Stuff You Need to Know, Thursday, September 25, 2008

Hell yes, Chocolate‘s been picked up. North American rights by Magnet, a division of Magnolia Films. Why do you care? If you don’t already know the answer, watch:

Direct link for the feedreaders.

Source: Hollywood Reporter.

Chocky, the sci-fi book from John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids) has had the film rights nabbed by DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg looking to direct it as his next project since Tintin looks to be on hold–or something. I can’t seem to get a straight damn answer from day to day. Anyway, this project is about a boy whose imaginary friend turns out to be an alien living in his mind. Source: Hollywood Reporter.

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Helen Mirren will play a Mossad agent in The Debt, to be directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) and written by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, who scribed Stardust. It’s basically about tracking down a Nazi war criminal over the course of three decades. Mirren can be just as intense as you want. I’m in. Source.

Guillermo Del Toro has signed a deal to co-write a vampire novel trilogy. The first book is called The Strain and will either be about how stretched thin Del Toro’s time is or a vampire virus hitting New York City. Which will be resisted by an armed Will Smith. I’m lying. Anyway, damn: Del Toro’s also got on his slate, in addition to Hobbit, a Frankenstein remake, a Jekyll and Hyde remake, and a Slaughterhouse-Five remake, as well as an adaptation of Dan Simmons’ book Drood. Damn. Source: Variety.

From Bedtime Story to Steve Martin and Michael Caine to Broadway and John Lithgow and now back to the big screen. MGM wants to remake Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Steve Pink (co-writer, High Fidelity) has been tapped to scribe it. The article also mentions, in addition to the MGM remakes that we’ve mentioned before, that they’re looking to do a new Fame as well. Source.

In a round-up of news from Alcon Entertainment, the only new thing I caught was a Hong Kong Phooey movie. Which I can imagine will look a lot like Underdog. You may curse a bit if it helps you feel better.

They’re probably not going to call it I Will Be Legend, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a working title. Yes, a prequel to I Am Legend, which is exactly what we were all hoping for. Will Smith is back with Francis Lawrence back to direct. D.B. Weiss, who’s listed on the IMDB as writing A Song of Ice and Fire, is on hand to scribe. Following this will be the wacky antics of scientist Will Smith while doing his undergrad work in the prequel to the prequel TV series, Eventually I’ll Be Legend, Honest. That’s expected to air on the CW in 2010. Source: Variety.

Matt Reeves, who helmed Cloverfield, is directing a flick for Hammer Films: Let the Right One In. It’s a remake of a Swedish film that was based on a Swedish novel about a kid who finds out that his neighbor, a young girl, is actually a vampire. Should be released next year. I’m glad it’s being handled by Hammer–if Hollywood had gotten a hold of it they would have tried to make the kid the son of the biggest garlic producers in the country. Source: Variety.

They’re remaking The Partridge Family. No, really. “The show will take a tongue-in-cheek, modern-day approach to the original series.” Shit. I was hoping that they’d remake it as a group of assassins posing as a singing family. I would watch the ever-living hell out of that show. You wouldn’t think about the property as a franchise, but it is. You had the animated futuristic version, then the reality show, then they tried for a new series springing out of that but it went nowhere. Here, here’s the opening of the cartoon.

Direct link for the feedreaders.

I still like my assassin family idea better. Source: Variety.

Rachel McAdams (Red Eye) has been cast as Irene Adler in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. Mark Strong (Stardust) is bad guy Blackwood. Source: Hollywood Reporter.

Jack Thompson, the attorney who wasted everybody’s time and effort trying to blame video games for things, has been disbarred in Florida. No one e-mailed me this. My entire street was throwing a party because of it and I went out to see what the hell was going on.

Reminder! TwoMorrows‘ bigass Back to School sale is good only through the end of the month–so if you haven’t snagged stuff, you had best do so while you can.

And lastly, you don’t technically need to know this, but I have to give love to Strongarm Labs, who asked me for an interview just like I was a real boy or something. You can find me rambling on here.

Update: So I thought the Disney news was more extensive than it is. It doesn’t need its own post. So here you go.

Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton‘s Alice in Wonderland
Previously announced Cars 2 has been moved up a summer to 2011.
Johnny Depp is also Tonto in The Lone Ranger
National Treasure 3 is happening
Pirates 4 is happening. Told you.
Oprah Winfrey has joined the voice cast of The Princess and the Frog

Stuff You Need to Know, Thursday, September 25, 2008

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