News Around The Web – June 20th 2008

Here’s the interesting movie news I read today while shooting around the web

	J.J. ABRAMS TO PRODUCE “MYSTERY ON FIFTH AVENUE” – Paramount has purchased a New York Times article, “Mystery on Fifth Avenue,” for a feature that J.J. Abrams will produce through his Bad Robot shingle. Writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky have been hired to adapt it into a film, with Marc Evans overseeing for the studio.
	VATICAN SETTING GUIDELINES FOR MOVIES ASKING TO SHOOT IN CHURCHES – This makes sense to me. I also don’t see why the Vatican denying Angels and Demons permission to shoot in Catholic churches is an issue for anyone anyway. Would YOU let a movie shoot in your house if the movie was about how much of an asshole you are?
	HOLLYWOOD LOOKING AT LOTS OF RETRO MOVIES – For those ready to move past the endless stream of dark dramas from fall 2007, get ready for a new barrage — from the 1960s, the 1940s and the 1780s.Studios are preparing to unleash a hailstorm of period movies — in broad terms, films set in an era other than the current — in the fall, at times turning the multiplex circa 2008 into a veritable cinematic museum.
	PICS FROM THE WORLD PREMIERE OF WANTED – Hot skippy damn I can’t wait to see this movie. I’m ALMOST as pumped to see it as I am WALL-E… but not quite.
	NEW BURN AFTER READING TRAILER – “The Coen Brothers have done it again…a quirky A list cast and extraordinary situations, what could be better? The first trailer for Burn After Reading was great…this one is even better! World-premiering as the opening-night film of the 2008 Venice International Film Festival; a dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. An ousted CIA official’s (Academy Award nominee John Malkovich) memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees intent on exploiting their find.”
	A TOP 100 MOVIE POSTERS LIST – Not authoritative by any stretch of the imagination, but a really solid looking list.
	ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO HAVING HARD TIME GETTING AN R – Apparently the MPAA wants to give the film an NC-17 the way it’s shaping up right now. I haven’t seen the film so I have no idea if it deserves an NC-17 or not. Personally I don’t care if it’s R or NC-17. Just give me the damn movie!
	QUENTIN TARANTINO’S INGLORIOUS BASTARDS TO BE 2 MOVIES – Looks like the long awaited QuentinTarantino project is finally going into production… and true to his Kill Bill roots he’s going to do it as 2 seperate movies.
	SUPERHERO MOVIE DVD SPECS – SuperHero movie is coming to DVD July 8th. After being bitten by a genetically altered dragonfly and gaining superhero abilities, high school student Rick Riker uses his incredible strength and armored skin to become the masked crime fighter known as “The Dragonfly.” Standing in the way of the good-doer is the villainous Lou Landers, a.k.a “The Hourglass” who holds the power to steal a person’s life force. With unimaginable strength, unbelievable speed and deeply uncomfortable tights, “Dragonfly” attempts to stop the sands of “The Hourglass” and save the world.
	SPIKE LEE MAKING A MOVIE ABOUT A BLACK TIME TRAVELER – “Spike Lee is making a movie about a scientific pioneer who is building a time machine. Lee has bought the film rights to physicist Ronald Mallett’s memoir, which tells the tale of his lifelong quest to create a workable means to travel through time. Mallett, 63, became obsessed with the subject as a 10-year-old, following the death of his father. Lee describes the project as a “fantastic story on many levels and also a father and son saga of loss and love”.”
	JOSH BROLIN TO PLAY SNAKE PLISSKEN IN ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK REMAKE? – “This rumor is a wild red hair that sprouted from the pale leg of Spielberg News, but we’ll entertain it for now because it’s late at night, this remake is happening, and the casting would be pritty, pritty good. In a role that would nicely connect the eye-patched dots to his salad days on The Goonies, actor Josh Brolin is rumored to be the top contender to play dystopian, one-eyed rogue, Snake Plissken, in the planned remake of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.”