Sam Raimi has given his strongest indication yet that he may return to the director’s chair for a fourth Spider-Man. He also revealed that David Koepp, who’d apparently been hired a while back to pen the script, is no longer attached. Raimi says “I want to help contribute to the production. I don’t know if I’ll just be a producer on it but if I can work with the writer in such a way so that directing would be right for me, I don’t know. We’ve had our first meeting on Spider-Man 4 and we’re looking for the writer.”
Shock Till You Drop is reporting that Sony’s Screen Gems believes there is enough blood left to squeeze in the “Underworld” franchise for an Underworld 3. The studio is poised to make an announcement soon. Word broke over the weekend at a special webmasters panel taking place during the San Diego Comic-Con. Chapter numero three, it’s rumored, is a prequel, furthermore, French FX artist Patrick Tatopoulos will be at the helm. This will mark his directing debut.
Cameron Diaz will star in My Sister’s Keeper, a Nick Cassavetes-directed adaptation of the Jodi Picoult novel for New Line Cinema. Shooting will begin early next year. The drama was written by Jeremy Leven and will be produced by Mark Johnson, both of whom made The Notebook with Cassavetes for New Line. Diaz will play a former defense attorney who returns to the courtroom to defend herself and her husband when they are sued by their 13-year-old daughter for emancipation. The girl was conceived as a genetic match with the hope she could prolong her cancer-ridden sister’s life.
Variety says that Warner Independent Pictures is moving forward on an adaptation of The Rum Dairy. Johnny Depp is producing with Graham King, who acquired rights to Hunter S. Thompson’s novel for his GK Films and Depp’s Infinitum Nihil. Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I) will write and direct the adaptation, which Film Engine is also producing. Depp will play Paul Kemp, a freelance journalist writing for a rundown newspaper in 1950s Puerto Rico and surrounded by a bunch of lost souls bent on self-destruction. The journalist was 22 when he wrote the autobiographical novel and had yet to develop his trademark gonzo style. It was written in 1959 but not published until 1998. Depp previously starred in the big screen adaptation of Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published in 1972.
Karen Allen is joining the cast of the upcoming Indiana Jones movie, reprising her role as spirited Marion Ravenwood, it was announced today during Comic-Con International in San Diego. The new movie is in production under the direction of Steven Spielberg.
We reported earlier this week that Zachary Quinto was in final negotiation to star as Spock in the new Star Trek movie. ComingSoon.net has learned that at the San Diego Comic Con, Zachary Quinto was confirmed to play Spock in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. But he won’t be the only Spock . . . Leonard Nimoy is returning as well! They are still looking for an actor to play Captain Kirk and they are trying to get William Shatner back as well.
Tim Blake Nelson has joined the cast of Marvel Studios’ The Incredible Hulk, says The Hollywood Reporter. The movie, which Louis Leterrier is directing, sees Bruce Banner/Hulk on the run, trying to avoid capture long enough to cure the condition that turns him into a monster. Nelson will play a scientist named Samuel Sterns. In Hulk lore, Sterns, aka “The Leader,” is one of the Hulk’s major antagonists, a menial worker in a chemical research plant who is bombarded with gamma radiation. He emerges from his accident not only green-skinned but also superintelligent, with an oversized brain.
Nelson joins a strong comic book movie cast that includes two-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton (Banner), Liv Tyler (Betty Ross), Tim Roth (villain Emil Blonsky/the Abomination) and William Hurt (General Ross, Betty’s father). Zak Penn wrote the latest big-screen adventure of the green goliath, which Universal Pictures is distributing domestically June 13, 2008.
Eddie Izzard has replaced Jeremy Piven as the insane Schadenfreude in the Weinstein Company’s Igor, and producer Exodus Film Group has signed a deal for a series of comic books based on the film with IDW Publishing.
IDW will create serial comic adaptations of the film’s story, plus prequels and sequels, followed by a full-color paperback collection of each miniseries. The prequel series is tentatively set for May or June, followed by the film and sequel series, so the three collected sets can be published in book form in time for the film’s October 2008 release. Igor features the voices of John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Jennifer Coolidge, Arsenio Hall, Jay Leno, Molly Shannon, Sean Hayes and others.
Yahoo UK is reporting that Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix director David Yates says he’s hoping to bring Bill Nighy to the next movie. Yates worked with Nighy on Girl In The Café and believes the Bafta nabbing star would make a great addition to the sixth Potter film, The Half Blood Prince which begins production later this year.
Yates told Wizard: “Oh man, I’m already there. The only problem is, we’re looking at the next adaptation and Rufus Scrimgeour, who takes over the Ministry of Magic from Fudge, we’re not sure if he’s going to be in the finished screenplay yet. We’re struggling with it at the moment, and he’s in one moment and he’s out the next. But if he stays in, I’m going to be on the phone quick as a shot to Bill and say, ‘Bill, come on, you’ve got to do this, man.”
MTV is now reporting that the casting rumors of Naomi Watts, Stuart Townsend and Joseph Fiennes for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince are not true. Representatives from all three of the actors denied the reports. MTV still insisted that Watts would make a good Narcissa Malfoy, Townsend a good Bill Weasley and Fiennes a good Tom Riddle to his brothers Voldemort. So are the representatives being coy or putting out a standard denial while contracts are being signed? I think all there actors would make great additions to the franchise in the roles they were supposedly attached too, and I hope this all turns that they will indeed star in the next sequel.