Random News of the Week (January 12 - January 18, 2009)

After watching Roland Emerich’s latest 10,000 B.C. which was COMPLETED trash, I am totally disappointed in the guy. He has never been some amazing film maker but I always thought INDEPENDENCE DAY was a lot of fun and I thought he could even do better if given time. But 10,000 B.C. was barely passable as a made for TV movie. Honestly, it was SCI-FI channel quality with a bigger budget. My two favorite science fiction book series are DUNE and THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY. Now, we find out the news that Roland will be helming the FOUNDATION TRILOGY theatrical film. What a total bust! This material is very smart and very complicated and I see nothing in Roland’s history of film work that says he can remotely handle this!

Another pointless remake of one of my favorite books of all time is on its way. EAST OF EDEN is being adapted to screen. It was originally a show piece for the brilliant talents of James Dean. No word on who will be playing his complicated and emotional part. The good news is that the HBO award winning mini-series JOHN ADAMS is going to be helming the project and the writer of ATONEMENT, Chris Hampton will be scripting.

Another bit of rumor is coming out on IRON MAN 2 this week. Emily Blunt (CHARLIE WILSONS WAR) is said to be playing Natasha Romanoff (aka The Black Widow).

Great news on the WATCHMEN front, the lawsuit between WB and Fox is officially resolved out of court and the film will release on time!

Danny Elfman is on board to score the music for TERMINATOR SALVATION. Elfman said “I never really know what to expect when I begin other than just kind of get into it and have fun. Especially a movie like “T4” – just have fun. So that’s what I intend to do.”

Matthijs van Heijningen (THE BLACK METEOR) looks to be helming a prequel to John Carpenter’s THE THING. Heijningen is pushing to make the lead character in his prequel the brother of the original film's lead character R.J. Macready (Kurt Russell). In the original an American scientific expedition to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic is interrupted by a group of seemingly mad Norwegians pursuing and shooting a dog. The whole brother of Macready thing is really lame. To do this right, bring John out of seeming retirement and have him do the whole film in “Swede”.

Looks like Jackie Chan will be playing “Mr. Miyagi” in the KARATE KID remake. Will Smith’s son, Jaden is still set to play Daniel.

JOHN CARTER OF MARS is in full steam. Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) is running the show and will direct. Stanton said, “I’m deep into it. I'm on my next draft of it. We're in preproduction art-wise, and we're starting to talk to actors. So it's full bore.” Also, word is that this will not be a Pixar film. Instead, this will be a pure Disney project.

Keanu Reeves is confirmed to be playing Spike in the live action film version of COWBOY BEEBOP.

NOTTINGHAM appears to be troubled. It has been confirmed that Sienna Miller has officially left the cast. Word is that it was due to her age being some much younger than Russell Crowe and also that Crowe has not lost his weight he gained from BODY OF LIES. Supposedly, Crowe has also ordered significant rewrites on the script.

Sam Raimi indicates that he's a fan of the vampire villain Morbius from the "Spider-Man" comics, could be the next film's villain.