Prequels, Sequels & Remakes

Rob Cohen says Paramount has the remake rights to The Monster Squad, "I am talking with Paramount about the ownership rights, we just found out that because of all the different companies being bought and sold, but we believe all the rights are back at Paramount. I have been waiting to finish this (Mummy) film, to really start the talks about remaking it. Maybe I would direct, maybe someone else with me producing. I really think highly of that that film…I mean, how great is it with The Mummy, the Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein they all were in it! It would be a prime remake!”

Carl Ellsworth will write the Dan Bradley directed Red Dawn remake from MGM. Ellsworth: “The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we’re in. As ‘Red Dawn’ scared the heck out of people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a lot of paranoia and unease, so why not scare the hell out of people again?”

What’s going on with that RoboCop remake? Darren Aronofsky is interested (but not yet signed) in directing, and right now it looks like it might be a sequel instead of a remake. [maybe, possibly, etc.]

After asking for some minor edits, the Chinese government has cleared The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor for a post Olympic games (August 8-24) release date.

Roland Kickinger will be replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 in Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

Troy Duffy on Boondock Saints 2: "The boys (Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery) and their father Il Duce (Billy Connolly) have been living in seclusion, deep in Ireland on a sheep farm, away from everything, when Il Duce’s brother comes to tell them that a priest was murdered in Boston and it was set up to look like it was done by the Saints. The boys rush back to deal with it, while they’re supposedly ailing father stays on the farm. There’s a new character who’s kind of the Rocco character named Romeo; funny, but much more bad ass. As soon as the brothers land, they start picking off anyone who may be tied to this framing. Willem Dafoe is not in the sequel, a new FBI detective comes into play — a female with a strong southern accent. She wants to catch the Saints and is working with some of the detectives in the first movie (like Bob Marley) who, as we know, decided the Saints were good and began helping them, but they don’t think she knows this, so they need to go with that. Eventually their father comes back into play and tells them what’s going on, which sets in motion a full-on flashback of the story of Il Duce from day one." Duffy says filming should start in August.

Paramount has okayed a sequel to School of Rock, School of Rock 2: America Rocks. Director Richard Linklater, writer Mike White, and Jack Black will be back. This time Finn will take a group of summer school students cross country exploring the history of several kinds of music.

Nick Palatas, Robbie Amell, and Hayley Alcroft have been cast as Shaggy, Fred, and Velma, respectively, in the Scooby Doo prequel.

The synopsis for David M. Evans directed, straight to DVD sequel, Ace Ventura 3: “After his African adventure in ‘Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls,’ Ace returned to Florida, married girlfriend Melissa (Ann Cusack) and became the doting father of a baby boy. Never one to sit still, Ace’s curious nature took him on another remote case. The goofball gumshoe was never to be seen or heard from again. Single mom Melissa couldn’t fully put the past behind her. Now a zookeeper, she and Ace Jr. (Josh Flitter) have made a life carrying on without her husband. Much to Melissa’s chagrin, however, 12-year-old Ace Jr. has begun to follow in his father’s comic footsteps. He has recently become a pet detective for the 7th grade set, often trying to recover classmates’ missing pets, and always with big mishaps. But when a master animal thief abducts a baby panda and his mom is wrongly arrested of the crime, Ace Jr. must jump into action. Now, with the help of pals Laura and tech wizard A-Plus, young Ace must bring the thief to justice and do his inane and lovable dad’s memory justice.”

The unconfirmed rumors around Iron Man 2 (Marvel “doesn't comment on rumors”) are that Marvel has signed Jon Favreau to direct and that Justin Theroux will write. Robert Downey Jr. is contractually obligated to return. Iron Man 2 should release April 2010.

The Weinsteins on Scream 4: “The fans have been asking for a 4th Scream movie for years and we're finally giving it to them. As far as details go, we're only in the planning stages and we may not get around to it for quite some time, but rest assured, it will happen."

David Goyer on the next Batman movie: “We’re not going to tell you [the next villain] other than to say Batman has been published for 70 years. In the first movie we used Ra’s Al Ghul and the Scarecrow who had not been in the movies before and had not been in the 60s TV show and there are dozens, if not hundreds of other characters that fit that bill. Everyone says you have to use the Penguin or Catwoman. Well, I completely disagree.” … “’I think Warner Bros would like to do another one. As far as Chris [Nolan] goes, we haven’t had any long conversations about it yet. It wasn’t until three or four months after Batman Begins opened that Chris and I sat down and talked about another one. We’ll have to see. It’s definitely a much scarier proposition. It was a scary proposition trying to do Dark Knight. It’s sort of a geometrically proportionate scary proposition to try to do another one, but we’ll see.’’

Eric Brevig on the possibility of a sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth: “At the end of the movie, they find a book about Atlantis. That might be something. If people embrace the movie and want to see these characters on another adventure, we might come up with something.”