Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island Changes Title To...Ashecliffe

Well, it's official: Martin Scorsese's mystery drama, due in 2009 and formerly known as Shutter Island, is now entitled Ashecliffe. New title is the name of the plot's asylum located on the fictional island off Boston harbor. No word on why the title was changed. I keep thinking of a fat kid with a pinwheel hat pronouncing it "Asscliffe" while producing lots of drool to entertain himself. Shutter Island is also the name of the 2003 Dennis Lehane novel on which the film is based.

Dehane is quoted as saying his novel is a cross between the classic, romantic imagery found in Bronte sisters' literature (Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre) and the paranoid creepiness of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956, the decade in which the book is based. I wouldn't read it, but I'd watch it. Scorsese's film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, the currently mourning Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley (hot off The Wackness) and Patricia Clarkson. And if you're a babe wondering about Sly Stallone, he's no longer rumored to be involved. So, babe, you like Rambo, huh?

All of the details thus far make it sound like an ideal bookend to the director's wonderfully deranged and tension-bubbling remake of Cape Fear from 1991. As long as the fat, drooling kid above doesn't sit behind me, call me siked. And is it just me, or does Paramount seem like its behind all of the surefire moneymaking powerhouse flicks these days?