Random News of the Week (August 18 - August 24, 2008)

Mike Judge (OFFICE SPACE, IDIOCRACY) is finally making another film. Ben Affleck is playing an opportunistic lawyer in a comedy called EXTRACT. The film is about a flower-extract factory worker who loses a body part in a freak accident and finds himself pursuing a substantial settlement from his employer. Jason Bateman will also star.

With the release of the remake of DEATH RACE this week, there are actually still very few people wondering what Paul W.S. Anderson’s next project will be. Well, it looks like it won’t be SPY HUNTER as he is claims he is no longer a part of that picture which was supposedly going to star The Rock.

The GOOSEBUMPS book series is coming to the big screen. What’s more interesting is the writers that they hired to pen the first script. Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander (ED WOOD) will do the first screenplay. Producer Neal Moritz has said he likely will cast youngsters for the leads and then include well-known actors in supporting roles, a la the "Harry Potter" films.

According to Del Toro, writing is started “in earnest” on THE HOBBIT. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Guillermo Del Toro and Philippa Boyens are working on the screenplay actively. Also, word is that there is over $600 million being raised to produce this film for marketing, budget, etc.

A HIGHLANDER remake is almost on the fast track. Word is that Kevin McKidd (MAID OF HONOR), a Scottish actor may be the new Highlander.

Supposedly, at a recent press conference Samuel L Jackson talked that he is interested in directing a film. When pressed further, it turns out that George Lucas has approached Jackson with the RED TAILS script that has been floating around for years. "I just read it like two weeks ago. It's a pretty good script. At one point (Lucas) was asking me if I'd ever want to direct anything. I said, 'I don't know, man. I'm trying to find things.' He said, 'Well, let me send you this thing. Maybe you might want to direct it.'" says Jackson. "I don't know. I don't have a year and a half of my life where I wanna stop acting...if I was gonna direct something George would be a great guy to kind of mentor me through that, especially a big ass special effects flying picture. The script's good. I like it." Oh brother…

Bad news on the INGLORIOUS BASTARDS front this week. Due to the massively tight shooting schedule, Simon Pegg had to bow out of the film. No word on his replacement yet but he is just too busy with all of his other stuff to put this in the schedule in the next several months.

Terrible news about the WATCHMEN film this week. 20th Century Fox is after it for money. They won a court injunction this week that actually puts the release of the film in jeopardy. They are now going to take a piece out of WB for the film but no one knows how much or when. I’ll keep you posted.

With the amazing success of THE DARK KNIGHT (already beat Star Wars to become the 2nd highest grossing film of all time), Warner Bros. talked about its plan for the other super hero properties. Rather than doing a sequel to SUPERMAN RETURNS, they are going to do a complete reboot with a darker edge to it. (That is a bad idea. Superman does not need to be dark. Batman did. Just do Superman right.) They are also opting to go the Marvel Studios route and do separate movies for each super hero character and build up to a combined film like Justice League. The plan is to release 2 big tent-pole films per year and build on the characters over time. Currently, there is Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Flash projects in the works. The thing that really worries me though is this statement "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it.” That is not right. Batman is SUPPOSED TO BE DARK, but what about Wonder Woman or Superman? I like the realistic approach but I’m not big on the ultra dark that really only works with Batman in my mind.