Twilight star Kristen Stewart has signed on to play famous rock’n’roller Joan Jett in The Runaways. Music video director Floria Sigismondi wrote and will helm the project. Sigismondi’s videos have included Marilyn Manson’s Tourniquet, Christina Aguilera’s Fighter and The White Stripes’ Blue Orchid.
The film is a biopic of the first successful all-girl hard rock band The Runaways (hence the title), which fell apart after four years due to management and money disputes.  According to THR, the film “will revolve around Jett and [singer-keyboardist Cherie] Currie and follow them from the band’s meteoric rise as teenagers to their dissolution and disillusionment.”
River Road Entertainment hopes to go into production in 2009, but [...]

James Cameron gave a keynote presentation at the 3D Entertainment Summit today, and took aim at Tim Burton, who is filming Disney’s upcoming 3D adaptation of Alice in Wonderland using 2D cameras. Burton plans to convert the footage to 3D in post production, a decision that has angered and baffled the 3D community. “It doesn’t make any sense to shoot in 2D and convert to 3D,” Cameron said.
The Titanic filmmaker later attacked the industry’s decision to release 3D films on DVD/Blu-ray with the old red and blue anaglyphic glasses. According to FirstShowing, Cameron said that such releases are “stunting 3D growth,” and hurting the progression of the format. Amen. It’s [...]

Last we heard (in October), Watchmen had a running time of 2 hours and 43 minutes. Well apparently is has gotten shorter. Sci-Fi reports that the current running time is two hours and 35 minutes, and the studio has yet to approve that cut. But fans shouldn’t worry as I wouldn’t expect the film to get that much shorter. I predict the film will end up around two and a half hour.
The eventual directors cut will be clock in at three hours and 10 minutes in length. Zack Snyder says that it has “even more than the theatrical version as far as the detail that gets even closer to the [...]

Who isn’t already excited for the fifth season of Lost? ABC has released a two minute sneak peak at the season premiere “Because You Left”, which airs on Wednesday, January 21st 2009. Thanks to /Film reader Kyle for the tip.

Discuss: Who are the lawyers working for? Another question! Damn you JJ Abrams!!!!

Update: Apparently Dark Horizon’s scooper was inaccurate. George Miller is still officially attached to a Justice League movie (which doesn’t necessarily mean that Warner Bros is going to make one any time soon) and did not appear on a Sydney morning show earlier this week.
While making an appearance on a Sydney morning show, director George Miller has confirmed that he is no longer involved with Warner Bros’ Justice League movie in any capacity. If you remember, Warners had been trying to retool the concept with Miller still at the helm. Well, not anymore. According to Dark Horizons, the Aussie filmmaker said that the studio wants “bigger stars in their [...]

It’s impossible to pay attention to all the movie awards announcements each year, because there are just so many of them. But the Independent Spirit Awards is one of the second tier (read: non-Academy/Globe) Awards shows that I actually respect and pa attention to. Today the 2009 Indie Spirit nominations were announced. Frozen River and Ballast lead with six nominations each, followed by Rachel Getting Married with five nominations, The Wrestler, Milk, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and The Visitor with three each. Take a look at the full list below:
Best Feature
Ballast
Frozen River
Rachel Getting Married
Wendy and Lucy
The Wrestler
Best First Feature
Afterschool
Medicine for Melancholy
Sangre De Mi Sangre
Sleep Dealer
Synecdoche, New York
Best Director
Ramin Bahrani - Chop [...]

Mark Romanek has signed on to direct a big screen adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go. According to Production Weekly, Beach author and 28 Days Later/Sunshine screenwriter Alex Garland penned the adaptation.
Romanek is probably best known for his music video work. He directed the video for Michael and Janet Jackson’s “Scream” in 1995, a sci-fi themed video which won the 1996 Grammy for Best Music Video, and to date, is still the most expensive music video ever produced ($7 million). His other videos include Closer for Nine Inch Nails, Criminal for Fiona Apple, Devil’s Haircut for Beck, and Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”.
In [...]

Fans of HBO’s historical epic series Rome may soon have a reason to give their DVDs a rest. It seems that creator Bruno Heller is interested in revisiting the series as a theatrical film. Heller, who is currently helming The Mentalist on CBS, told THR earlier today that he’d love to wrap up the storyline that was cut short due to the show’s cancellation.
Despite getting decent ratings and several awards, the show was cancelled in the middle of its second season of production. With some estimates putting the budget of the show’s first season at around $100 million, it’s not surprising that HBO couldn’t stomach a third season (honestly, I’m [...]

I thought that the chance for a Zoolander sequel died when the film failed to gross $46 million domestically. Sure, there is more to the story, the film was released just weeks after 9/11/2001. But that still doesn’t excuse the film’s low bottom line — $45 million isn’t a great take for a $30 million-budgeted PG-13 comedy. Well apparently either Ben Stiller is delusional or Paramount thinks that a sequel could perform better in an era where America turns out in droves for films like Four Christmases.
Ben Stiller tells WENN that he is currently looking at scripts and a deal for a sequel is finally close to being made. [...]

SpoilerTV has five new photos from 20th Century Fox’s X-Men spin-off film Wolverine. I’m not sure where these originated. As always, click to enlarge. Wolverine hits theaters on May 1st 2009. Four more photos after the jump.

Shia LaBeouf has signed on to star in Paramount’s big screen adaptation of John Grisham’s legal thriller The Associate. Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers, GI Joe) is producing. So what’s it about? Here is the official plot description:
“It’s a deadly game of blackmail. And they’re making him play. Kyle McAvoy is one of the outstanding legal students of his generation: he’s good looking, has a brilliant mind and a glittering future ahead of him. But he has a secret from his past, a secret that threatens to destroy his fledgling career and, possibly, his entire life.
One night that secret catches up with him in the form of some bad men [...]

In 2007, Dennis Hopper told The Guardian that he was set to reprise his role as Howard Payne in a third Speed film. Some people assumed it had to be a remake considering (spoiler warning) Hopper’s character died at the end of the first film. Well apparently now. A scooper on AICN has confirmed that a scriptment for Speed 3 is floating around Hollywood. Not only that, but the story features the return of Officer Jack Traven, the lead character played by Keanu Reeves in the original film.
But the real question is, will Fox be able to lure Keanu back? As many remember, Reeves decided not to return for the [...]

So what’s going on with the proposed Planet of the Apes sequel/prequel? 20th Century Fox has hired writer/director Scott Frank (The Lookout) to develop a new film based on the Planet of the Apes film property. At first it was rumored that the film would be a remake of Conquest of the Apes or a new film called Genesis: Apes, but according to Chud that is not the case.
The project is going under the working title “Caesar”. Fox’s Tom Rothman says that it is “a kind of prequel story before the first story, with a return to the social thematics that mark the first one, but with an entirely contemporary [...]

If you’ve been reading /Film for a while, than you know that I love long form interviews. Unfortunately, the surge of online press has changed the entire press tour landscape. Its all roundtables or short 10-15 minute one-on-ones. I’m so happy that there are still shows out there like NPR’s Fresh Air and David Poland’s DP30 that offer an arena for an in-depth conversation.
Charlie Rose had a one hour episode dedicated to Gus Van Sant’s Milk. Thankfully, Rose puts all of his interviews on Google Video, so you can watch it embedded below. If you have any doubt about Sean Penn’s performance, watch some of the original footage of Harvey [...]

I totally missed this item in the latest issue of Production Weekly, but Alex from FirstShowing sent me a link to this story on Cinemablend about a project called Falcon’s Tale that Martin Scorsese is supposedly attached to direct. What is this movie? A quick internet search turns up NOTHING. But I decided to dig a little deeper and have come upon more information about the project.
James Keene and author/reporter Hillel Levin sold a one-page description of this story to Playboy and to Paramount / GK Films (the production company behind Edge of Darkness) in a seven-figure film deal in November 2007. The article, titled “The Strange Redemption of [...]