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Twilight: Eclipse - Though the second installment of the Twilight series, New Moon, isn't anywhere near completion, that hasn't stopped Summit Entertainment from shopping around for a director for the third film in the series. Entertainment Weekly thinks that Drew Barrymore might be on the candidate list for that job. While her director debut hasn't been seen yet (Whip It! featuring Ellen page), she has done a lot of work behind the camera as a producer for her own production company Flower Films (responsible for romantic fare such as He's Just Not That Into You and Music and Lyrics). It seems like Summit is really desperate for a woman's touch on these steamy vampire flicks, so I would like to recommend Quentin Tarantino.
Friday the 13th Sequel - After an impressive box office showing a couple weeks ago, scribes Damian Shannon and Mark Swift are already working on a sequel. Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz Blog comments, "Unlike the sophomore efforts of other franchises, the new Friday is expected to be not a sequel so much as a follow-up, those familiar with the project say. Jason Voorhees will be the villain, of course, but the new picture is expected to use elements of the original franchise more as a jumping-off point than as a template." I really don't understand how a follow-up is any different than a sequel. They could call it a frazzle snazzle and it still wouldn't make it any different than the inevitable sequels of any horror franchise. But I enjoyed this re-boot, so bring it on!
Richard Pryor Biopic - Entertainment Weekly reports that writer/director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) is shopping around his script around the late iconic comedian, Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? to various studio subs and independent distributors with Eddie Murphy attached to star. While I'd love to see a movie about Richard Pryor's life I just don't know if he's the right guy for the job. Unless of course he's going to play every member of Richard Pryor's family and fart a lot.
Up in the Air - Variety updates that Jason Reitman's (Juno) forthcoming adaptation of Walter Kirn's novel of the same name has just added Jason Bateman to the cast mix. Bateman will star alongside lead George Clooney in the story of "a professional who specializes in "career transition counseling" (a euphemism for firing people) looks to accomplish his two main goals in life: to accumulate 1 million frequent flier miles, and to land a job at a mysterious management company called MythTech."
Vampires and teen angst. It's a combination I've grown to love over the last few years. And yet, despite being filled with an abundance of both, this season's smash hit Twilight wasn't a movie that managed to draw me to the box office.
However, the news that About a Boy and Golden Compass director Chris Weitz has been tapped to direct the film's sequel New Moon at least has me a bit more interested. Weitz has managed adapt a couple books with varying degrees of success in the past, while recently-fired director Catherine Hardwicke has less-than-stellar history.
Weitz' adaption of Nick Hornby's novel About A Boy managed to maintain the source material's basic charm while staying true to the characters, and though the God-destroying odyssey Golden Compass wasn't the success it could have been - or, more to the point, that The Chronicles of Narnia was - I am hopeful that Weitz will be able to translate whatever people love about Stephenie Meyer's series to the silver screen.