Movie News

Stan Lee and Walt Disney Pictures will work together on three projects to be exec produced by Lee's company POW! Entertainment. Based on stories by Lee, Nick Ratchet will be directed by Richard LaGravenese, Blaze is being written by Gary Goldman, and Tigress (not related to the previously announced movie about the Conan the Barbarian villainess) will be written by Zoe Green. Other than that the studio is keeping tight lipped.

Anchor Bay Entertainment has named Sony Pictures Home Entertainment as exclusive distributor for its, and subsidiary Manga Entertainment's, worldwide markets outside North America, Australia, and Great Britain. Anchor Bay hopes to extend its market presence with this partnership.

Walt Disney Pictures, ImageMovers, and writers Michael Dougherty, Breehn Burns, and Simeon Wilkins, will be making Calling All Robots. Using the same performance capture technology as in Beowulf, the story for the animated scifi adventure is unknown, but Dougherty says it will "tell a story that's a throwback to old Godzilla movies. I grew up watching Godzilla movies. This film is very much rooted in those movies."

The distribution rights to writer/director Vincenzo Natali's Splice for North America, Germany, and Spain, has been acquired by Senator Entertainment. Starring Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley, the movie is about a pair of scientists who perform illegal genetic experiments, creating a new species of combined human and animal DNA, and the consequences. Theatrical release 2009.

Henry Lee Hopper, Denzel Whitaker, Shareeka Epps, and Emily Meade will star in Wes Craven's 25/8 (tentative title). Unfolding in the course of a day, the horror thriller has seven teenagers being haunted by the serial killer who supposedly died 15 years ago, when they were born.

Shannon Beckner and Oded Fehr will star in Eric Valette's killer car movie Hybrid. Filming started last week, and Voltage Pictures has already acquired the foreign rights.

Jamal Woolard, Angela Bassett, Derek Luke, Anthony Mackie, and Edwin Freeman have been cast Notorious, a biopic about Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace. Having begun filming last month, it should release 2009.

Paramount has bought Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman's comic pitch One Big Happy. While no official word on the story has been given, Steve Martin and Diane Keaton will star.

Michael Jai White, Ving Rhames, and Rosamund Pike have joined Jonathan Mostow's Surogates.

Rogue, Greg McLean's killer croc movie, will have a theatrical release in the "top 10 markets" April 25.

*sigh* Lionsgate will put out yet a another Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer "written" and "directed" "parody" movie called Goodie Two Shoes. This time the general theme will be on movies like Superbad, with a “group of friends who go on a life-changing adventure.” But they will continue on, like with all that other garbage, to "spoof" other stuff too: Hancock, Sex in the City, The Love Guru, etc… These things just bring down my whole day.