Pettyfer Up For Wardstone Chronicles?

Pettyfer Up For Wardstone Chronicles?
Jeff Bridges also wanted for the pic

Source: Vulture

Given the amount of roles he’s being offered, it’s increasingly feeling like Alex Pettyfer will be appearing in half the teen book-based franchise films to arrive in the next few years. His latest possible job? The lead in Warner Bros. adaptation of Joseph Delaney’s The Wardstone Chronicles.

Known across the pond as The Last Apprentice, Delaney’s seven-and-counting book series follows Thomas J Ward, who is blessed (or cursed, depending on your outlook) with the ability to see and sense the things that lurk in the dark, which most humans can’t. While that probably makes him brilliant at finding lost socks, he’s actually apprenticed to train as a “Spook” so he can deal with the various nasty creatures and old gods that live on the edges of our awareness.

Right now, it’s still so much rumour, with everything put down to Vulture’s sources and insiders. But it comes with extra casting nuggets – Jeff Bridges and Winter’s Bone star Jennifer Lawrence have also reportedly been offered the role of Ward’s mentor and a witch respectively. Russian director Sergey Bodrov is on to direct what Warners is likely hoping will help fill the Potter-shaped gap in its schedules.

But what does this all mean for the hopes and dreams those who want Pettyfer to http://www.empireonline.com/News/story.asp?nid=29962www.empireonline.com/News/story.asp another set of books about people who can see strange creatures? Looks like those hopes might just be dashed as Pettyfer’s apparently learning more towards the Wardstone Chronicles, despite Screen Gems hoping to get him to work with Legion director Scott Stewart. That sound you hear is the Mortal Instruments brigade – who have championed Pettyfer as studly tattooed demon hunter Jace Wayland – firing up their petitions...

Source: EmpireOnline

DreamWorks Animation Locates Lidsville

DreamWorks Animation Locates Lidsville
Based on Sid & Marty Kroft's TV show

Source: DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Animation has been on a real development streak recently, what with the Guillermo del Toro-supported Alma and Trollhunters, plus comic book adaptation Maintenance and musical Monkeys of Bollywood. And now the company is dipping into childhood TV, planning to turn Sid and Marty Krofft’s trippy ‘70s series Lidsville into a film.

We’re somewhat surprised by this one, since the last time the Kroffts’ particular form of entertaining whimsy was given the blockbuster treatment, the result was Land of the Lost, which was (unfairly) critically mauled and keeled over like a dead T-Rex at the box office. And since then, progress on other Krofft properties has been quiet.

But the brothers have a champion in Monsters Vs Aliens director Conrad Vernon, who has rose-tinted memories of the show and brought the story of a rebellious lad who has adventures in a strange world of living, talking hats to his bosses. “Over the past year I’ve had the privilege of working with and getting to know Sid and Marty and I thought their brand of crazy kookiness would work well at DreamWorks Animation,” said Vernon in the press release.

The Kroffts also seem to think it’s a good idea: “Sid and I have had a longstanding relationship with Jeffrey Katzenberg and we’re excited to bring Lidsville to DreamWorks Animation,” adds Marty Krofft. “It’s incredible to envision a high-quality 3D animated movie being made out of one of our favourite shows.”

While the film won’t stick religiously to the show’s, er, “plot,” at least animation seems like the right medium for the wackiness. It remains to be seen whether it makes it though development…

Source: EmpireOnline

Bridesmaids Trailer Arrives

Bridesmaids Trailer Arrives
Kristin Wiig meets the bridal-zillas...

Source: Apple

Like an eager suitor looking to get your attention, the new comedy Bridesmaids is sending over gifts every day, it would seem. Yesterday brought the first poster for the movie, and now the trailer has arrived over at Apple.

Giving a good impression of what the final film will be, we’re left thinking that it’ll be a fun Apatow-style romp with a little bit more oestrogen than usual.

Kristen Wiig spearheaded the pic, co-writing the script with Annie Mumolo and took on the starring role as Annie, the cousin of bride-to-be Lillian. Asked to be maid of honour, Annie realises that she has a litany of tasks that all need to be carried out to perfection before her pal walks down the aisle. And there’s some serious competition for the organisational duties from Lillian’s snooty friends, including bridesmaid-from-hell Helen (Rose Byrne).

Paul Feig called the shots on this one, and it boasts an embarrassment of comedy riches with turns from Ellie Kemper, Nancy Carell, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Hitchcock, Matt Lucas and Chris O’Dowd (who shows up briefly in the footage).

Our only concern is the occasional lazy gag, such as a burp/fart routine that doesn’t quite work. Still, we’re eager to see the whole film.

Check out the trailer, and then let us know your thoughts. Bridesmaids is out on June 24.

Source: EmpireOnline

Summit Takes On This Dark Endeavour

Summit Takes On This Dark Endeavour
Young Dr Frankenstein adventures?

Source: Deadline

While the story of Dr Victor Frankenstein’s dark dabblings with re-animated corpse bits and the monstrous consequences that he unleashes have naturally been the focus of most cinematic stories about him, he did have a life before he started slicing dead people. Now Summit Entertainment has decided to tap some of that, nabbing the rights to This Dark Endeavour: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein.

Written by Kenneth Oppel, the book is due to hit shelves this summer from publishers Simon & Schuster. But naturally Hollywood has gotten an early peek and Summit decided to take a chance, beating out Universal (which, let’s face it, does have a bit of a history with the character).

This Dark Endeavour follows the young Victor Frankenstein who is desperate to save his deathly ill brother Konrad. Instead of a trip to Boots for some medicine, he tracks down an alchemist who sends Victor and best friend Elizabeth on a dangerous mission to find the three ingredients needed to make up the Elixir of Life.

Of course there’s trouble along the way, with betrayals and the development of a love triangle (sigh) between Victor, Konrad and Elizabeth. We really have to question the mental state of a woman who chooses between a brother who’s likely to croak at any minute and one obsessed with weird science.

It’s still early days and there’s no writer or director attached just yet, but like the book it will be full of nods to Mary Shelley’s novel and, should it hit production, will be the 549th take on the Frankenstein tale currently bubbling through the development lab.

Source: EmpireOnline

Akiva Goldsman Adapts Winter's Tale

Akiva Goldsman Adapts Winter's Tale
Exit, pursued by a bear

Source: Deadline

Actually it's nothing to do with Shakespeare: the Winter's Tale to be adapted and directed by Akiva Goldsman is a Manhattan-set novel by Mark Helprin, now officially underway as a feature film at Warner.

Set in a fairytale, fantastical turn-of-the-century New York, the book involves a love story between orphaned Irish burglar Peter Lake and the dying Beverly Penn, inhabitant of an upper-West-Side mansion he targets. Which goes little way to describing a novel that involves vision quests, New York street gangs, guardian angel flying white horses and messianic self sacrifice. Lake also disappears for a number of years, hence the Bard-riffing title.

Goldsman apparently loves the story's fantasy elements, as well as its eulogising of his native New York, which is why he's chosen Winter's Tale as his big-screen directorial debut (although he's directed some episodes of Fringe for TV). A prolific screenwriter - he won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, and worldwide fan opprobrium for Batman and Robin - and producer, he's been building to a gig behind the camera for some time, with some sketchy early reports last year even linking him to Paranormal Activity 2, before it went ahead with Tod Williams.

He's being trusted with a not inconsiderable $75m budget for Winter's Tale, which will go before the cameras in the spring of 2012. In the meantime, he's got the small matter of The Dark Tower to contend with...

Source: EmpireOnline

David O. Russell On Uncharted And More

David O. Russell On Uncharted And More

Who might play Elena?

Let's make this clear - there's a question mark in the title, so you're best off filing this one under "casual conjecture", but as casual conjecture is the lifeblood of the internet, we thought we'd share.

You see, we were lucky enough to grab a quarter of an hour on the phone with The Fighter director David O. Russell, and, needless to say, we took the chance to talk about his next project, the video-game-to-film adaptation of the PS3 smash hit, Uncharted.

More specifically, we asked whether Amy Adams might be a good fit for the female journalist character, Elena. His response:

"Oh I would love that too, I love Amy. I also love Scarlett Johansson; there’s a lot of great actors I think might suit. Hopefully, we’ll see how it works out with everybody who are being scoped to do that role…"

Scarlett. Scarlett Johansson. As Elena... now there's an idea. Especially as Russell has been mentioning Wahlberg as a potential Nathan Drake and Robert De Niro as his best friend and mentor, Victor "Sully" Sullivan. It would be some sort of game-to-movie dream team, no?

Anyway, for more details, head to the interview itself, and when you're done there, come back here and let us know your thoughts. Excited about an Uncharted movie adaptation? Think it shouldn't happen at all? Is Wahlberg right for it? Let us know in the comment box below.

Oh, and by the way, The Fighter is out in the UK February 2. Just so you know.

Source: EmpireOnline

HCG Diet

HCG Diet

A major mathematical function of HCG Diet is to apace bring forth free energy for the developing fetus from your dead body's shop of fertile. Every person is acquitted with a sure number of fat cells in their dead body, and when extra free energy is stored as fertile, the fatness are stored in these fat cells that can be anything from empty to wide cut. Ordinarily the productive shops in these cells are not habituated unless your demand for vigor surpasses that uncommitted from the saccharine message of your dieting. Sugars undergo glycol sis to shape glucose, which is then oxidized to ADENOIDAL PHOSPHATE zip by mean values of cellular respiration in the mitochondria of your dead body jail cells. When your blood glucose shops run out, and your exigency HCG funds in the shape of creating phosphate and animal starch are used up, your metabolic process turns to your fat stockpiles for Energy Department. All the same, in the front of HCG Diet, this process is sped up so that the developing fetus has no free energy insufficiency and can develop at a proper rate. The theory is then that if you took a supplementary. To know about this visit to www.safehcgdiet.com.

Warner Bros. Takes The Stand

Warner Bros. Takes The Stand
Stephen King's tale headed for cinemas

Source: Heat Vision Blog

It’s been a quiet decade or so for Stephen King adaptations on the big screen, but his work is back in a big way thanks to The Dark Tower. And now another of his famous titles is also getting a shot at the big screen, with Warner Bros. and CBS Films partnering up to take a crack at The Stand.

A post-apocalyptic tale of America ravaged by a virus that wipes out most of the population, it finds a rag-tag group of characters trying to survive in a harsh world and stop the machinations of Antichrist-like figure Randall Flagg.

Originally published in 1978, then re-released in 1990 with expanded and revised sections by the author, The Stand has been converted into various formats through the years, including, most famously, Mick Garris’ 1994 TV miniseries. More recently, it’s been the basis for a run of Marvel comics.

And it’s not the first time that someone has tried to get it on screen: both Warners and George Romero made efforts to see it filmed in the 1980s, to no avail.

According to the Heat Vision blog, CBS has had the rights for years, but hadn’t ever quite figured out how to tackle – or afford – the complicated and lengthy story. With Warners providing funding help and producing support, the task now is to find writers and directors who can offer up a fresh take on the tale, with King overseeing things. The big question will be whether it’ll be turned into one big film or a franchise series…

Source: EmpireOnline

Joaquin Phoenix Could Be Henry Sturgess

Joaquin Phoenix Could Be Henry Sturgess
In Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Source: Deadline

Since his big retirement announcement now appears in a different light after his rap debut was all part of a hoax for mock-doc I’m Still Here, rumours of the death of Joaquin Phoenix’s acting career are looking more and more exaggerated. According to Deadline, he’s currently mulling the idea of playing Henry Sturgess in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Director Timur Bekmambetov, producer Tim Burton and studio 20th Century Fox locked in their choice for Honest Abe last week in the shape of Benjamin Walker.

Sturgess is one of the other big lead roles in the film – a vampire who meets the young Lincoln when he saves the lad’s life during a battle with another, much nastier creature of the night. The two become friends and Sturgess serves as something of a mentor to Lincoln, explaining the history of vampirism and training him to fight them.

It’s also part of the concept for the book – author Seth Grahame-Smith bases the story on Sturgess’ diaries. There’s no confirmation on whether Phoenix will actually agree to the role, but apparently it’s his if he wants it. Sturgess sounds like an intriguing way for Phoenix to crack back into studio movies with a decent twist on the usual mentor character. You might even say it’s something he could get his teeth into. What’s that? Reporting us to the pun police? Curses!

Source: EmpireOnline

Tyler Perry As Alex Cross?

Tyler Perry As Alex Cross?
He's nabbed the lead role...

Source: Variety

If, like us, you’re a big fan of Idris Elba, then we’re afraid we have some bad news to report: it appears he’s dropped out of the running to replace Morgan Freeman as the face of James Patterson’s detective Alex Cross. And the man who is taking over the role is one that could raise a few eyebrows – Tyler Perry.

Yes, the man better known for appearing as loudmouth lady Madea and directing/writing/ producing films and building a movie empire is making a real switch to action drama to play the ‘tec/psychologist.

To keep those eyebrows going up, Rob Cohen has jumped aboard to direct the movie, which means that David Twohy, who had been attached to re-write and direct the film, is also out.

Kerry Williamson and Patterson himself wrote the original draft of the script, which Along Came a Spider’s Marc Moss is now busily re-writing. The new outing is currently called I, Alex Cross, and there's no word on whether it'll still follow the story of the conflicted lawman trying to return to private psychology practice but getting drawn back into criminal cases.

QED International is currently seeking a distributor to partner up with, but Cohen is pushing ahead, with shooting set for June.

Tyler Perry as Alex Cross. Can you see it? Would you have preferred Elba?

Source: EmpireOnline

Val Kilmer Goes Deep In The Heart

Val Kilmer Goes Deep In The Heart
With John Gries in a real-life drama

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

If it weren’t for the recent likes of Bad Lieutenant and, to a lesser degree, MacGruber, we’d really be worrying that Val Kilmer was sticking with tiny scale indie films (most of which rarely make it over here) for good. He’s not likely to change that impression very soon, though, since he’s now working on Deep in the Heart, about a real-life Texas entrepreneur and recovering alcoholic who has become one of the biggest charitable contributors in America.

Napoleon Dynamite’s Jon Gries, who most memorably appeared on screen with Kilmer in 1985’s Real Genius, is playing Richard Wallrath, a man who turned his life around. “Wallrath is an alcoholic who hit rock bottom and lost everything, then reinvented himself, re-established his relationships with his family and built a multimillion-dollar business," co-producer Scott Duthie tells The Hollywood Reporter.

As well as forging a new business, Wallrath contributed millions to organisations such as Future Farmers of America, which help put kids through college.

Kilmer, meanwhile, will be playing a character known as “The Bearded Man,” a Jesus-alike figure who appears in Wallrath’s mind to help him through the tough situations he finds himself in.

Young Guns director Christopher Cain is calling the shots right now in Texas, though this being the world of low-budget indies, there’s no distributor attached just yet and no set release date.

Source: EmpireOnline

Bridesmaids Poster Online

Bridesmaids Poster Online
Here come the girls...

Source: Moviefone

Apologies if we’ve just shoved torturous images of those OTT Boots adverts into your head with that subhead, but it seemed appropriate for this first poster for the comedy Bridesmaids, starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm and Rose Byrne.

Bridesmaids sees Rudolph’s Lillian getting set for her big day, with maid of honour Annie (Wiig) asked to organise the various pre-wedding events. But she doesn’t count on Lillian’s rich, annoying friends and fellow bridesmaids, who don’t think much of Annie’s efforts. And one in particular – Byrne’s Helen – decides she needs to take over.

With Judd Apatow on producing duties and Freaks & Geeks co-creator Paul Feig directing, this is one we’re looking forward to for several reasons. Wiig co-wrote the script with Annie Mumolo and it features a host of funny people including Ellie Kemper (from the US Office), Melissa McCarthy, Nancy Carell (Mrs Steve), Michael Hitchcock, and Chris O’Dowd, who compared kissing Wiig to kissing Richard Ayoade in a recent issue. Turns out, Ayoade is more forceful. And experimental. And… We’d best say no more.

_{Click the image above to see the full-size pic on Moviefone}

Bridesmaids struts down the (cinema) aisle on June 24.

Source: EmpireOnline

Scream 4 Poster Online

Scream 4 Poster Online
Plus news of re-shoots

Source: Yahoo / Shock

New decade. New rules. Exactly the same imagery as last time. If this new poster for Scream 4 hadn't come through official channels, we'd strongly suspect it to have been fan-made, so obvious and familiar is its scared-white-face-glimpsed-through-instalment-number schtick.

That consistency with what's gone before thoroughly underlines that Wes Craven and co. genuinely want this to be seen as a continuation rather than a reboot though, picking up where Scream 3 left off, a mere eleven years ago. This is apparently the first of two one-sheets to be heading our way. Maybe the next one will break new ground, but on this evidence, we won't be surprised if it's the same scary white 4 with head-and-shoulders shots of the principle cast members beneath it.

Intriguing footnote (noticed by Shock): Kevin Williamson gets sole script credit, while Ehren Kruger is listed as an executive producer, despite having very publicly been brought in for re-writes.

And talk of re-writes brings us neatly to re-shoots, with the second Scream 4 story of the day reporting that, following test screenings, Craven is back on set with an actress we won't name to avoid spoilers. Apparently the new material is to "fine tune the opening murder sequence". New decade. New rules. Same structure.

Scream 4, starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Anna Paquin, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin, Adam Brody, Alison Brie and Nico Tororella, is out in the UK on April 15.

Source: EmpireOnline

Todd Threatens Final Destinations 6 & 7

Todd Threatens Final Destinations 6 & 7
Next instalments will shoot together

Source: Dread Central

Tony Todd has revealed that two more Final Destination sequels are almost certain, as part 5 heads our way.

What was missing from part 4, The Final Destination? Scares? Yes. Entertainment? Certainly. But the cause of the most fan chagrin was Todd's absence as portentous series regular Bludworth.

That oversight seems to have been thoroughly rectified in the forthcoming 5nal Destination (yes, we know what it looks like, just, y'know, don't), with Todd confirming to Dread Central that his part has been hugely expanded (fnar) this time around.

The erstwhile Candyman also reveals "The producer told me that if [part 5] opens at number one... they're going to shoot the next two simultaneously."

Todd says that historically the series has performed in just this chart-topping way, making its survival very likely. He's not quite right though: the fourth is the only one to have topped the box office on its opening weekend, although its predecessors certainly performed strongly. 5nal Destination then (look, just stop it!), has the weight of future Finals on its shoulders. Did The Final Destination sound the death knoll of the franchise, or will it beat the reaper yet again? And following a plane crash, a freeway pile-up, a rollercoaster smash, a NASCAR tragedy and a suspension bridge collapse, what disasters are left? We've got our fingers crossed for asteroid strike.

5nal Destination 3D is out on August 26.

Source: EmpireOnline