Saturday, November 19, 2011

Clicks Of The Projector

The latest batch of industry bits from the last week or so...

-Asa Butterfield ("Hugo," BBC’s "Merlin") has been offered the lead role in Gavin Hood’s film adaptation of Orson Scott Card's classic 1985 sci-fi novel "Ender’s Game" reports Deadline.

-Joel Edgerton has passed on the sequel "300: Battle of Artemisia" says Variety. The Aussie actor was up for the role of Themosticles.

-Kirsten Dunst is joining Mark Ruffalo and Billy Crudup in Adam Rapp's indie drama film adaptation of his own play "A Red Light Winter" says The Press Association The story focuses on two male friends who go to Amsterdam to rekindle their friendship, but things change when they meet a prostitute (Dunst). Shooting begins in January.

-Elle Fanning will join Alice Englert in Sally Potter's new 60's London-set drama "Bomb" says The Press Association The duo will play in teenage rebels.

-New Line Cinema is developing a film adaptation of the classic 1980's arcade video game "Rampage" reports Heat Vision.

-The movie based on the hit video game series "Bioshock" seems dead gang. Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine tells Industry Gamers that "there's no burning [desire] to have a movie made just to get it made. For us and for Take-Two, it's really got to be something that will a) give the fans something that they want, and b) for those who don't know BioShock, really introduce them to something that is consistent with the game, and is it going to be a good representation of the game."

-"Paranormal Activity" series producer Jason Blum will be working with George Plamondon and Betsy Schechter, the producers behind A&E's series "Paranormal State", to option the film rights to the cult magazine Fate according to The Hollywood Reporter. Fate, founded in 1948, publishes published expert opinions and personal experiences relating to "UFOs, psychic abilities, ghosts and hauntings, cryptozoology, alternative medicine, divination methods, belief in the survival of personality after death, Fortean phenomena, predictive dreams, mental telepathy, archaeology, warnings of death, and other paranormal topics".The trio plan to use the magazine's thousands of stories as material for use in both television and film.

-"Despicable Me" and "The Lorax" animated feature producers Illumination Entertainment are working on a feature film based on the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker says Heat Vision.


-Ridley Scott and Gerard Butler are looking to team for a fact-based thriller about former British army officer Simon Mann says Deadline. This as Scott mulls working with Angelina Jolie on Gertrude Bell  biopic according to The Hollywood Reporter.

-The estate of the late pop icon Michael Jackson is reportedly shopping around a potential film based on certain periods of the singer's life reports Showblitz. Jackson estate executor John Branca has apparently approached Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock's Montecito Picture Company about the possibility of producing and financing said film.  Pollack has confirmed the two sides are in early talks but a deal is still some time off.

-"High Fidelity" director Stephen Frears and scribe D.V. DeVincentis are re-teaming for an English-language feature adaptation of documentary "The Bengali Detective" reports Variety.

-Actress Scarlett Johansson will be making her directorial debut on an adaptation of Truman Capote's lost novella "Summer Crossing" reports Variety.

-Sidney Kimmel Entertainment will co-finance and co-produce German writer/director Sandra Nettlebeck's comedic melodrama “Mr. Morgan’s Last Love” reports Reuters.

-Tim Burton is in early talks to develop a film adaptation of the Ransom Riggs novel "Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children" at 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment says Deadline. The book follows a 16-year-old whose childhood was filled with stories his grandfather told him about an orphanage for unusual children. The teen heads off to his grandfather’s home on an isolated island off Wales and discovers the abandoned remains of the orphanage where he learns the children weren't just peculiar but dangerous and may still be lurking around.

-David Yates, the director of the last four "Harry Potter" movies, wants to adapt another British cultural icon- "Doctor Who". Yates and the BBC are teaming up to turn the sci-fi TV series into a big budget feature film franchise says Variety. The film WOULD NOT be part of the series continuity...


-Shirley MacLaine, Alan Arkin and Jacki Weaver ("Animal Kingdom") will star in Howard Deutch's indie comedy "Wild Oats" at says Variety.

-Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody have joined the cast of Feng Xiaogang's untitled film about the 1942 famine and drought in central China during the war against Japan says Variety Based on writer Liu Zhenyun's novel "Remembering 1942", shooting kicks off shortly for release next year.

-Dwayne Johnson will star in the comic book mini-series adaptation “Monster Hunter’s Survival Guide” says Reuters John Paul Russ's comic offered a comprehensive guide of how to hunt and survive confrontations with monsters, the undead and unnatural beasts.

-George Clooney has been named as a lead contender for the role of Steve Jobs in the planned biopic says The Register Clooney's former fellow ER co-star Noah Wyle is also in the running, Wyle previously played Jobs in the 1999 cult classic “Pirates of Silicon Valley”.

That's all for now....

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