A George Washington biopic is in the works to be scribed by Nicholas Meyer. Meyer is best known around these parts for helming both the excellent time travel pic Time After Time and some flick called Wrath of Khan. Our suggestion? If you can't find somebody with the--hate to use the word but in this case it actually fits--gravitas of David Morse in John Adams, just cast him again. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
Avenue Q is getting a new Kate Monster and Lucy: Christy Carlson Romano, voice of Kim Possible. This starts September 29th. If anybody sees a performance with her, let us know how it goes, would you? Source: Variety.
Book of Eli is a post-apocalyptic film that will be directed by The Brothers Hughes and star Denzel Washington as a "lone hero who fights his way across an America devastated by an apocalypse." Gary Whitta scribed (and he apparently adapted the Akira screenplay for the two-part live action remake) and Anthony Peckham rescribed it (and he's a co-writer on the previously mentioned Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes project). Production starts in January. Source: Variety.
Fox and MGM are creating a boxed set for...well, I'm not sure who the target audience is. It's their fifty best known musicals in a sixty-one disc set called The Hollywood Musicals Collection that is available for pre-order on Amazon for $375. Apart from postcards that reproduce the theatrical posters, it's probably the same discs that were released for these musicals individually--and probably have the same DVD art and everything. Now, granted, if you don't own these fifty titles already (click through to Amazon to see the full array), this would be the way to get them all, since it comes out to about $6 a disc. But if you really enjoy musicals, you probably own the key ones already and it wouldn't make sense to snag this, even if you had the coin to drop on it. Crazy. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
The Closer, the popular show on TNT starring Kyra Sedgwick, is getting a spinoff called The Fixer. We don't know anything else about it except I'd like to state I'd probably watch the hell out of a show about the Venture Bros. character "The Cleaner." I don't know about your feelings in the matter. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
The teenage years of John Lennon are going to be the subject of Nowhere Boy, directed by Sam Taylor-Wood. The film "follows Lennon through his formative years growing up in Liverpool, the tense relationship between his aunt Mimi and mother Julia and on to his first meetings with Paul McCartney." Casting is underway; production is supposed to start in March on location in Liverpool. I wonder when somebody's going to do a fictionalized HBO or Showtime-level series about the origins of The Beatles. I dunno, I think I might actually watch that. Source: Variety.
Spandex may march on, but so does anime and manga. Specifically, Paramount wants to deliver manga comics based on their films to your phones. "Par says that comics are primarily viewed as marketing support for movies at or before time of int'l theatrical release, though carriers will treat them as premium content and charge phone users for downloads." So let me get this straight--you think there's enough demand for films like Eagle Eye and your pathetic Mission: Impossible franchise that people will pay to read twenty screens of a short manga that's setup to market said films to consumers? I'm honestly asking you, our readers, whether or not you think you might go for this. In fact, fuck it, let's have a poll. Source: Variety.
I can't wait to pay to read Paramount's manga marketing mini-comics on my phone.
Chemical Wedding is the biopic of Aleister Crowley. And it's written by Bruce Dickinson, former frontman for Iron Maiden. And it's starring Simon Callow as Crowley. According to the IMDB, Julian Doyle (editor on Life of Brian and Brazil) is helming. Source: Variety.
So this is different--Warner China Film HG--which apparently is a partnership between Warner Brothers, China Film Group and the Hengdian Group has decided to remake Cellular as Connected. Which is the same story--but with Hong Kong action sequences. And those improve anything. Source: Hollywood Reporter.
The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Collector's DVD Set? I'm looking forward to it, not just because you get a bust of Jack Skellington. Not because you can dress him like Santa. But because I'm looking forward to having him wear lots of hats for every holiday. I've run out of room on my hat rack. Here's Jack:
The Nightmare Before Christmas Ultimate Collector's Set