Prequels, Sequels & Remakes

Warner Brothers are developing a prequel to I Am Legend. With Francis Lawrence returning to direct, Akiva Goldsman and James Lassiter returning to produce, and Will Smith reprising his role as Robert Neville. It’ll be based on an outline, developed by the four while they were filming I Am Legend, that would follow the days leading up to and through the beginning of the plague.

Matt Reeves will write and direct a remake of Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, which was an adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel. There’s a production, financing, and distribution pact between Overture and HS Media (parent company of Hammer and Spitfire Films), who are planning to release it next year.

Writer-director Steven Pink has signed on for MGM’s remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (which was a remake of 1964’s Bedtime story) about two polar opposite conmen who run a con on a woman as a way of competing for hunting grounds. Says Pink, "Movies like that, which are so brilliant, the problem with writing them is a) you have to beat those jokes, and it's hard, and b), they're so funny that they defy story logic in a way. So I'm trying to split the difference. Because the cons have to be sophisticated, but you also want their behavior to be totally outrageous and absurd. So I'm trying to find the balance between keeping it massively funny, but then also make the cons credible."

Helen Mirren will star in Miramax’s The Debt as an undercover Mossad agent. Based on a spec script by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, it’s a remake of 2007 Israeli movie HaHov.

According to Ain’t It Cool News, Bill Murray says he likes that the writers from The Office are doing Ghostbusters 3, that doing voice work for the game raised his enthusiasm, that "the wounds from GHOSTBUSTERS 2 are healed," and that he’d be into doing another Ghostbusters.

Disney has confirmed that Johnny Depp will be returning for Pirates of the Caribbean 4, but Keira Knightley won’t, "I think it was wonderful and an amazing opportunity and those films were just extraordinary and I was extremely lucky to be a part of them. But no. I think my pirating days may be over."

Jerry Bruckheimer, Nicolas Cage, and Disney's Dick Cook have confirmed that National Treasure 3 is currently in development.

Cars 2 has been moved up from 2012 to 2011. There will also be short film about the characters that will be on TV and before movies in theaters. "You’ll see them everywhere. We’re going to keep this ‘Cars’ thing going." Said Dick Cook.

Rich Gelfond, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of the IMAX Corporation, on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: "We believe this film will include approximately 25 minutes in IMAX 3-D split between the opening sequence of the film and the finale."

About Crank 2, Jason Statham said, "We've got David Carradine in the film, and he plays a character called 'Puon Dong,' who's this really mad Asian Mafia guy."… "Whatever the first one was, this one's more - just completely rude, offensive and plain mad in every way. It's great, there's no movie like it and they've exceeded all expectations. To go and do that - balls to the wall - with no worries about trying to tone anything down, or to try to make it believable, you know, it's just like a video game. There's nothing more fun to do than to go and make something like that kind of a film, it's pretty unique."