Robert Rodriquez Developing "Predator" Reboot

Now mind you, I've never been a fan of Predator, its 1990 sequel or the Alien Vs. Predator "spin-off" films. So why should I care honestly?

I'll give you that, folks. But come on, making a kick-ass sequel is a more inspired notion than just rebooting that franchise altogether.

And now the good folks over at Bloody-Disgusting have a nice juicy scoop on whose working on the project:

A reliable source dropped us a line revealing to us that Robert Rodriquez and his Troublemaker Studios will be producing the Predator reboot for 20th Century Fox. Now here' the kicker, the pitch being sent around town implies that the reboot will have more than one predator.

I could have sworn I remember reading that Rodriquez had previously written up a Predator 3 script back in the mid-90s for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Glover's characters (from the previous films) traveling to the Predator home-planet.

Anyone else remember hearing about that?

Fox Saves "Narnia!"

It was just a month ago that Disney officially plugged the plug on the third installment of the Chronicles of Narnia series The Voyage of the Dawn Treader leaving Walden Media (the production company behind the films) drastically searching for another studio.

Not to mention, it was announced on Christmas Eve of all times - damn, that's cold!

In a move many predicted would occur, 20th Century Fox (whose had an actively working relationship with Walden in the past) has stepped in to save the day.

Granted, I always thought Peter's suggestion of Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures picking up the tab for Dawn Treader was damn brillant, but alas.

Fox and Walden are currently working out the budget which will reportedly be in the ball-park of $140 million - which was more than Disney was willing to put in Treader but a far cry from the $180 and $220 million on the previous Narnia films!

And the fact that Fox plans on a November/December 2010 release shows they know what they're doing.

Regardless of what one thought of the last film Prince Caspian, the fact that Disney actually put that out front-and-center during the Summer film season was...dumb, to put it nicely.

Don't want the Mouse to sue me!

Dylan Dog Stars Pre-Production

It was (literally) yesterday when director Kevin Munroe confirmed that Dead of Night (his film based on the Italian cult-comic character Dylan Dog being played by Superman Brandon Routh) had finally secured the proper funds to move forward.

Now comes official word from Platinum Studios (the production company behind said film) confirming the project is in fact now moving foward with filming set to commence in the coming months on location in New Orleans:

The Platinum Gazette January 2009

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT (Brian Altounian)
This week will mark the close of financing and the formal start of pre-production on our feature film, Dead of Night, based on the Italian comic character, Dylan Dog, a project you have all been following through our press releases and SEC filings. Think of the story as a cross between James Bond and Underworld — Dylan is a private investigator who is reluctantly dragged into a fight between zombies, werewolves and vampires. Like most Hollywood film projects, this film has seen many starts and stops. To expedite the process of closing the financing, Platinum Studios has taken over the production entity responsible for producing the film.

In a down economy and with banks and other financiers sitting on the sidelines of Hollywood, we think it says a lot about our tenacity and capability that we will soon be in production on our own film from our own IP library, for which we have secured outside, independent financing. We expect to begin principal photography in New Orleans next month, with an anticipated release of Spring 2010. This is very exciting for us.

Good to see this project finally going ahead after multiple stop-and-goes. The idea of Superman (well specifically Routh) fighting vampires and killing zombies sounds just too damn cool to pass up.

We'll keep an eye out for any further developments on this project.

And a special shout-out to our pal Double-Down (over at the Superhero Hype! board) for giving us a heads-up on the news.

Isla Fisher Gets Animated

Variety is reporting that Gore Verbinksi has added Isla Fisher to the cast of his animated film "Rango". Fisher will play the female lead in a movie that already features some big names.

The "Confessions of a Shopaholic" star will play alongside Johnny Depp and Abigail Breslin, who have already boarded the Paramount Pictures project. Alfred Molina, Ray Winstone, Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty round out the voice cast.

Story centers on a household pet (Depp) who goes on an adventure to discover his true self.

I've been doing some searching and have yet to find what kind of creature this "household pet" is. Apparently this flick is going to be created using CG animation courtesy of ILM. Imagine Depp's head on a tarantula or a lizard? That scares me for some reason. Sounds more like a horror movie then a kid friendly animated adventure.

I think Gore is definitely barking up the right tree with this one though, movies about pets seem to be doing fairly well, look at the success of Marley & Me. To be fair Marley & Me was a live action venture, a better comparison might be Bolt which has pulled in over 112 Million. This isn't a bad number, but when the budget is north of 150 Million, it doesn't look as good. This movie is due to drop in 2011 so I guess we'll have to wait to see Depp's head on a "household pet".

"Tomb Raider" Reboot Confirmed!

Mere days ago, a Spanish website claimed that Transformers star (and all around sex-Goddess) Megan Fox was in the running to replace Angelina Jolie for a third Tomb Raider film.

Of course, it sounded like 100% Grade-A B.S. and Fox's own spokesperson quickly shot down the story thus ending any further talks of another Lara Croft adventure.

However now as per The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Brothers has announced plans to continue with the franchise by starting from scratch with a reboot!

Long story short, Paramount (who had previously held the rights) let them lapse which went right back to Eidos - the British company responsible for creating the original video game series.

Warner Brothers in turn bought up big shares of Eidos thus retailing the film rights for Tomb Raider as a part of the package.

And now they have the property set up with Dan Lin to produce. For those who don't know, Lin was the man responsible for Justice League: Mortal almost getting made. Thank your lucky stars that didn't happen, boys & girls!

At the moment, Lin and the studio-heads are actively meeting with directors and screenwriters about how to bring Croft back to the silver screen.

While we're all here, I'll just go ahead and suggest actress Rhonda Mitra - she's currently headlining Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and also appeared in last year's Doomsday and had a stinct of TVs Boston Legal.

Joe 'Narc' Carnahan To Direct The A Team!

"If you can find them....maybe you can hire, The A Team!" And the the classic theme music kicked in! ahhh memories of a Saturday evening as a child, sure looking back it's the same plot and structure every week, small business is being threatened by big bully buisness, The A Team whoops them in the first meeting, then they lock the A Team in a room that has lots of a tools and an old vehcile they can build into some form of tank to attack the bad guys with, then it would break down to a punch up after all the bulletrs had been fired and no one hit, there would always be one bad guy for each member of the team....rinse and repeat! but man it was FUN as a kid.

Anyway! enough of my reminiscing, that bastion of cinematic excellence Fox have set a new director to helm the big screen version of the old TV show, John Singleton was on board prior but now it's Joe Carnahan that will take the reins.

Carnahan has had a rocky road since his breakout movie 'Narc', his follow up 'Smokin Aces', though profitable, was pretty much trashed by critics and in return he spat the dummy, his 3 attempts to get something off the ground since have not materialized.

This may be a good gig for him if he can work within the severe restrictions Darth Rothman will lay on him, this has 90 minute action movie written all over it and in truth that's fitting for the A Team if they adapt the source instead of trying to make it "deep", if Carnahan can make this into a money winner then he may get his other passion projects going, and I hope that he succeeds b/c Narc showed he clearly has talent.

The A Team was originally schedueled for a June 2009 release but has now been set for June 11th 2010.

In the meantime relive the greatness and most importantly the theme!

More Ludlum Spying Headed To The Big Screen

Universal are in final negotiations with Brazilian helmer Jose Padhila, director of the highly acclaimed 'Elite Squad', to direct the 'The Sigma Protocol' the movie adaption of the Robert "Bourne" Ludlam spy thriller.

This one has been on the "to do" list for a while now and is one of two high profile Ludlum novels that are in the process of being made into movies.

The other is 'The Matarese Circle' which is not actually at a stuido yet but has Denzel Washington and David Cronenberg attached. Ludlum's name is best known to movie goers as the author of the Bourne books that the popular and lucrative Matt Damon starring movies are based on.

'The Sigma Protocol' was Luldum's last complete book, it's story is as follows, from the book jacket:

American investment banker Ben Hartman arrives in Zurich for a ski holiday, the first time he's been back to Switzerland since his twin brother died there in a tragic accident four years earlier. But his arrival triggers something far more sinister than his brother's fate. When Ben chances upon Jimmy Cavanaugh, an old college friend, Cavanaugh promptly pulls out a gun and tries to kill him. In a matter of minutes, several innocent bystanders are dead - as well as Cavanaugh - and Ben has barely managed to survive. Plunged into an unspeakable nightmare, Hartman suddenly finds himself on the run.

Department of Justice field agent Anna Navarro is being stalked around the world by a relentless killer, managing to survive the killer's attacks only by a combination of luck, skill, and her own quick wits. These attacks are somehow related to her current assignment: investigating the sudden - and seemingly unrelated - deaths of a number of very old men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them is a file in the CIA archives, over a half-century old, marked with the same puzzling code word: Sigma. But someone or something is always seemingly one step ahead of her, the survivors are rapidly dwindling, and her own life is in ever-increasing danger.

Brought together by accident, Ben and Anna soon realize that their only hope for survival lies with each other. Together they race to uncover the diabolical secrets long hidden behind the code word Sigma, secrets that threaten everything they think they know about themselves, everything they believed true about their friends and families, and everything they were ever taught about history itself. For behind Sigma lies a vast deception that is finally coming to fruition, and the fate and future of the world is in their hands.

I love the sound of this, very much my type of story and I hear good things about the book, hopefully it will be adapted to the screen a little closer to source than  the Bourne movies. Given how much money they have made it is not surprising Universal are looking for more Ludlum love and their choice of helmer suggests they are looking for the same "gritty" approach to Sigma, I hope we get the leads cast soon so this does not become another on a long list of projects that get announced and then disappear.

Munroe Still In The "Dead Of Night"

A project I have been following since it was announced is Kevin Munroe's Dead of Night.

I had heard that the film was waiting for the financing and since Shock Till You Drop is reporting the film is still going forward, I can only assume said money arrived not too long ago. Good news in my opinion:

"We're hopefully going to New Orleans next week to begin location scouting," Munroe tells us. "Filming will hopefully begin at the end of March. The crew is coming together right now. The script is pretty much done and we started going out to the cast last week. It was fun to start sending it out to the people we think would be right for the film. Everyone is responding to it really well. It's nice to know you're not the only one in the room who thinks it's a great project."

I think this flick is a good fit for Brandon Routh. Shooting up some of the undead will go a long way towards shaking off the typecast that might have come with being Superman.

Of course some on the interwebs believe Routh was selected for the role of Superman simply because his resemblance to Christopher Reeve's Superman.

Well, if you've ever picked up a Dead of Night comic, Brandon sure has a certain resemblance to the character of Dylan Dog.

Hilary Duff Is Bonnie

I always forget that Hilary Duff is an actress, isn't she also a singer? In fact, I forgot about Hilary Duff all together but her sister was in Napolean Dynamite. That I know.

According to Variety, there is an indie Bonnie & Clydee feature in the works which will produced by Cypress Moon Studios:

Tonya S. Holly will direct the film from her own script, which is a new adaptation of the story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow rather than a remake of the 1967 classic film starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Holly began working on the project after reading old newspaper articles about the gangster pair in an abandoned house on her family's property.

I never was a huge Warren Beatty fan, but he was in Bullworth and that song from the movie was pretty good at the time.

It would have been more interesting (to me at least) if they were remaking the film and recast Beatty as Clyde and brought on Duff to play Bonnie.

Warner Bros. Gets Biblical

Warner Brothers, who had the biggest year amongst studios, is surely keeping busy in an attempt to defend their title.  Variety is reporting that WB has "parted the seas" to make room for a modern take on the historic story of Samson and Delilah.

WB prevailed in a three-studio bidding battle. The seven-figure deal comes despite a sluggish year so far for deals on material. Aside from a strong writer and director, the project sparked bidding because it had a big idea that can be shaped into a tentpole project in which the concept is the star.

Scott Silver will write the script, and Francis Lawrence will direct. Erwin Stoff will produce through 3 Arts.

This doesn't really excite me all that much, but we'll see how it plays out. I'm not sure how they are going to modernize it.

Maybe Samson has his hair cut off with laser beams and fights a lion from a flying car.