the rivalry between aviation titans Jackie Cochran and Jerrie Cobb. Cochran financed the program while Cobb was the first to be tested and helped recruit it.

Ruben Fleischer ("Zombieland") is tipped to direct the comedy "30 Minutes or Less" which is being developed as a star vehicle for Danny McBride says The Los Angeles Times and Deadline.

Matthew Sullivan & Michael Diliberti's Black List script involves "a pizza delivery man on a strange caper" though story details are being kept secret. Sony Pictures Entertainment is acquiring distribution rights to the film from Media Rights Capital.

Filming could kick off as early as this Summer, though will depend upon McBride's schedule on HBO's "East Bound and Down". Fleischer was also apparently seriously considered to direct the fourth "Mission: Impossible" but he ultimately passed on the project. The same thing has been implied for "Babe in the Woods" which he's previously had conversations about directing.

A change of representation for "The Dark Knight" and "The Prestige" co-writer Jonathan Nolan is being interpreted as a signal as to what Steven Spielberg will choose as his next project.

Vulture reports that Nolan has spent over two years working on the script for "Interstellar", a sci-fi feature originally penned by physicist Kip Thorne. Spielberg has long been attached to direct the film.

With Nolan changing agents, its been seen as a move that could make the project Spielberg's first directorial effort since directing the motion capture sessions for "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn" in early 2009.

Sony picks up 'Road to Nardo' spec
THR EXCLUSIVE

By Borys Kit

March 18, 2010, 11:00 PM ET
Sony is hitting the "Road to Nardo."

The studio has picked up a comedy spec from Andrew Waller and Mike Gagerman to which Scot Armstrong, the writer of comedies such as "Old School" and "Semi-Pro," is attached to make his directorial debut.

Armstrong also will produce with Neal Moritz and his Original Film banner. Ravi Nandan, Armstrong's producing partner, also is producing. Ori Mamur is overseeing the project at Original and exec producing.

"Nardo" revolves around two guys who go to Mexico to rescue their friend.

Armstrong will spend time developing the project before going to cast.

Waller directed the straight-to-DVD movie "American Pie Presents Beta House." He and Gagerman are high school buds who teamed up to write "Nardo." The duo is repped by APA and Circle of Confusion.

Armstrong is one of the big names in comedy, having also written "Starsky & Hutch," "The Heartbreak Kid" and the upcoming Kevin James comedy "The Zookeeper." The CAA-repped scribe is reteaming with his "Old School" and "Hutch" director Todd Phillips for "The Hangover 2."

Gerard Butler, Colin Farrell and Matthew Fox are apparently the top candidates to star in "Consent to Kill" for CBS Films says Deadline.

An attempt to create another Jack Ryan/Jason Bourne-esque franchise, the film is based on the sixth novel in Vince Flynn's so far ten-book series which follows undercover CIA counter-terrorism agent Mitch Rapp.

In 'Consent', Rapp becomes the target of several assassins seeking to collect a $20 million bounty by a Saudi billionaire out for revenge for his son's apparent death at Rapp's hands. With Rapp's wife and unborn child in danger and Government bureaucrats doing him more harm than help, the character becomes basically a man who goes out and kicks ass.

As of now "300" star Butler is the front-runner, "Lost" star Fox "has pursued the role aggressively", while Farrell is a personal favourite of CBS Films CEO Amy Baer.

Jonathan Lemkin adapted the script and Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day," "King Arthur") is set to direct. Filming aims to begin in the Summer.

Big Talk, Film4, Optimum, StudioCanal and UK Film Council are behind Cornish's debut feature.

Writer/director Joe Cornish has started principal photography on Attack The Block, which stars Jodie Whittaker (St. Trinians, Venus) alongside newcomers John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones and Simon Howard. Nick Frost and Luke Treadaway will also appear.

Cornish's directorial debut is an action adventure about a teen gang facing alien monsters. Nira Park (Shaun of the Dead) and James Wilson are producing. Executive producers are Big Talk's Matthew Justice, Film4's Tessa Ross and Optimum Releasing's Will Clarke and Jenny Borgars. StudioCanal and the UK Film Council are also on board, with Studio Canal handling international sales. StudioCanal's distribution partners are Optimum (UK), Kinowelt (Germany) and StudioCanal (France).

Tom Townend (The Unloved) is serving as cinematographer and the team also includes production designer Marcus Rowland, costume designer Rosa Dias, creature effects by Spectral Motion and visual effects by Double Negative.

Fighter pilot-turned space hero Buck Rogers might have successfully journeyed to the 25th Century, but one trip he was having real trouble making was to our cinema screens. Now, according to Deadline New York, Paul WS Anderson thinks he's the man to give him that final push.

Rogers has been in development cryostasis for a while now, ever since Frank Miller announced he was intending to re-invent the character as his follow-up to The Spirit. We all know what happened next, and it wasn't pretty, which might explain while Miller has yet to direct anything else.

But now Anderson and producing partner Jeremy Bolt have successfully convinced rights holders Paradox that they're the men to bring Buck into the 21st century, and, since not a day can officially go by without someone announcing a 3D project, into the stereoscopic format.

Iron Man writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway will be writing the screenplay, though we don't know which version of the Rogers plot they'll go for – frozen in a cave by gas or stranded in space? With a history that stretches back to the 1920s, the character certainly offers a lot of options.

So, then... Milla Jovovich as Wilma Deering, anyone?
James White

Irish actor Colin O'Donoghue ("The Tudors," "The Clinic") has joined the cast of the exorcism feature "The Rite" for New Line says Variety.

Based on the novel by Matt Baglio, the film follows a young American seminary student who has a crisis of faith but ultimately re-finds it after attending a Vatican exorcism school and encountering demonic forces.

Anthony Hopkins will play a mentor style character, an unorthodox priest and expert in exorcisms.

Mikael Hafstrom directs from a script by Michael Petroni. Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson will produce.

Ruben Fleischer ("Zombieland") is set to direct an untitled action comedy pitch for Dreamworks Pictures says Reuters.

The story is described as a buddy cop comedy but details are being kept under wraps. Dreamworks won the script after a fierce bidding war broke out when after the script hit the market late last week.

Over the weekend it was reported Fleischer would likely helm "30 Minutes or Less", a new Danny McBride-led comedy as his next project. That will likely be put on hold.

Nicholas Stoller and Gavin Polone will produce.

Dante Lam's visceral and exciting cop film Fire of Conscience  is a tour-de-force movie experience in terms of top-notch action and thrills. Blending the best of John Woo and Michael Mann, Lam has crafted a cop movie that deserves to be seen outside Hong Kong, plus is ripe for a Hollywood remake.

    The film looks terrific, sounds great and is made with real verve and skill.

Fire of Conscience grips right from the opening credits sequence, a stunning montage of freeze-framed black-and-white images, which offer clues to the complex crime story to follow. What follows is a frenetic and at times extremely violent crime tale that occasionally veers towards the daft but always manages to be gripping and provocative.

Previous Dante Lam films such as The Beast Stalker (2008) and Sniper (2009) have traveled well and found at thome in the DVD market, and while this latest film might lack their sense of wit it has enough pulse-pounding thrills to hold an audience. Plus there are a couple of standout action scenes that confirm Lam's reputation as a director to watch.

Grizzled cop Man (Lai, sporting a nifty beard) works the pickpocket beat following the death of his wife, but while investigating the death of a prostitute finds himself drawn into a deadly crime conspiracy, teaming up with former narcotics detective Kee (Jen).

After some of his team are killed in a shootout at a restaurant (an amazingly staged scene very reminiscent of the best action moments from Michael Mann) Man is increasingly determined to get to the bottom of the plot, which involves gunrunning, drugs and explosives.

He gradually comes to suspect that Kee may not be the honest cop he appears, and the pair find themselves heading towards a showdown that sets to outdo the previous scenes of violent mayhem. If you thought Chow Yun-Fat carrying children while blazing away in a hospital in Hard Boiled was hardcore, then wait for Fire of Conscience's 'cop-delivering-baby-in-burning-building-during-shoot-out' sequence. A scene that could really only happen in a Hong Kong action movie.

As usual with this genre the Hong Cops cops tend to be troubled and tormented types, never one step away from a violent outburst or a mole in the ranks. And Fire of Conscience is no exception – but where it does stand out is in its sheer sense of pace and verve. The action scenes are wonderfully staged, while Leon Lai (steely determination) and Richie Jen (smooth and duplicitous) make for a fascinating pair of complex cops.

Sure the story is more than a little preposterous, but the film looks terrific, sounds great and is made with real verve and skill. It is a film buyers should take a good look at – if only for the opening montage and the restaurant shoot-out.

Projects backed in $15m funding round include Joe Wright's thriller Hanna, now shooting at Babelsburg Studios.

New films by Emir Kusturica, Joe Wright, Katja von Garnier and Bille August are among the projects backed with a total of nearly $15m (€11m) by the German Federal Film Board (FFA), MDM Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and FilmFörderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein at their latest funding sessions.

Kusturica's Cool Water, which will be produced by Hamburg-based Brave New Work Filmproduktion with France's Wild Bunch and Israel's Transfax Films, received $1m (€750,000) from Hamburg and $336,000 (€250,000) from the FFA. The fast-paced comedy by Hamburg-based writer Gabriel Bornstein about two Palestinian brothers wanting to take the body of their late father to Ramallah, will be begin shooting in Hamburg and Palestine from this summer.

Meanwhile, Joe Wright's thriller Hanna, starring Cate Blanchett, Saoirse Ronan and Eric Bana, which began production at the Babelsberg Studios this month, received $270,000 (€200,000) from Hamburg because part of the shooting will also be based in the North German city.

A total of $1.2m (€900,000) was allocated by the FFA and MDM to Katja von Garnier's Hector's Journey, adapted by Maria von Heland from Francois Lelord's bestselling novel, which will begin shooting this summer at locations in Saxony-Anhalt, China, France, and South Africa. The international co-production between Egoli Tossell Film (ETF), Bac Films and Film Afrika will be the first time ETF has Warner Bros. Entertainment Germany onboard one of its projects as a production partner.

Moreover, Malte Grunert's Amusementpark Films – the co-producer last year of David Mackenzie's The Last Word – received $94,000 (€70,000) development support for Bille August's Heaven On Earth (Himmel auf Erden), based on a screenplay by Lone Scherfig about a summer love affair which begins in 1965 between a Danish musician and a girl from East Germany.

German funding was also forthcoming for French filmmaker Stephane Robelin's feature debut To The Moon And Back Around The World which will be co-produced by Berlin-based Rommel Film and reportedly has Jane Fonda, Geraldine Chaplin, Pierre Richard and Daniel Brühl lined up for the cast; Peter Dalle's historical political thriller Waves From Home about how tensions appear in an international polar expedition after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939; Radoslav Spassov's biopic of the legendary Bulgarian folk and jazz singer Lea Ivanova The Girl from Slaveikov Square, which will be the first fiction feature film from Leipzig-based LE Vision in co-production with Sofia's Menclips Ltd and Sweden's Illusion Film; and Alexander Mindadze's drama That Saturday (Unschuldiger Samstag), set against the Chernobyl tragedy of 1986, which will be produced by Russia's Passenger with Bavaria Pictures.

The American remake of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is now set to be the next film of David Fincher ("Se7en," "Fight Club") reports The Playlist.

The first in the "Millennium" trilogy based on late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's international bestsellers, the story follows disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist and misunderstood rebellious female hacker Lisbeth Salander investigating the 40-year-old disappearance of a industrialist's niece on a remote island. Their investigations uncover religious killings, Nazism, rape, child abuse and murder.

All three books have already been adapted into a Swedish language film trilogy with the first, 'Dragon Tattoo', having hit theaters in the US, UK and Australia in recent weeks to very good reviews and strong sales for a non-English language film. The next two films are scheduled for release later in the year.

Carey Mulligan has been tipped for the Salander role but the actress herself claims no-one has been in contact. Fincher apparently wants an unknown for the very complex Salander character. Scott Rudin will produce and Steve Zaillian ("Schindler's List," "American Gangster") will pen the script with shooting to kick off around October once Fincher wraps press for his upcoming drama "The Social Network".

Earlier this month there was talk Fincher was to helm the 1970s-set chess drama "Pawn Sacrifice" with Tobey Maguire, however its now been revealed Fincher only met with the filmmakers to advise them rather than take on a directorial capacity.

Dean Parisot ("Galaxy Quest," "Fun with Dick and Jane") is in talks to direct the underwater action/fantasy thriller "SEAL Team Seven" for Walden Media reports The Los Angeles Times.

Based on the M. Zachary Sherman-created 2006 graphic novel "SOCOM: SEAL Team Seven", the story follows CIA tactician Douglas Griffin who joins his former SEAL team to investigate the reason behind a submarine's downing in the Persian Gulf.

Their investigation leads to a battle that pits the U.S. Navy against the underwater Kingdom of Atlantis in a full-blown war against humanity's extinction.

Parisot was scheduled to shoot the comedy "Central Intelligence" this Summer but that project has been put on hold.

Curtis Hanson ("Wonder Boys," "L.A. Confidential") is set to direct "Jay Moriarity", a biopic about the surfing wunderkid reports Production Weekly.

The teenage Moriarity surfed the waves of Santa Cruz and developed skills in surfing all kinds of craft, especially the old-fashioned longboards, and became one of the best big wave surfers in the world.

Sean Penn in talks to play his mentor Rick "Frosty" Hesson, a former lifeguard and collegiate swimmer who helped Moriarity in a program of intense mental and physical training to prepare to surf Mavericks, a spot on the California coast where waves five stories tall would come in during the winter swells.

The day before his 23rd birthday, Jay drowned while free-diving alone off the Lohifushi Island resort in the Maldives.

David R. Ellis ("The Final Destination") is set to direct the thriller "Bad Luck" for Entertainment 7 and Amber Entertainment reports Variety.

"The Crow" scribe David J. Schow penned the story about some college friends and ardent sceptics who find themselves becoming believers when various superstitions start interfering in their lives.

Mark Ordesky will produce what aims to be the first in a potential franchise, and filming will kick off in the Fall.

Two werewolf related projects seem to have scored directors today, lets take a look.

First up scribe David Hayter ("X-Men," "Watchmen") will make his directorial debut on the $18 million thriller "Wolves" for TF1 reports Deadline.

Described as a less chaste "Twilight", Hayter's script de-constructs past werewolf films of their mythology and make it a more blunt metaphor for teenage sexual awakening.

The project almost got going once before with Thomas Dekker and Ray Stevenson, but the credit crunch put a stop on that.

In other lycanthropic news, Steve Pink ("Hot Tub Time Machine," "Accepted") is attached to direct the R-rated horror comedy "Werewolves of Reseda" reports Production Weekly.

Brian Frank's script follows a group of guys who live in San Fernando Valley suburbia and gradually turn into werewolves. The changes actually end up being a benefit to their family lives.

Lawrence Grey will apparently produce.

When I interviewed Paul Greengrass last month for GREEN ZONE, he speculated that his next film would be a significant departure from the handheld, rapidly-cut action films on which he made his name. He joked that he was ready to try a romantic comedy. Somehow, that'd seem more likely than taking on the 3D, CGI-heavy remake of FANTASTIC VOYAGE being prepped by producers James Cameron and Jon Landau at 20th Century Fox (utilizing the same technology that made AVATAR a worldwide box-office juggernaut). But here we are.

Based on the 1966 sci-fi hit directed by the sporadically great Richard Fleischer (please watch THE NARROW MARGIN at your earliest convenience), this version will once again find a team of scientists being miniaturized and injected into the imperiled body of an indispensable colleague. There's no word as to whether they're battling another blood clot or something more insidious this time out (personally, I'm hoping they go toe-to-toe with a mutant strain of the swine flu that looks like the titular beast from RAZORBACK).

According to Variety, Greengrass is only "in talks" at the moment, so there's a possibility he could take a peek at the Shane Salerno screenplay, realize it's a Shane Salerno screenplay, and run screaming. Honestly, though, I hope he takes the gig. Greengrass is the kind of skilled and inquisitive filmmaker who could find a completely different way to harness the potential of 3D, and save it from the studios' idiotic insistence on turning every major genre release into a blurry, misshapen mess via the dubious "conversion" process (i.e. avoid the 3D version of CLASH OF THE TITANS at all costs; it is a spectacular waste of your money). That Greengrass is far enough along in the conversation with Cameron for Variety to be reporting on it suggests that he's got a strong take on the material and/or the application of the technology.

FANTASTIC VOYAGE is a fun, but of-its-era movie, so I've no problem with a remake. Let's just hope Warner Bros. isn't inspired to rush a competing INNERSPACE redo into production, 'cuz that'd be sacrilege.

Oliver Stone is doing some investigating for 20th Century Fox.

Director, who helmed Fox's upcoming "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," is coming aboard to develop and possibly direct "Travis McGee," based on the fictional detective created by American author John D. MacDonald.

Leonardo DiCaprio was already set to star as the scrappy detective, a self-described beach bum who resides on a houseboat in Florida, taking on random cases.

Peter Chernin's Fox-based Chernin Entertainment is attached to produce with Amy Robinson and Appian Way's DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran.

Film would take its storyline from the first of MacDonald's 21 books, "The Deep Blue Goodbye," which has the detective searching for a World War II treasure. Adapted script was penned by Dana Stevens.

Stone's "Wall Street" sequel is likely to make its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. In light of that opportunity, Fox decided to push back the release of "Wall Street" from April 12 to Sept. 24.

Simon Pegg is currently spanning time and space like some kind of acting Tardis. Next up for him is John Landis' 19th century Gothic, Burke And Hare, before he's carried to present day Area 51 in Greg Mottola's Paul. Following that he spins up the warp drive to reprise his role as Scotty in the J.J. Abrams' Star Trek sequel.

Pegg was at the Jameson Empire Awards to collect the Best Sci-fi gong for Star Trek, so what better time to ask for an update on the next Trek instalment? "I bug J.J. on a regular basis and he just fobs me off," he laughed. "But I saw Zoe Saldana recently and she reckons that it's going to be soon. I would imagine it'll be toward the end of the year, but I can't guarantee it."

So there you have it, Trekkers: 'soon-ish' is the word, although with no news yet on when Alex Kurtzman and Rob Orci's script will be delivered, don't expect to reboard the Enterprise until the second half of 2012 at the earliest.

In the meantime, Burke And Hare pairs Pegg with Andy Serkis as notorious Edinburgh corpse-peddlers William Burke and William Hare in John Landis' big screen return. Expect moral ambiguity in spades. "It's about two guys who murder for money but you're encouraged to like them and be on their side," Pegg told us. "It's interesting morally because it challenges the audience's perception of who they are. It's light-hearted but there's a very dark, unsettling truth at the heart of it ."

And what of the body count? "The gore comes more from the medical side, when they hand over the bodies, but yeah, you see to pretty gruesome stuff."

Last but far from least, Pegg confirmed that The World's End, the final part of his and Edgar Wright's Blood and Ice Cream trilogy - aka 'Three Colours: Cornetto' - is still very much on the cards. "At some point when Edgar (Wright) finishes Scott Pilgrim and I'm finished on Paul when we're going to write it." Both he and Wright are their keeping cards close to their chest, but whatever goodness they have in store, colour us excited.

Emir-beg je opasan plejer:

BERLIN — Celebrated French thesp Tahar Rahim is in advanced negotiations to star in Emir Kusturica's Palestinian comedy "Cool Water," which is set to start production in September.

Rahim won a slew of awards for his role as a young inmate who rises to power in a French prison in Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet" and next appears in Kevin Macdonald's historical epic "The Eagle of the Ninth."

In "Cool Water" he would play one of two Palestinian brothers who try to smuggle the body of their recently deceased father from Jerusalem to Ramallah while trying to avoid Israeli police and Russian mobsters.

Penned by Gabrial Bornstein and developed by Hamburg-based Brave New Work Film Prods., "Cool Water" is co-produced by Wild Bunch, which is handling international sales and also distributing the pic in Germany.

The Euros4.5 million ($6 million) production has so far secured more than $1.3 million from regional funder Filmfoerderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein and the Federal Film Board (FFA). Further coin is expected from the Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and Filmstiftung NRW.

Kusturica, who will next star in Olivier Horlait's coming-of-ager "Nicostratos the Pelican," will follow "Cool Water" with "Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers," in which Johnny Depp is set to star as the Mexican revolutionary.

Doug Liman ("The Bourne Identity," "Go," "Jumper") is in talks to direct "The Three Musketeers" for Warner Bros. Pictures, one of two adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' classic story currently in the works says Heat Vision Blog.

Peter Straughan ("The Men Who Stare At Goats") adapted the script following the very familiar story of young D'Artagnan enlisting the help of three disgraced veteran musketeers to stop the duplicitous Cardinal Richelieu.

"Sherlock Holmes" producer Lionel Wigram aims to do a period-set but modern sensibility take on the tale, much like the recent Holmes adaptation.

The project is in direct contention with an adaptation that Paul W.S. Anderson is directing over at Summit Entertainment. Both are targeting a release next year and both will likely be in 3D.

David R. Ellis ("The Final Destination") is tipped to direct the horror feature "Shark Night 3D" says Deadline New York.

Jesse Studenberg and Will Hayes' script is being kept under wraps but the $28 million creature feature hopes to become "Jaws for a new generation".

Walt Conti, who created the animatronic creatures in "Snakes on a Plane" and "Deep Blue Sea", will handle the animatronic sharks in this film.

Mike Fleiss, Chris Briggs and Lynette Howell will produce and shooting kicks off this summer in Louisiana for a release in 2012.

Ellis was recently linked to direct the thriller "Bad Luck" which begins shooting this Fall.

Oscar-winning "Precious" scribe Geoffrey Fletcher is tipped to direct a film from his own script "Violet and Daisy" reports Showbiz 411.

Carey Mulligan ("An Education") and Saoirse Ronan ("The Lovely Bones") are seemingly being pursued to star in the project described as a "Thelma and Louise" meets "Superbad" and "Pulp Fiction."

Wendy Finerman ("Forrest Gump") will produce.

Spanish helmer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo ("28 Weeks Later") has signed on to direct and Clive Owen will topline the English-language horror-thriller "Intruders" for Antena 3 and Universal Pictures International.

Based on a script by Jaime Marques and Nico Casariego, story centers on an 11-year-old girl who is forced to confront childhood demons.

European star Daniel Brühl has also boarded the film, which will begin lensing in June in London and Madrid.

Enrique López Lavigne, longtime producing partner to Fresnadillo, is producing through his Madrid-based Apaches Entertainment. Apache's Belen Atienza will also produce. Universal will be distribute internationally.