Category: Films

Brad Bird, recent Oscar winner for Disney/Pixar's RATATOUILLE, will make his live-action feature directorial debut with the financial backing of both Warner Bros. and Disney/Pixar, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

The story is about a college student investigating his father's murder who discovers corruption that will prove devastating for the city of San Francisco when the Great Earthquake and subsequent fire hit in 1906 -- the title of the movie.

Bird is rewriting the script, originally written by John Logan.

Columbia Pictures' UPRISING will be directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher through their Sony-based Red Wagon studio, VARIETY reports.

The sci-fi thriller is about the resistance efforts of citizens after Earth has been occupied by an evil alien race.

BLOOD DIAMOND scribe Charles Leavitt is writing the script.

Petersen has worked with Columbia on DAS BOOT, IN THE LINE OF FIRE and AIR FORCE ONE.

Red Wagon's most recent films with Sony include MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and RV.

Paramount classic ROSEMARY'S BABY will likely be remade, VARIETY reports.

Horror production company Platinum Dunes (with partners Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller) is in talks with Paramount to bring the Roman Polanski original back.

The 1968 BABY was taken from an Ira Levin novel and follows a young couple (Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes) who move into a gothic New York apartment. The husband allows his wife to become impregnated by the devil in exchange for a lucrative career when he discovers their elderly neighbors are a coven of witches.

MOON, a new sci-fi thriller starring Sam Rockwell and directed by Duncan Jones, will be sold internationally by Independent, a London-based sales company, VARIETY reports.

The film just finished shooting at UK's Shepperton Studios and is about a lonely man stranded on a moon base, who finds out he's not alone.

MOON is the debut feature for commercials director Jones, formerly known as Zowie Bowie.

The WALL*E full-length domestic trailer is live on Disney.com and Apple Trailers in high definition.

WALL*E lands in theaters on June 27, 2008.

DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures Corporation announced Tuesday the voice talent line-up for MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, the studio's first film produced in Ultimate 3D technology.

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, which is slated for a domestic release date of March 27, 2009, reinvents the classic '50s monster movie into an irreverent modern day action comedy.

The cast of MONSTERS VS. ALIENS includes:

*Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon (WALK THE LINE, RENDITION) as Susan Murphy, a.k.a. Ginormica;

Topping the weekend box office (ending March 9) was vfx caveman/woolly mammoth flick 10,000 B.C., pulling in $35.7 million in its debut weekend.

The Warner Bros. pic's vfx were done by MPC and Double Negative.

Disney's COLLEGE ROAD TRIP (vfx by Digital Pictures Iloura, Furious FX and RotoFactory), with Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symone grossed $14M in its first weekend, good enough for second place.

Assassination thriller VANTAGE POINT (Sony, vfx by CIS) slipped to third place, pulling in $7.5M for a total gross of $51.7M.

Justin Long ("I'm a Mac", LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD) is set to star in Sam Raimi's DRAG ME TO HELL, VARIETY reports.

Long will play Alison Lohman's character's boyfriend in the supernatural morality tale.

Raimi and brother Ivan wrote the screenplay, shooting is set to start March 31 in Los Angeles.

The Ghost House Pictures movie is being distributed domestically and in some international territories by Universal, Mandate International will cover all other foreign ground.

On the heels of the success of the motion picture adaptation of the graphic novel 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, IDW Publishing, a division of IDT Internet Mobile Group, announced that another of its graphic novels has been optioned by a major feature film producer.

Producer Richard Saperstein, former President of Production of Dimension Films, who has overseen such films as 1408, Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN, THE MIST, JOHN Q, THE PUNISHER, FREQUENCY, and SE7EN, has optioned IDW's hot, new comic series, SNAKED.

Oscar-nominated Best Animated Feature PERSEPOLIS has been banned in Lebanon, VARIETY reports.

The controversial film is based on co-creator Marjane Satrapi's childhood growing up in Iran during the 1979 revolution.

PERSEPOLIS was also pulled from the Bangkok International Film Festival last year, but passed censors in the UAE and recently was screened at two cultural centers in Tehran, Iran.

It's likely that authorities want to avoid offending pro-Iranian members of the Lebanese opposition, most notably Hezbollah.

Director Mike Newell will shoot action-adventure flick PRINCE OF PERSIA: SANDS OF TIME in Morocco, VARIETY reports.

The video-game based film is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney from a script by THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff and game creator Jordan Mechner.

Disney hopes to create a new franchise a la PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN from the video game's six installments and numerous spin-offs.

Jill Culton will direct Sony Pictures Animation's HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, VARIETY reports.

Culton also directed OPEN SEASON, SPA's first CG picture.

HOTEL will follow SPA's next project, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS.

Writers have not been set for HOTEL, Michelle Murdocca is producing and Amy Jupiter is co-producing.

The story follows Simon Van Helsing, the youngest in a long line of monster hunters, who falls in love with Dracula's daughter Mavis.