Category: Films

Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media, in collaboration with Academy Award-nominated director Andrew Adamson, have begun pre-production on THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN, the follow-up to the international blockbuster, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE.

Kristen Bell (VERONICA MARS), Jay Baruchel (MILLION DOLLAR BABY), Chris Marquette (JUST FRIENDS) and Sam Huntington (SUPERMAN RETURNS) are in final talks to join the cast of FANBOYS, which follows a group of STAR WARS geeks, who attempt their dying friends wish of screening the yet-unreleased STAR WARS: EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Dan Fogler (forthcoming SCHOOL OF SCOUNDRELS) has already been cast as a hot-headed pizza boy.

New Line has put a FRIDAY THE 13TH prequel on the fast track, reports VARIETY. The studio has greenlit the script development of a story that would chronicle the origins of hockey-mask wearing killer Jason Voorhees. The studio hopes to have the 10th film in the franchise ready for a Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, opening.

Robin Williams has joined the star-studded cast of 20th Century Foxs NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The funny man will play Theodore Roosevelt opposite Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Kim Raver, Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke and Bill Cobbs.

Screen Gems has hired AMITYVILLE HORROR director Andrew Douglas to turn Min-Woo Hyungs manga PRIEST, published by TOKYOPOP, into a feature film, reports VARIETY. Mitchell Peck, Mike De Luca, Sam Raimi and Josh Donen will produce the film, which is set to start production this summer. Cory Goodman wrote the screenplay.

The tale is a vampire Western that follows a warrior priest who disobeys church law by partnering with a young sheriff and a priestess to hunt down a band of renegade vampires who have kidnapped his niece.

At the Sundance Film Festival, Blur Studio announced that it will develop its 2005 Academy Award-nominated short film GOPHER BROKE into a feature film. The short screened as part of the Animation Spotlight at Sundance. The film went on to win prizes at the Animago Festival in Munich and the Imagina Awards in France.

The film, written and directed by Jeff Fowler, follows an increasingly frustrated gopher as his attempts at snagging a snack from passing vegetable truck ends in what can be described as you get what you wish for.

Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert's Ghost House Pictures has netted the film rights to Japanese videogame SIREN from SCE Worldwide Studios, Sony Computer Ent.'s worldwide game development studios for the PlayStation platforms, reports VARIETY. Working closely with the games director Keiichiro Toyama, Michael Gordon (forthcoming 300) will pen the script.

Mexican commercial directors Jorge and Javier Aguilera known as Big Brother have been tapped to helm the live-action adaptation of the Japanese anime, KITE, reports VARIETY. Rob Cohen and Anant Singh are producing.

Singh and Brian Cox will produce for Singh's Distant Horizon. Cohen and Marc Pitre will produce for Cohen's Nowita Pictures. Joshua Rubin is penning the script.

Bryce Dallas Howard (THE VILLAGE, LADY IN THE WATER) is in final talks with Columbia Pictures to play the role of Peter Parkers doomed love Gwen Stacy in SPIDER-MAN 3, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Stacy is an iconic character in SPIDER-MAN lore being Parkers first love from high school who was killed by the Green Goblin during a bridgetop battle that was quite similar to the battle that occurred in the first SPIDER-MAN film.

Cindy and Donald Hewitt, who penned the English-language adaptations to Hayao Miyazaki's HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE and SPIRITED AWAY, have sold their comedy pitch titled, NONE OF HER BUSINESS, to New Line, reports VARIETY. Mosaic Media Group, the company behind the screen adaptation of videogame GOD OF WAR at Universal, will produce the film.

The story follows a female corporate exec who after getting fired gets her job back by dressing up as a man.