Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) will star in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s (21 Grams, Babel) Biutiful, which begins shooting in Barcelona next week. Inarritu wrote the script himself, his first stand alone effort after much-publicized break-up with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.
According to Variety, Spanish-language film is about “a man embroiled in shady dealings who is confronted by a childhood friend, now a policeman.” Argentine actress Maricel Álvarez is also rumored to be involved with the project. Rodrigo Prieto will return as director of photography. Prieto was the cinematographer on all Inarritu’s films, Brokeback Mountain, 25th Hour, 8 Mile and Frida. The music will be composed by Gustavo Santaolalla, Academy Award [...]

Somehow we missed this last week. Seth Green told Moviehole that he is going to direct a big screen adaptation of Freshmen, the comic book series he co-created with friend Hugh Sterbakov. Green says they’re “writing the feature, and we’re gonna make it when it’s ready”. They are currently looking for a studio to finance the film, which will likely require a $35 million budget.
Published by Top Cow, the first issue came out in June 2005, marketed as “The adventures of college freshman with extraordinary powers.” They have since published two volumes of six comics each. The story revolves around 14 college freshmen who are forced to live in temporary [...]

After two years, Roger Avery and Neil Gaiman (Beowulf) have officially stepped down as screenwriters of the big screen adaptation of Charles Burn’s graphic novel Black Hole. Gaiman tells MTV that when David Fincher signed on to develop/direct the project, he “explained his process consisted of having over ten drafts, done over and over.” The screenwriting duo were asked if they were interested in doing that. “And we definitely weren’t,” admits Gaiman.
Fincher still has their last draft of the script, but Burns tells Shock that the Gaiman/Avery script is “not going to be used.” And instead, Fincher has apparently brought another writer on to the project. But does anyone know [...]

David Gordon Green (George Washington, Pineapple Express) has signed to direct an adaptation of 30 Days of Night author Steve Niles‘ Freaks of the Heartland. Newbie screenwriters Peter Sattler and Geoff Davey penned the script for the horror thriller. Released in 2004, the six-part comic book miniseries was illustrated by Greg Ruth. The official description from the graphic novel follows:
Under the weathered skies of America’s heartland, and in the wounded hearts of every family in one tiny rural town, a terrible secret has been kept for too many years. Now, a young boy named Trevor must try to keep his younger brother Will from falling victim to the worst fears [...]

Koen Mortier (Ex-Drummer) will write and direct a big screen adaptation of Fight Club/Choke author Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Haunted. This is the first property optioned by Brian Levy’s new management and production company, New School Media. I’ll let the official description from the book explain the plot:
“Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: Twenty-three of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you’ll ever encounter—sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined “Writers’ Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months,” and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all [...]

Dubai looks like a city from the future, or at least in a construction phase. I’ve always wondered why Hollywood hasn’t tried to shoot movies there. I’m guessing it probably has something to do with the extreme desert heat or the Middle Eastern laws. I’m sure someone in the comments will know better. There was a scene in Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies which used the city as a backdrop, but only briefly.
Former US Football star Ken Harvey (Arizona Cardinals, Washington Redskins) will visit the Globa Space Technology Forum in Abu Dhabi next month in an effort to find financial backing for a film about playing sports in space, according [...]

Seth Rogen tells Collider that despite internet rumors, he has not yet been contacted about being part of Ghostbusters 3. Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky are currently working on the screenplay. The writing duo last worked on Year One, a film directed by Harold Ramis, an original Ghostbuster who also played Rogen’s father in Knocked Up. See the connection? Anyways, Rogen says he probably wouldn’t be part of a third Ghostbusters film, because, well, it sounds like the worst idea ever.
“It’s hard to imagine that would be good, isn’t it?” asks Rogen. “I mean just as a movie fan I am the first guy to be skeptical of that. It [...]

Do we really need another Resident Evil sequel? Paul W.S. Anderson thinks so. Of course, he isn’t known for his good ideas, or filmmaking skills, or… well, all he he’s really known for is having made some really shitty genre films. The director tells the Sunday Sun that he’s writing “an adaptation of the Long Good Friday right now, set in present-day Miami. Then I will probably write Resident Evil 4.”
It was reported a while back that he was in talks to make another film, but this looks like the first confirmation that he’s going to give it a go. Hey, at least he’s not trying to direct a new Beverly [...]

Remember that Watchmen test screening I told you about last week? Well it happened, and buzz coming out of the screening has the Watchmen fan community throwing a hissy fit. Before you get nervous, know this - everyone says the film is awesome. However, the fans are upset over how Zack Snyder’s ending varies from that of the one in the graphic novel.
And there really is no way of talking about the ending of a film without spoilers being involved. That said, you have been warned. Story after the jump.

Kevin Smith is developing a $45-$50 million futuristic outer space comedy. The Weinstein Co have read part of Smith’s completed first draft and are interested in making the movie. This is a big leap for Smith, who has been a $25-$30 million man on his last five films. “The moment someone steps out of the spaceship, it’s going to cost a little more,” Smith told The Hollywood Reporter. The story will revolve around a father-son relationship, and will reference other science fiction films.
Smith first wants to direct his indie horror film Red State, which he has said “so bleak that it makes The Dark Knight look like Strawberry Shortcake”. THR [...]

So what’s the latest on the fourth film in the Jason Bourne series? Last we heard, producer Frank Marshall was hoping to begin shooting next Summer for a 2010 release. Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon have already signed on, all they need now is a script. Today it was announced that Universal is serious about doing a fourth film, hiring George Nolfi to write the script. Not only was Nolfi a co-writer on Bourne Ultimatum, but he also wrote Ocean’s Twelve.
The next film in the series will not even be loosely based on one of the novels, but will instead be an entirely new adventure (with a possible South American [...]

You might remember that a few month ago, a review of Justin Marks‘ screenplay for the live action He-Man movie Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe was creating some big buzz on the interwebs.
Phrases were being tossed around like “fanboy masterpiece” and the story was described as “Lord of the Rings meets The Matrix meets Batman Begins.” It was enough to get us excited about the project - we even listed off five reasons the movie could actually be cool. And lets face it, “cool” is not even in the first 50 words that would normally come to mind when thinking about a He-Man movie.
Well Latino Review is now reporting [...]

A couple months ago it was announced that Tom Cruise would star in an adaptation of the Wildstorm comic book Sleeper for producer Sam Raimi. Well apparently the star is not yet formerly attached, but is still interested. Warner Bros has hired newbie scribe Brad Ingelsby (The Honeyfields) to pen a script. Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio are attached to his first script sale, Low Dweller, which Relativity Media purchased for $500,000 against $1 million.
Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, the story follows a covert “sleeper” operative named Holden Carver (aka The Conductor), who is fused with an alien artifact that makes him not only impervious to [...]

Richard Donner confirms that a Goonies sequel is once again dead. The last script attempt involved a new group of kids, as the daughters and sons of the original Goonies gang, going off on a new adventure. Most of the original cast members have expressed interest during interviews, in returning for a second film, if it were to happen. But Donner tells Variety that the most recent attempt “simply didn’t work out.
“We tried really hard, and Steven (Spielberg) said, ‘Let’s do it.’ We had a lot of young writers submit work, but it just didn’t seem to call for it,” Donner explained, before giving a slight update on the [...]

The Jim Henson Co has begun to develop a puppet film noir detective comedy titled Happytime Murders. If we knew nothing else about this project, I would still spend $10 on a movie ticket. The story follows a puppet detective who is hired to solve a string of murders around a popular children’s television show called the Happytime Gang. The film will be populated with a mixture of human and puppet characters (to clarify, not “muppets”), and will be released under an alternative label “for content created specifically and exclusively for adult audiences.” Sounds promising. But here are two reasons why the film could suck:
1. Unfortunately, Brian Henson, the guy [...]