Jeffrey Dean Morgan Is The Comedian

The Watchmen names bandied around over the last couple of days have all been confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, with one extra inclusion: Jeffrey Dean Morgan is to play The Comedian.

I don't know much about Morgan at all, but Richard LaGravanese cast him PS - I Love You, so I'm not too perturbed. I'm certainly not shaking my head the way I did about Malin Akerman.

I'm going to bet that this Watchmen is rather badly received. Not that it will be bad, mind - just that it will be badly received.

Movie Minesweeper - The Plant A Flag In Hollywoodland Edition

- JoBlo appear to have the first image of an 'alien' from James Cameron's Avatar.

- James McTeigue is attached to direct an adaptation of John Burdett's novel Bangkok 8. The synopsis at Variety makes it sound like a cross between Taxi Driver and The General's Daughter gone Thai. Maybe. The piece also states that McTeigue was an uncredited director on The Invasion - as well as or instead of the Wachowski Bros. I wonder?

- William Wisher is to script the World War II drama Escape of the Pacific Clipper. I see a formation of Second World War aerial actioners coming over the horizon. Will they bomb? (Pun intended).

- Spike Lee is directing Stalag 17 on Broadway.

- More WWII shenanigans with The Lost Squad. The big screen adaptation of the Chris Kirby comic book is to be written and directed by Saint and Mather - or, to give them their full names, Stephen St. Leger and James Mather. You can download a trailer for their short film Prey Alone or check out storyboards and more at the Saint and Mather site. Personally, I'm not impressed. At all.

- David Ondaatje's remake of Hitchcock's The Lodger is set up to go at Sony. Apparently using the same source material as Hitch - Marie Belloc Lownde's novel - this version will, all the same, be updated to a present day LA setting. If you know the passwords (sorry - can't help you, but help me if you can) you can watch some of Ondaatje's shorts online, including the documentary Undressing Hitchcock and Hitch pastiche Waiting for Dr. Maguffin.

- Nostradamus nonsense ahoy in the comic book adaptation The Foundation. Paramount have snapped up the rights and assigned two of the publisher production duties on the film.

- The Fantasia Fest line-up has been unveiled.

- Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. have renewed their pact, with a fresh 1 billion dollar cash injection. Some of this seems set to be wasted on a World of Warcraft movie.

- Djimon Honsou has signed to star in Jeff Wadlow's Get Some. I dare say he won't be taking the lead role of a 'rebellious teen' who joins an underground fight club.

- Rialto Pictures are the leading lights in US theatrical reissues. The Museum of Modern Art in New York is to celebrate the distributor's tenth anniversary by screening a retrospective of their releases. Seventeen films are on the program - I don't know which seventeen, but the full catalogue is online. Some of the greatest films I've ever seen are in that line-up (plus a few heaps of Godard).

- Envoys of the Weinstein company are phoning up members of the public and telling them to go and see Sicko.

- John Turturro has based his performance in Transformers on Michael Bay.

- Charles Hyer is directing the first Eloise film in a proposed series adapted from the beloved kids' books. This one will come from Eloise in Paris with Eloise Goes to Hollywood lined up as the first sequel.

- I'm sure I already told you that Laurence Fishburne is writing and will direct a movie of The Alchemist.

- Paul Giamatti and Emily Mortimer are set to star in Pretty Bird.

- Download the script for No Country For Old Men and marvel.

- Capone at AintItCool has interviewed Steve Zahn. I love Steve Zahn.

- IGN have penned an update on the progress of the JLA film. Personally, I think we'll see a Superman Returns sequel first - easier to cast, for one thing - but, well, nobody knows for certain.

- Paramount are sneaking in some screenings of Transformers next Monday, screenings that are seemingly entwined with an alleged attempt to cook the books.

- Disney are launching a Ratatouille wine.

- According to Jeffrey Wells, Russell Crowe is to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Ridley Scott's Penetration.

- The DVD specs for Eaten Alive are out.

- Nintendo are expected to unveil WiiWare today - a shopping channel for original, downloadable games. Indie developers will be welcome.

- There are 11 Harry Potter 5 clips online now.

- Warners are to make a series of tween-centric direct-to-DVD films from the Clique books.

- For one day only: Palm Pictures will be streaming The Method online on June 29th. That's tomorrow, as I write. The film is, apparently, really rather good indeed.

- Richard LaGravanese and Hanif Kureishi have tied for the feature film award at the Humanitas awards this year.

The Writers Co-Op

John Wells Productions are to house an interesting new venture: a co-op of screenwriters designed to get them a better slice of pie and more say in how their scripts are handled.

In return for greatly cheaper early drafts, the writers will be rewarded with payment from first dollar gross returns and production bonuses. They'll also be able to veto any rewrites or altertaion and be consulted througout pre-production, production and post.

Here's the list of writers already signed up:

Ron Bass, Henry Bean, David Benioff, Scott Frank, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Robert Nelson Jacobs, Nicholas Kazan, Callie Khouri, Richard LaGravanese, Phil Alden Robinson, Bruce Joel Rubin, Stephen Schiff, Tom Schulman, Ed Solomon, Dana Stevens, Robin Swicord, Michael Tolkin, Rafael Yglesias.

There's a big fistful of supremely talented folk in that list. I'm hoping this co-op works out for them.

According to Variety, the idea was first hatched when Wells was the head of the WGA and Kazan and Schulman were members of it's executive board.

LaGravanese Coming Soon

A new interview with Freedom Writers' writer-director Richard LaGravanese has appeared on Coming Soon. As well as discussing his Jan 5 release he also talks about a number of upcoming projects, one of which appears to be some time off.

Here's what he says about Terry Gilliam's long-gestating The Defective Detective: There's no status, we're just still trying. There's another draft that we have and we're still trying to push it through the system. I mean, you know it's a very ambitious project, probably cost more than anything else, but for years it's always been about 'the star the star the star', who's in it? But nowadays I feel that there's actually more possibilities. There are more funding people out there, the studio system is sort of changing. I know. I still have faith in it, he's not so sure. His heart's gotten broken a few times.

LaGravanese also responds to the possibility of the film being turned into a comic-book, or being made as an animated film.

Be Heard

The official site for Richard LaGravanese's Freedom Writers is finally live - the film goes on release as soon as January 5th. There's a trailer, a Will.I.Am music video and an encouragement to 'join the debate' on You Tube with featurettes, clips and TV spots promised as coming soon.