Adaptations

Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Steven Spielberg, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci will produce, and Ervin Rustemagic and Rich Marincic will co-produce, an adaptation of Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley’s graphic novel Cowboys and Aliens. When a alien spaceship crashes in the middle of a fight between Apaches and settlers the two sides must join together. Robert Downey Jr. is in negotiations to play gunslinger Zeke Dawson.

Universal has the rights to Oni Press and Vasilis Lolos’ graphic novel series The Last Call. Evan Spiliotopoulos will adapt the story of two teens who get hit by a train that is actually an interdimensional soul carrier while they’re out joyriding.

Nicolas Cage and Donald Sutherland will join Freddie Highmore, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy, and Eugene Levy in the voice cast the CGI movie for Astro Boy. Also, Summit Entertainment and Imagi Studios have a deal where Summit will distribute the movie worldwide except for Japan, Hong Kong, and China, which are Imagi’s reserved territories. The movie is set for a 2009 release.

Lawrence Kasdan will write the Robotech script (there’s no mention on Crag Zahler who was originally set to write), and Akiva Goldsman, Charles Rovan, Tobey Maguire, and Drew Crevello are producing. If you don’t know, Robotech is Harmony Gold’s ‘80s re-edited mashup of three separate science fiction anime series (Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada) to become one sprawling epic. An alien spaceship crashes on an island in the South Pacific in the distant year 1999 [oh those crazy days of the ‘80s] which is then repaired and reverse engineered to make transforming fighter jets. And then the aliens come looking for it. There is no word on how Warner Brothers will deal with the copyright issues between Tatsunoko Production and Macross’ creators.

Len Wiseman is officially attached to direct a movie version of 2006 humans vs. aliens video game Gears of War for New Line. He and Chris Morgan will develop a script based on a previous script by Stuart Beattie.

Freddie Highmore says he’s no longer attached to the Eddie Dickens and the Awful End movie, and he's not even sure if it’s still going ahead.

Spike Lee will direct and co-write Time Traveler, based off Ronald Mallett’s memoir Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality. It’s about Mallett’s rise from poverty to become one of the US’s first African American theoretical physicists, and his specs for a workable time machine that he wanted to use to go back and save late father.