Double-Fisted

Tough guy Vinnie Jones has signed on for 2 projects says The Hollywood Reporter

Rob Hedden's romantic comedy "Wedlocked," about a pet photographer (Dave Annable) who gets involved with a mobster and his daughter (Katharine McPhee).

Jones will play the mobster, who attempts to kidnap McPhee's character.

The second project Jones recently joined is "Smokin' Aces: Blowback," a "Smokin' Aces" prequel-produced by original Aces helmer Joe Carnahan--in which he plays an assassin hunting down a mob who is hiding in Las Vegas.

P.J. Pesce is directing the film, which will go straight to DVD

In "Blowback," Jones plays an assassin gunning for a mob snitch who is hiding in Vegas. Tom Berenger, Clayne Crawford, Tommy Flanagan and Maury Sterling also star in the film.


Assuming that his court case doesn't get in the way of work...

Doggie Treats

Warner Bros. has picked up the animated feature pitch by Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons, who also wrote "Master Mind,"called "Dog Show".

Ellen DeGeneres will lend her voice says The Hollywood Reporter.



While plot details are being kept on a leash, the story centers on a stray dog and her misfit friends who shake up the famed and pure-bred world of a Westminster -like dog show.

DeGeneres will co-produce. David Manpearl developed the pitch.

DeGeneres got animated once before as Finding Nemo's Dory.

Gore Is "Board"

The Clue Board Game is headed back to the big screen...

Universal Pictures wants director Gore Verbinski to develop a more straightforward murder mystery take on the classic Hasbro board game that he would lso helm says Variety.

The film is a part of Universal's deal with the compazny which will see 3 of their board game properties become features .

Jonathan Krauss, senior VP of Verbinski's production company, says this flick will be "a global thriller and transmedia event that uses deductive reasoning as its storytelling engine."



Verbinski will next direct an adaptation of the acclaimed video fame Bioshock for the studio.

Jonathan Lynn wrote and directed the 1985 film incarnation of Clue which had a comedic bent-which is quite underrated in its own right.

Lake Effect

Fox Atomic is in talks to pick up the murder mystery spec "Shimmer Lake" says Production Weekly.

"Lake" centers on a sheriff investigating a series of murders as well as the disappearance of a bank robber, with clues and the movie's timeline leading back to a heist the robber committed.

Ori Uziel wrote the screnplay which was a finalist at the Austin Film Festival last year.

From River To Waters

Oscar nominee Melissa Leo has signed on to star with Hilary Swank in Tony Goldwyn’s upcoming drama “Betty Anne Waters." reports Variety.

The drama centers on an unemployed single mother (Swank) who saw her brother (Sam Rockwell) begin serving a life sentence in 1983 for murder and robbery.

Convinced that he was innocent, she earned a law degree and challenged the conviction with DNA evidence, resulting in her brother being freed in 2001.

Leo portrays the only woman officer at a local police station who’s trying to pin the murder on him. Minnie Driver also stars.

Pamela Gray wrote the original script, which Richard Lagravenese rewrote.

Leo's turn "Frozen River," makes her a fine pick here she can do this with eyes shut--and make it better

Shooting on the biopic starts this week in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

All Abuzz About Hornet

The Green Hornet movie is back on track with Michel Gondry in the big chair says Variety.

Seth Rogen is Hornet, and Stephen Chow--who bowed out as director- is still very much set to play his sidekick, Kato. Rogen wrote the script with Evan Goldberg,

Neal H. Moritz is producing this new incarnation of the crime fighter from 30's radio and 60's TV.

Moritz: “We’re huge fans of Michel Gondry. ’Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ and all his films are as daring as they are extraordinary, fueled by creative ideas that spring from his unique worldview. Our first rule, always, is to make the movie that we want to see, and that couldn’t be truer than with Michel bringing his stylish and original touch to the helm"

True, but his Be Kind Rewind is genius stuff...GH has great potential with Gondry in the big chair...

Gondry came up with a presentation that excited suits Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach

This will be the most overtly commercial film of Gondry's career, and is targeted for a June 25th 2010 release.

Media Matters

MRC :: Media Rights Capital is making double news today.

Matt Damon is re-teamimg with his The Bourne Ultimatum Ocean's Twelve scipter George Nolfi for "The Adjustment Bureau" a contemporary science fiction love story.




Nolfi wrote a script that is loosely based on a Philip K. Dick short story, and will make his directing debut on the film, which will begin production late this summer.

MRC is also shopping around the action comedy "B Team"--with Adam McKay calling action to Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as cops. Chris Henchy penned the script.

New Developments

After weeks s of holding out--Michael Cera has finally agreed to do the feature film version of the cancelled but highly touted sitcom "Arrested Development" says E! Online's Kristin.

Cera had been the lone holdout among the show's stars for several weeks. The rest of the show's cast including Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi Will Arnett, Tony Hale, Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor and David Cross , are already up for it according to sources and the movie may go into production as early as the end of the year.

Cera has proven he doesn't need AD--His involvement means that they offered him the right amount of ca-ching

Exec producer and the show's narrator Ron Howard told Seacrest at the Oscars on Sunday:

"It's looking very much like we're going to make [the movie], but we've now been asked to stop offering any details. It's cloaked in a little mystery, but it's looking good."

Mitchell Hurwitz is writing and directing the flick.

A Sucker For Beauty And Talent

Zack Snyder tells the gang at IESB.net that Amanda Seyfried is in talks for one of the five lead female roles in his next live-action film "Sucker Punch" that I talked about just yesterday

"I don't know, I mean, she's got some other obligations and we're just trying to figure that out. I think we're looking at, like, what I would consider a lot of great, really great girls. Because it's all girls so it's like, yeah".

Like I said I'm there already...Seyfried is building quite the eclectic film resume

The R-rated flick is described as "an Alice in Wonderland with machine guns," begins pre-production this June in Canada

Allen Gets A Pinto

Naomi Watts and "Slumdog Millionaire" actress Freida Pinto (pictured) will star in Woody Allen's new film project reports the Boston Globe

Pinto plays the ingenue role in the helmer's still-untitled film which also stars Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins.

Filming starts this Summer in London and no plot details have been released.

The film will open next Summer.

Allen's next "Whatever Works" opens this June.

Adding A Pinch Of Salt

Chiwetel Ejiofor is in negotiations to join the cast of Phillip Noyce's attention grabbing spy thriller with Angelina Jolie and Liev Schreiber called "Salt," says Reuters.

The high-profile project centers on a CIA officer named Salt (Jolie) who is pinned as a Russian sleeper spy set out to assassinate the president. She sets out to prove that someone else is the traitor.

Ejiofor will play Peabody, a CIA counterintelligence officer. Schreiber is playing Salt's boss and friend on the CIA's Russian desk.

Ejiofor makes a cool addition--loved him in Serenity as the bad guy...

Filming on Salt kicks off next month in New York.

Plame Games

Double Oscar winner Sean Penn is in negotiations to join Doug Liman's real life drama Fair Game says Variety.

Based on Valerie Plame -Wilson's book, the real life drama follows she (Naomi Watts) and her husband Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson (Penn) who watched her CIA status at the center of controversy after he wrote op-ed columns that accused the Bush Administration of manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Plame Wilson left the CIA in 2005 and she and her husband filed a civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Cheney's ex-chief of staff, Lewis Libby who was eventually convicted of lying to a federal grand jury about his role in compromising her covert status.

Libby's 30-month sentence was commuted, but Bush stopped short of granting him a full pardon.

Jez and John Butterworth adapted the script.

Penn would relish a movie that looks unfavorable on Bush 43...

I wonder if the film will mention Richard Armitage at all? Probably not...

Liman had previously sought Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe for the two lead roles.

Oscar '09 Viewers

Apparently this year's new revamp of the Oscars ceremony (sorta) helped halt the telecast's steep ratings decline in recent years...



The viewership for the 81st Annual Academy Awards rose slightly over last year in the overnight metered-market ratings according to The Live Feed.

With a 23.3 HH rating/35 share, the ceremony was up 6% from last year's performance which was ranked as the lowest ever.

An ABC analyst adds that they expect the total viewership to be about 6-10% higher than last year in the nationals.

OK The ratings were up--but not by all that much considering they hit a record low only a year ago...I will bet the prospect of Bradgelina and Jennifer Aniston fireworks brought a few folks in to have a look as well as those rooting for Heath Ledger to win...

Ratings were up but the show was STILL a snozer overall!

Supes Sequel After All?

What Reboot?

Slashfilm found a password protected page on the official Legendary Pictures website that lists 'Superman Unleashed' as the working title of one of their upcoming films in development and calls it "a sequel to ‘Superman Returns" rather than a restart...

Why can't anyone make a decision about Supes' big screen future and stick to it?

I don't know about you--but I am sick of this back and forth--Decision time is NOW

This is really ridiculous!

Galactic Under-Taking

As Ronald D. Moore's highly touted version of "Battlestar Galactica" airs its final episodes in the next few weeks...Look for Galactica to leap to the big screen.



Universal Pictures suits have entered into "quiet negotiations" with original series creator Glen A. Larson to write and produce a film version according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The original '"Battlestar"' aired in 1978 and involved a human civilization living on a series of twelve planets that are decimated from an attack by intelligent robots known as Cylons. The survivors are led by a starship called Galactica in their attempt to find a mythic 13th planet named Earth.

Star Wars. inspired the space opera kitch,...

In 2003 the property was relaunched under guiding hand of Moore--and while I respect what he's done with it--I never really got into it--after several attempts to jump in.

This new film will surprisingly start over yet again--and have no connection to either series, but the story keeps staple characters like Adama, Starbuck and Baltar.

Given the popularity of the current incarnation and the nostalgia that the 70's version engenders from me and others...I'm not sure if yet another restart is the way to go here. Hmmm

Sucking Up

Zack Snyder's 60's era project "Sucker Punch,", will be kick off production by the Fall of 2009 in Vancouver.



From Collider:

"it’s about a girl that’s been committed to an insane asylum and she fantasizes that she can escape and she has these crazy adventures in her mind where she goes into the past and into the future."

He promises that it's a hardcore action film that's "definitely rated R".

Snyder and Steve Shibuya wrote the script off of a short story.

At this point--I would follow Snyder anywhere...

And of course Watchmen hits theaters in less then two weeks and he's been working for the past few months on his animated project "Guardians of Ga'Hoole"

Up In Lights

Summit Entertainment has laid out their plans for the Twilight franchise

MTV says that from now the films will be known as The Twilight Saga with a subtitle...
.
The upcoming sequel is now called"The Twilight Saga’s New Moon.".

With a November 20th release, the sequel follows Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who is devastated by the abrupt departure of her vampire love, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) but her spirit is rekindled by her growing friendship with the irresistible Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Bella soon finds herself drawn into the world of the werewolves, ancestral enemies of the vampires, with her loyalties being tested.



Production on NM begins soon with Chris Weitz, calling action.

Meantime Variety is reporting that the third film "Eclipse" is also moving forward at a break neck pace with a June 30th 2010 release eyed. No director has been chosen.

From EW Pattinson talks 'New Moon' at the Oscars

Fast paced indeed...

Trivia Challenge

Despite the fact that he himself shot down his involvement with the new Conan flick, director appearently Brett Ratner still wants to be involved in some way...



He talked to MTV recently about casting the mythic hero:

"It should be an unknown. Conan is kind of iconic. It’s kind of like when you do Superman. It’s difficult to fill those shoes but they came up with a new Batman, they came up with a new James Bond, you know"

But as Garth Franklin of Dark Horizons points out

Ratner doesn't seem aware both Christian Bale and Daniel Craig were decently known before taking on those roles.

Duh!

Conan is in development. Ratner meantime, gets moving on Beverly Hills Cop IV hoping to shoot it sometime this year.

B Means Billion

The Dark Knight crossed the $1 billion dollar mark in worldwide box office receipts--only the fourth film ever to do so reports Variety.

Warner Bros. confirmed that as of Friday afternoon, the combined domestic and international gross had totaled $1,001,082,160 to date - around $533 million domestically and $567 million overseas. Grosses from Ecuador and the IMAX re-release helped nudge the film over the mark which it was $4 million shy of in December.

TDK joins Titanic ($1.842 billion), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.119 billion) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.066 billion) in the billions club.

Oscar '09 @ Random

The 81st Annual Academy Awards are now history....And Slumdog Millionaire walked away the big winner... Getting a golden statue for Best Pic and director Danny Boyle...



Host Hugh Jackman tried really hard and despite all of the format changes (IE 5 past acting winners handling one nominee in the acting categories, more musical numbers Presenters handling multiple categories) the show still ran way too long (almost 3 and a half hours)

Here's a few quick observations:

Best Presenters It's a tie between Jack Black/Jennifer Aniston (even as the camera shows Brad and Angelina while she's on stage with Black) the pair had great timing and Natalie Portman/Ben Stiller (acting like a spaced out Joaquin Phoenix) the night's best live laughs.

Best Short Film Created For The Event Seth Rogen and James Franco do their Pineapple Express riff on the comedies of '08-with Oscar winning DOP Janusz Kaminski in the mix! Lots of fun...

Best Music Moment Queen Latifah sings I'll Be Seeing You during the "In Memoriam" montage-Wow!!

Best Acceptance Speech Heath Ledger's Family accepting on his behalf the Best Supporting Actor award for The Dark Knight Very emotional moment...

Contrast that with Sean Penn trying to sound humble while grandstanding as he won Best Actor His line "I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me." is very true though...Mickey Rourke or Frank Langella should have won...

I feel bad for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and director David Fincher....

Full Oscar Winners list...

I can't wait to see what the TV ratings were...