Movie News Weekly Round-Up: September 05, 2010

Movie News

• First look into Russell Brand’s Arthur remake (NY Times)
• Darren Aronofsky, David Slade among directors contending to direct Wolverine 2? (Deadline)
• Jonathan Liebesman officially directing Clash of the Titans sequel (Heat Vision)
• Ed Norton Leaves of Grass will see limited released on September 17th (The Playlist)
• Cool movie poster for The Next Three Days starring Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks (The Hitlist)
• George Clooney to direct Farragut North with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Chris Pine? (Vulture)
• John Woo planning to remake French movie Le Samourai as well as his own 1989 Hong Kong police action film The Killer (Variety)
• First look at how ridiculous the $200 million movie Battleship will be (Screencave)

• First look at Uma Thurman in Ceremony (First Showing)
• Marvel’s Runaways set to begin shooting March 2011 (Production Weekly)
• Ridley Scott talks more about his Alien prequel (The Independent)

Set 30 years before the 1979 original, so with no room for Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, the prequels will explore the origins of the deadly aliens. “The film will be really tough, really nasty,” he notes. “It’s the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?”

• The Tree of Life compared to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in early screening (The Playlist)

“Saw TREE OF LIFE the other night at work and it really is amazing. Hypnotic, more like. I won’t give anything about it away here, but yes it is long and there has already been talk in the news about Malick releasing it, then re-cutting it, then re-releasing it, etc.”

• David Slade, Sam Mendes, Gary Ross in contention to direct Lionsgate’s Hunger Games adaptation? (Deadline)

Casting News

• Sylvester McCoy in talks to join The Hobbit (Coming Soon)
• Ryan Reynolds, Bradley Cooper to team up in a buddy cop comedy (Risky Biz)

• Joel David Moore, Chris Carmack, Sinqua Walls, Alyssa Diaz cast in Shark Night 3D (Heat Vision)
• Bryan Cranston to star in indie thriller The Grief Tourist (Variety)
• Luke Wilson, David Morse, Riley Keough cast in Nick Cassavetes’ Yellow. Hank Azaria to make a cameo (Coming Soon)
• Ted Danson, Vinessa Shaw cast in Everybody Loves Whales (THR)
• Monica Belluci cast in Manual of Love 3 with Robert De Niro (Variety)
• Thomas Haden Church, Martin Landau, Ezra Miller cast in wedding comedy The Reasonable Bunch (Variety)
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt (aka. JGL JoGo), Scarlett Johansson attached to zombie romantic comedy (??) Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (Pajiba)

JoJo or Scar-Go?

“Moreover, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson are loosely attached, according to the Hollywood Cog. The movie is a romantic comedy about Andy, a dead man who discovers himself newly re-animated as a mid-aged, decaying zombie who must figure out what it means to live as an Un-dead in a society that denies his kind basic rights.”

• Josie Ho, Chin Han cast in Steven Soderbergh Contagion (Bleeding Cool)
• Jessica McNamee, Scott Speedman cast in Michael Sucsy’s romantic drama The Vow (THR)
• Paula Patton cast in Mission Impossible 4 (Deadline)
• Jon Hamm cast in Jennifer Westfeldt’s Friends with Kids (Showbiz411)
• Emma Bell joins 5nal Destination (JoBlo)
• Liam Neeson to team up with Joe Carnahan again in drama The Grey (Heat Vision)
• James McAvoy, Tom Cruise wanted for Guillermo del Toro’s At The Mountain of Madness (Collider)

Sources have now told us that Universal wants James McAvoy to play the lead in the film, but del Toro wants Tom Cruise to star.  Chris Pine’s name was also being tossed around, but his busy schedule may be too packed.

• Jamie Bell, Anthony McKie join Sam Worthington in Man on a Ledge (Deadline)
• Olivia Thirlby cast in 3D adaptation of Judge Dredd (Variety)
• Tom Hardy replaces Michael Fassbender in Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy (The Daily Mail)
• Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity still looking for its lead actress after Angelina Jolie passed twice on it, Rachel Weisz rumored among many others (The Playlist)

Trailers

• Australian Neo-Western Red Hill (Twitch)
• Norwegian mockumentary Trollhunter (Twitch)
• Wu Ershan’s The Butcher, The Chef & The Swordsman Trailer (Twitch)
• Bob Hoskins, William Dafoe, Jason Flemyng, Talulah Riley join alien invasion movie Transmission (Moviehole)
• Sci-fi Repeaters (HitFix)
• Love and Other Drugs with Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway (YouTube)
• Todd Phillips’ Due Date (YouTube)

• Buried international trailer (First Showing)
• Hobo with a Shotgun (AICN)

Weekly Links

• Luke list 25 worthy movie real estate investments (Journalistic Skepticism)
• This Guy is hosting a Chaplin Blogathon, check it out if you are a fan of the all-time great (This Guy Over Here)
• Fletch is hosting another blogathon, the 30 Days of Crazy which focus on movies or characters that are a little coo-coo (Blog Cabins)
• The Top 50 music videos of the 1990′s (Pitchfork)
• Michael Cera is Buster Keaton (Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style)