Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment and Capcom Ltd. are developing a new movie based on the popular videogame franchise Street Fighter, says Variety. Screenwriter Justin Marks has been hired to adapt. Hyde Park and Capcom - Japanese publisher of Street Fighter - will produce the film in a joint venture. The movie will focus on the game’s most popular female fighter, Chun-Li, but the exact storyline is being kept under wraps. In 1994, Universal released a Street Fighter movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme that featured most of the characters from the game. Hyde Park and Capcom’s film is targeted to be released in 2008, the 20th anniversary of the game franchise. Marks just completed writing Voltran for producer Mark Gordon.
According to Variety, Universal Pictures appears to be close to signing a $42.5 million deal for worldwide distribution rights to Sacha Baron Cohen’s next project, Bruno. The film would be based on Cohen’s fashion victim alter ego featured in Da Ali G Show. Posing as an Austrian TV reporter who’s notably gay, Cohen wormed his way into style hot spots like New York’s Fashion Week, getting people to say outrageous things about the fashion world, such as condemning the unstylish to concentration camps. Bidding for Cohen’s next pic has attracted interest from multiple studios and comes just before 20th Century Fox opens Cohen’s Borat this Friday.
With Saw III making $34.3 million in its first three days, a record for Lionsgate, the studio is already planning a fourth installment for the same time next year. The Associated Press reports: Since the low-budget “Saw” debuted with $18.3 million over the same weekend two years ago, Lionsgate has turned the franchise into an annual ritual with quickly produced sequels each Halloween. The movies follow the diabolical schemes of psycho killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), who stages elaborate, bloody games to test the moral fiber of his victims. Lionsgate plans to have “Saw IV” in theaters over Halloween weekend next year. Saw II earned $31.7 million its first weekend.
Production Weekly reports that the sequel to 2004’s Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is planned for a late January start date in Shreveport, Louisiana. John Cho and Kal Penn are set to reprise their roles as Harold and Kumar, respectively. In Harold & Kumar 2, the cross-country adventure follows the pot-smoking duo as they try to outrun the authorities after being suspected as terrorists when they try to sneak a bong on board a flight to Amsterdam. The screenplay is by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who wrote the first film’s script and will co-direct the sequel.
MTV VJ and Entertainment Tonight correspondent Vanessa Minnillo has booked a role in 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer. She’ll play the love interest of Chris Evans’ character, the Human Torch. Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Julian McMahon, Beau Garrett and Andre Braugher also star in the Tim Story-directed sequel. The movie hits theaters on June 15, 2007.
Eric Bana and Terrence Howard are attached to star in Factor X, a thriller being written by Gregory Allen Howard for New Line Cinema telling the true tale of how the BTK killer was captured, says The Hollywood Reporter. Ridley Scott and Scott Free Productions president Michael Costigan will produce the project, which could become a directing vehicle for Scott. The serial killer known as BTK murdered people in and around Wichita, Kan., from 1974-91 and was finally caught in 2005, turning out to be a mild-mannered leader at a local church. The acronym described his modus operandi, which was to bind, torture and kill.
Factor X, which takes its name from what the killer described in taunting letters to the police as his motive for murder, tells how a young, black counterterrorism expert from Washington teamed up with a Wichita police detective, who spent his career trying to chase down the killer. Bana will play the detective and Terrence Howard would be the counterterrorism expert.
Clive Barker has announced that The Weinstein Company is developing a Hellraiser remake and has asked him to write the script:
“They’re going to remake Hellraiser One with a lot more money and they’ve invited me to write it
TrekMovie reports that although “Star Trek XI” is still just in development, the assumption is that Trek XI will get a greenlight and will be one of Paramount’s tentpoles for Summer 2008. Apparently the first draft of the script is due shortly and the filmmakers are already seeing actors for the major parts. The official greenlight on the project is expected in December, pre-production to begin a month later, and shooting as early as an April/May start. So far J.J. Abrams is rumoured to be looking at many of his M:I-III crew to work on Trek XI with him.
Timothy Olyphant and Mary Elizabeth Winstead have landed key roles in 20th Century Fox’s Live Free or Die Hard, says The Hollywood Reporter. Len Wiseman is directingthe fourth installment. Bruce Willis is reprising his role as John McClane in the story of an attack on the U.S. computer infrastructure that begins to shut down the country. The mysterious figure behind the scheme has figured out every digital angle but never counts on the old-fashioned, “analog” McClane. Olyphant will play Willis’ nemesis, while Winstead will play Willis’ daughter. Justin Long and Maggie Q already have been cast in the production, which is shooting in Los Angeles.
Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison will join Kevin Misher in producing Paramount Pictures’ adaptation of Dan Zevin’s comic memoir The Day I Turned Uncool: Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-Up. Variety says Hollywoodland screenwriter Paul Bernbaum is set to adapt the book, with the project crafted as a potential star vehicle for Sandler. Happy Madison’s Jack Giarraputo and Heather Parry will produce with Misher. In the book, Zevin pondered the cataclysmic reality of hitting his 30s and facing up to the commitments that come with graduating into adulthood.