HELLBOY shuffled to early April

Sony Pictures has moved the release date of its upcoming adaptation of HELLBOY. Instead of bowing in cineplexes on Memorial Day 2004 the film now opens six weeks earlier, on April 2.

The move positions HELLBOY away from the thunder of other May genre releases such as VAN HELSING, TROY and THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. "When you look at what's coming out around Memorial Day, there are some very big pictures," said Tom Sherak, a Revolution Studios executive, to Variety. "We figured we'd be much better off coming out earlier with a movie that we think will be the next big comic book movie. Whenever you can be the first, be the first."

INTRUDERS optioned

Variety reports that Focus Features has optioned the movie rights to Pat Montandon's fear book THE INTRUDERS, a real-life account of a San Francisco socialite's ordeal living with a "curse".

Montandon's took a turn for the worse when, after attending a party, a tarot reader placed a curse on her believing that Montandon had insulted the psychic. Shortly thereafter her life at her new apartment began to go to hell. The San Fran socialite was stalked by drug users living in her building; her apartment was constantly cold; she found strange patches of blood outside on her fire escape and on her ceiling; and her dog began whining constantly. The series of irregularities cumulated when a close friend of Montadon's died in a suspicious fire when she was left to house-sit.


When Montandon investigated the history of the apartment building she discovered the land had been used for a makeshift cemetary and as a place where people were hanged to death. Was the patch of ground where she lived haunted, was there something to the tarot reader's curse or was it merely a string of bad luck?


Scribe Gary Lennon will adapt Montandon's book and tell it in a similar fashion to other alleged real-life supernatural tales. A trendier AMITYVILLE TERROR with higher rent?

Raging bull might play HIDE & SEEK with Fox

Robert De Niro may be starring in a new thriller called HIDE & SEEK, with Albert Hughes as the film's director. De Niro, who was paid to star in a 20th Century Fox film titled RULE NO. 3, is being asked by Fox to now star in the other film since RULE NO. 3 seems to be falling apart.

HIDE & SEEK is a thriller where De Niro would play a recent widower and father to a young girl who is coping with the death of her mother in a frightening way.


The movie would mark the solo directing debut of Albert Hughes. Together with his brother, the Hughes duo helmed FROM HELL and MENACE II SOCIETY.

GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST gets director

Director Betty Thomas (I SPY, THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE) will work on GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST for Walt Disney Studios next. It's a reunion for Thomas and leading man Ben Affleck who is attached to star in GHOSTS; Thomas produced DreamWorks' comedy SURVIVING CHRISTMAS, due out later this year, which Affleck stars in.

Borrowing a bit from A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Affleck's single guy character receives visits from all of his former flames at the wedding of his younger brother. So are all of this guy's girlfriends dead or something? Serial killer alert!

MR AND MRS. SMITH have left the building

So let's pretend you're Doug Liman, the critically hailed director of SWINGERS, GO and THE BOURNE IDENTITY. You're working on your next film, a romantic comedy/actioner about a husband-and-wife duo of professional assassins who are hired to off each other called MR. AND MRS. SMITH. You've got Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman as the married couple. Things are coming along nicely, there's no major problems with the script, and then...BOOM! In the space of a month, both Nicole Kidman and Brad Pitt walk away from your project because of scheduling conflicts, leaving your movie without leading actors.

Liman now has the task of replacing Kidman and Pitt with two other A-list people. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the frontrunners for the new Mr. Smith are (ironically enough) Will Smith and Johnny Depp. Nevertheless, if Liman can't find his replacements in short order this project may be deep-sixed by Regency Enterprises

Hollywood`s bad boy director does not go gently

The man whose eye for orange fireballs knows no equal has set his sights on a new film project. Director Michael Bay (BAD BOYS II, PEARL HARBOR) has attached himself to DO NOT GO GENTLY, a sci-fi/drama set up at Revolution Studios.

Described by Variety's Michael Fleming as "an adventure film with a gentler tone", the script is about a Smithsonian scholar who gets his heart's desire to travel into space. Neil Tolkin is performing a rewrite of the script at the present time.


Whether Bay makes DO NOT GO GENTLY his next project remains to be seen.

__________________
"If somebody said to me, in twelve years you’ll be in a band with your brother and two carrot munching geezers who don’t like football, I would've said 'fuck off, I’m not joining the Bee Gees." -Noel Gallagher 2005

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adding a few more

Let`s remake Harry

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS producer Neal Moritz will remake the '80s action flick LET'S GET HARRY for Columbia Pictures. The script for the new version will be penned by writers Scott Rosenberg (CON AIR) and Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (both writers on Fox's cancelled series FASTLANE.)

The original LET'S GET HARRY starred Robert Duvall, Mark Harmon and Gary Busey, and was about a group of four longtime friends who went off on their own to rescue a kidnapped pal. The updated version will be pretty much the same story except that the new Harry is believed to be dead and the friends are told there's no hope for rescue. Of course they still decide to go anyway.

Spotnitz in the STAR CHAMBER

Former X-FILES writer/producer Frank Spotnitz is dusting off the 1983 thriller THE STAR CHAMBER for the FX Network. Spotnitz will direct and executive produce a new version of the story that's been slightly altered from the original premise.

In the film Michael Douglas played a disillusioned judge who was asked to become part of a clandestine group known as the "star chamber". This panel of judges gathered to pronounce sentence on suspects who were acquitted by the justice system through technicalities. The chamber members would meet to go over the case and then, if they found the suspect was guilty, order the execution of the individual using a hitman.


Spotnitz's update will see the lead character be less of a reluctant participant in the star chamber than the Douglas character was. Nevertheless, the judge will also discover that being a member of the star chamber isn't without its failings.

James Cameron dives for new film project

Variety broke the news today that TITANIC director James Cameron has a new project: a biopic focusing on the accomplishments and relationship between Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras and his wife Audrey Mestre. Both were world-class champions at the extreme sport of freediving, the act of diving as far as you can descend on just one breath of air.

Ferreras held the world-record for freediving in 2000, submerging himself an amazing 531.4 feet. That record was then shattered by his wife Audrey, who was taught how to freedive by her husband, when she plunged an astounding 557.7 feet. When she attempted to break her record last year, Mestre died. Her husband will attempt to match her record this coming October 12 during a dive at Cabo San Lucas. Cameron will film Ferreras' attempt for inclusion in his film.


Lightstorm Entertainment, Cameron's film production company, has purchased the rights to Ferreras' life story as well as the diver's upcoming autobiography as well as Sports Illustrated article about the sport. Longtime Lightstorm execs Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini will produce the film with Cameron.


But the freedive picture won't be Cameron's next movie. While it's likely that Lightstorm will hire a screenwriter to pen the Ferreras/Mestre picture, the filmmaker will be working on a mysterious 3-D project as his next movie. The subject matter of the new 3-D picture hasn't been revealed as yet by Cameron.

__________________
"If somebody said to me, in twelve years you’ll be in a band with your brother and two carrot munching geezers who don’t like football, I would've said 'fuck off, I’m not joining the Bee Gees." -Noel Gallagher 2005

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There's a BIG Cameron project currently awaiting the green light. Reportedly to do it Cameron believes it will cost more than the $200m Titanic cost to make. I forget the name of it at the moment though but it's another big sci-fi movie.

Natch it's been shelved for now for two reasons. The cost to make it and the fact that the cgi techniques Cameron wants to employ are currently "not do-able" apparently.

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