Prequels, Sequels & Remakes

Columbia Pictures is doing a “new version” of 1984’s The Karate Kid. Chris Murphy is writing the script for what’ll be a vehicle for Jaden Smith. Filming starts next year in Beijing. “While the new film will be set in that exotic locale, it will borrow elements of the original plot, wherein a bullied youth learns to stand up for himself with the help of an eccentric mentor.” [E: Because it totally won’t spit on the ‘80s fun of the original at all, and y’know, that last Karate Kid movie was just so awesome.]

Sam Worthington will star in John Madden’s action thriller Debt, a remake of Israeli movie Ha-hov.

George Millar’s Happy Feet 2 will film in Sydney Australia. It will take 3 years, and be done by new digital production studio Dr D.

Director Catherine Hardwicke on adapting Twilight sequel New Moon: “Well, here's the challenge. Book two is literally about twice as expensive as this one, because they turn into werewolves, and they go to Italy, and they do all these stunts. So this one definitely looked like when you add it up, OK, how much does it take to market a movie? $35 to $40 million. Took almost $40 million to make it. That's $80 [million]. Then another $40 [million] to make the more expensive one; that'd be $120 [million]. So this thing has to make way more than that before somebody'll really be able to afford to make it. So we don't know if it's going to do that. That would be quite extraordinary, to make that much money on such a low budget.”

Dolph Lundgren talks Universal Soldier 3: “’Absolutely untrue,’ Lundgren insisted, clearing the air with a surprise call to MTV News HQ. ‘I’ve met with the producers many times, and I AM the one resisting.’”

Director Darren Lynn Bousman hopes to start a Repo! The Genetic Opera sequel in 2009. "I would love to follow up Repo and finish the story, because it was conceived as a three-part movie. But I’m doing an action film next. I can’t say exactly what it is yet. It’ll be announced next week. But I’m doing a big action film next, which is really exciting.”

Adaptations

Zack Snyder talks Watchmen’s ending.

Latest Dragonball release date: April 8, 2009.

Joe Johnston has signed with Marvel Studios to direct The First Avenger: Captain America. Kevin Feige will produce. There are no writers currently, but the studio is hearing pitches. The movie is due May 6, 2011.

The Cowboys and Aliens movie is now being written by Kurtzman and Orci. With Imagine producing, and Ron Howard is developing it for Robert Downey Jr.

Dark Horse’s Mike Richardson: "The most immediate is R.I.P.D. ... David Dobkin is directing. We're doing it over at Universal Studios. We have a great script by [Matt] Manfredi and [Phil] Hay. R.I.P.D. stands for Rest in Peace Department. It's based on a graphic novel by Peter Lenkov. It's about dead cops that died in the line of duty that are sent back, basically, to get people who don't want to come peacefully, people who stayed behind. It's a lot of fun. ... It has a few of the elements of something like a Men in Black, except this one has real scares in it. It's not sort of cartoon scares. A lot of humor, but real scary stuff going on."

"I will say we'll have a good announcement [about Emily Strange] coming up very shortly. I'm working with Rob. Yes, we've set it up with a studio, ... but there'll be an official announcement coming up soon. ... [There's a] very interesting story that we've come up with, too. It'll add background to Emily."

"We just set up Freaks of the Heartland over at Overture, with David Gordon Green directing. And the writers just started working on that."

Guillermo Del Toro on The Hobbit, Frankenstein, and At the Mountains of Madness.

The 39 Clues is still in scripting phase with Jeff Nathanson adapting the first book.

Simon Beaufoy has finished a draft for a screenplay based on Steven Hall’s novel The Raw Shark Texts. "OK, get this. It's about conceptual sharks that eat your memory. It's like Memento and Jaws and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Just pair it all up. It's the most amazing flight of imagination I've read for 20 years."

Guillermo Del Toro will be producing a stop motion adaptation of Carlo Collodi and Gris Grimly's Pinnochio. Says Del Toro, "The idea came from Gris, and everybody loves his book about it. The original story is far more perverse and spooky and semi-necrophilia vibe to it in certain aspects. Gris certainly has that vein in him, he wants to do this with that original spookiness in it, we are trying to get it going. The Jim Henson Company is the behind it and we are currently working on the screenplay! Its not coming to a screen near you any time soon, even if it were to begin today it would be about three years in the making, but we are working to make it happen. A full-scale puppet universe takes time.” Grimly will direct.

Marc Foster will direct World War Z. The movie, based on Max Brooks’ zombie novel, is being produced by Brad Pitt owned Plan B, leading to rumors that he may star. It “tells the story of the world's desperate battle against the zombie threat with a series of first-person accounts ‘as told to the author’ by various characters around the world. A Chinese doctor encounters one of the earliest zombie cases at a time when the Chinese government is ruthlessly suppressing any information about the outbreak that will soon spread across the globe. The tale then follows the outbreak via testimony of smugglers, intelligence officials, military personnel and many others who struggle to defeat the zombie menace.”

Pamela Pettler will write Hasbro-Universal’s Monopoly movie. Already producer, Ridley Scott has officially signed on as director “with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic ‘Blade Runner.’"

Ron Howard on an Arrested Development movie:
"I really hope we do it. The reason there's been so much back and forth is... well, for two reasons, is the business understanding coming from the studio side was not clear, so even though we were wanting to do it and said, 'Yeah, maybe we could' but things weren't defined. I think that's really come into focus in the last week or so. Mitch's full-on commitment to not only write it but direct it is something he's been wrestling with, he's been launching a TV show at the same time, so he couldn't let it really be at the forefront of his mind creatively. It is now. He seems very committed. We still don't have a script. Yeah, he's got some great ideas, and the cast seemed very excited about it and I certainly am. I'm very, very hopeful—more hopeful now than ever—that it's really going to happen."

11th Annual Mutant Awards!

Don't forget to vote in this year's Mutant Awards!

“Yeah, but, what level does my heart explode?”

Treadmill Race Across Azeroth

The Dark Knight and Bruce Campbell, my week is complete

Hey, Look… The City of Batman Is Suing Christopher Nolan For ‘The Dark Knight’

Dark Knight Score Loses Oscar Contention

Dance Dance Revolution – The Musical

Props and costumes from Battlestar Galactica will be auctioned off January 16-18, 2009, in Pasadena, California, with proceeds in part going to benefit the United Way.

Lupin III Theme Attraction to Open in Tokyo in Spring

An interview with Bruce Campbell “The only major issue I have directing myself is when I refuse to come out of the trailer. I then have to go banging on the trailer and ask myself to come out of the trailer. But in doing so I find myself out of the trailer and then back inside the trailer and then I just get confused and tend to give up and just wait till I am ready to come out.” And what he says about ‘Torture Porn’ is spot on. I love you Bruce Campbell!

80 Great Posters of Not So Great & Even Worse Sci-Fi Movies 1950 - 1965 I’ve seen, at least, 38 of these (I didn’t count the ones I wasn’t sure about)… and, um, kinda own quite a few too....

William Shakespeare, Science Fiction Author of the Forbidden Tomorrow Zone

Crossing Charles Schultz with H.P. Lovecraft‏ (Submitted by Sitting Duck)

“The aim here is to poke fun at the seemingly endless variant cover themes Marvel comes up with.”

Games

Press release: ESRB Announces New Video Game Rating Summaries (PDF)

IMAGI and D3Publisher have an agreement for a video game based on the film version of Astro Boy. It’s slated for all handheld systems in 2009’s fourth quarter.

“The rights to the ‘Heroes’ video game have reverted back to NBC Universal. Ubisoft will no longer produce a video game based on the TV series.”

Street Fight IV’s Seth trailer.

Kingdom Under Fire II - Gameplay Trailer

Comics and Books

A rundown on the Terminator comics out there.

IDW has the rights to a comic book adaption of IMAGI’s CG Astro Boy, an adaption of Osamu Tezuka’s comic. Tentatively, there will be a four part prequel and a four part straight adaptation of the movie. Pending approval the prequel will release May 2009. The movie comes out October 2009.

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola is developing a new occult comic series called Witchfinder, centering on a Victorian-era occult detective first introduced in Hellboy.

Bat-Manga Ignites Online War Of Words Between Fans And Author

The Brothers Bloom

November 16, Melbourne Australia. At 6:30 pm The Cinema Nova will have an early screening of The Brothers Bloom (release is 2009). It’ll be followed by a Q&A with director Rian Johnson.

“Rian Johnson's BRICK was one of the most audacious directorial debuts in a long time - injecting film noir with a teen sensibility. His follow-up is a fun caper film about the best con men in the world (Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody), swindling millionaires and the occasional heiress (Rachel Weisz).”

Tickets and info here.

DVD Releases

Burn After Reading – December 13
Mamma Mia! – December 16
Death Proof (Blu-ray) – December 16
Death Race – December 23
Serenity (Blu-ray) – December 30
Babylon AD – January 6, 2009
Ring of Death – January 19, 2009
Boogeyman 3 – January 20, 2009
Raging Bull (Blu-ray) – February 10, 2009
A History of Violence (Blu-ray) – February 10, 2009

TV News...

Fans are campaigning for Pushing Daisies with daisies.

Fox will premiere Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse February 13, 2009, and will continue at Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT -what’s been called the “death slot”- following Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Reiko Aylesworth is in negotiations for, at least, four episodes in the next season of Lost. The recurring role is for “Amy, a smart and successful professional woman with a love for the outdoors who is looking for the right man.” [E: Quite possibly the most personals sounding character description ever]

In retooling the show, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Yancey Arias, and Bruce Davison will not be returning to Knight Rider. Says show runner Gary Scott Thompson, "It's a reboot. We're moving away from the terrorist-of-the-week formula and closer to the original, making it a show about a man and his car going out and helping more regular people, everymen."

Fox TV, CTV, ProSieben, and BBC will team up for 13 episode science fiction drama Defying Gravity. From James Parriott and Michael Edelstein, it’s “set in the near future and revolves around eight astronauts from five countries who take on a mysterious six-year mission through the solar system.” Ron Livingston and Florentine Lahme have been cast, and David Straiton will direct the first episode. Filming starts January in Canada.

A&E is developing paranormal procedural drama Signs & Wonders. Produced by Jed Mercurio, Mandalay Television, and Fox TV, “Signs & Wonders tracks a psychiatrist who runs the cognitive sciences research department at a prestigious university and leads a team of grad students in solving suspicious medical cases.”

CW and Warner Brothers TV have already axed Robin/Dick Grayson pre-Batman pilot The Graysons. Warner Brothers Pictures Group president Jeff Robinov, after initially green-lighting the project, has changed his mind. [E: Darn, I was hoping for another Birds of Prey *rawr*.]

“Keep an eye out for ‘BSG: Essential Elements,’ a half-hour special on Sunday, January 11 at 11:00/10:00c. And if that wasn't enough ‘Galactica,’ it's understood the latest wave of webisodes for the series will be broadcast during the network's January 15 presentation of ‘Pitch Black.’"

SciFi’s Warehouse 13 has hired executive producers Jack Kenny, David Simkins, and Dana Baratta, supervising producer Drew Greenberg, co-producers Matt Federman and Stephen Scaia, and staff writers Bob Goodman, Tamara Becher, Ben Raab, and Deric Hughes. Production is set to begin February in Toronto, with a July 2009 premiere.