Gaiman

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Later this year - if all goes well - Neil Gaiman will be directing his first feature film. It's an adaptation of his Death: The High Cost of Living mini-series, and - of course - he's scripted it.

This was the film he was discussing with Guillermo del Toro at the meeting a couple of weeks back, as I suspected. I've now had this 100% confirmed.

What more do I know? That the film will most likely shoot in late autumn, early winter, and in the UK, though the comic takes place (mainly) in the US. I'm also pretty sure that, as he's discussed before, Shia LaBeouf is almost certainly going to play the male lead (he certainly talks about it enough) - in the comics he was called Sexton Furnival; and that Death, or Didi as she calls herself in her mortal form, has snagged the interest of one famous young actress in particular. The Death hunt is done, if the deal works out, and soon she'll be named.

No news at all on who will play the Eremite or Mad Hetty, though it's hard to believe Miriam Margolyes won't get offered the latter role once casting moves into top gear.

Gaiman has mentioned that there is some business in the film's script that there was simply no room for in the comic - something about Buddhist monks 'running around', for example.