Adaptations

“A judge has barred the estate of “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien from seeking punitive damages against the studio that brought the trilogy to the big screen.”

Summit Entertainment and IMAGI have announced that Astro Boy will open on over 3,000 North American screens on October 23, 2009.

Funimation has the distribution rights to the live action Mushishi movie, and is planning theatrical showings through Funimation Films and a DVD release in 2009.

Disney has announced that Johnny Depp will play the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland [E: Johnny Depp in a Tim Burton movie? Surely you jest!] The movie is in pre-production with a current theater date of March 5, 2010.

Oprah Winfrey will voice the mother in Disney’s hand drawn animation adaptation of The Frog Princess, The Princess and the Frog.

Rachel McAdams will play Irene Adler (a character from the story A Scandal In Bohemia) in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movie. She would also return for any possible sequels.

Timur Bekmambetov has been hired by Universal to direct a reimagining of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Adam Cooper and Bill Collage have written it in a “graphic novel” style that will throw out Ishmael’s perspective in order to show more ships being destroyed by the white whale, and “Ahab will be depicted more as a charismatic leader than a brooding obsessive.” [E: ?!] Says Cooper, "Our vision isn’t your grandfather’s Moby Dick. This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story."

Johnny Depp will play Tonto in the Lone Ranger movie. Dick Cook says that they haven’t chosen anyone for that masked man, but there are several candidates.

Bandai Visual is adapting anime and manga Rescue Wings into a live action movie that will be directed by Masaaki Tezuka. The story will change from focusing on a male pilot to a female one. Yuko Takayama, Tomokazu Miura, Yoshina Kinura, Shuya Isaka, and Dai Watanabe will star, with participation from The Japanese Ministry of Defense, Air Self Defense Force, and Maritime Self Defense Force for real vehicles. The movie will open in Japan December 2009.

Avi Arad has the movie rights to Bioware's scifi action RPG Mass Effect. The game plot goes like this: "As the first humans on the galactic stage, players must uncover the greatest threat to civilization. Their job is complicated by the fact that no one will believe the truth, but the world must be convinced of the grave threat at hand."

Producer John Davis on the Sims movie: “The Sims, as you know, you can control your imaginary world, right? And our movie, a young man, a 16 year old kid of a 14 year old kid and his friend get their hands on this thing called the Sims Infinity Pack, right, which kind of this very strange video game store which was there just for that moment, and seemingly wasn’t all that. But what they realize is that they can scan their world in, because this is the most life like, real Sims game ever. And as they are playing this they are all of a sudden realizing is what they are playing on the game is having an effect on the real world. So in effect, through the game, they are able to control their world. It’s wish fulfillment, and obviously it turns against them.”