Wes Anderson: Absentee Director

Fur flies on 'Mr. Fox' -- latimes.com

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Chris Wedge Throws Hat In Live-Action Ring

"Ice Age" helmer Chris Wedge has signed on to direct Brian Selznick's magic-themed children's novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" for Graham King's GK Films, Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil and Warner Bros.

"The Aviator" scribe John Logan has been tapped to pen the adaptation.

King and Infinitum Nihil's Christi Dembrowski will produce the live-action film, which centers on an orphaned boy who secretly lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks. He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a mechanical man.

To read more of Tatiana Siegel's Variety article, click here.

Del Toro To Direct Hobbit Films

"In a major step forward on 'The Hobbit,' Guillermo del Toro has signed on to direct the New Line-MGM tentpole and its sequel.

The widely expected announcement -- which had been rumored for several weeks -- came Thursday afternoon jointly from exec producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, New Line president Toby Emmerich, and Mary Parent, newly named chief of MGM’s Worldwide Motion Picture Group.

Del Toro’s moving to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and Weta production teams. He’ll direct the two films back to back, with the sequel dealing with the 60-year period between 'The Hobbit' and 'The Fellowship of the Ring,' the first of the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy."

To read the rest of Dave McNary's Variety article, click here.

Remake OTD: Dune

VARIETY: Berg to direct 'Dune' for Paramount
Misher producing adaptation of sci-fi novel
By TATIANA SIEGEL - Posted: Mon., Mar. 17, 2008, 9:00pm PT

Peter Berg is attached to direct a bigscreen adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel "Dune" for Paramount Pictures.

Kevin Misher, who spent the past year obtaining the book rights from the Herbert estate, will produce via his Par-based shingle.

Herbert's 1965 novel is a sweeping, futuristic tale set on the remote desert planet Arrakis, which produces the interstellar empire's sole source of the spice Melange -- used for distant space travel. An empirewide power struggle ensues over the control of the spice. Berg would be the latest helmer to take a crack at the property, which spawned a 1984 David Lynch film as well as a 2000 Sci Fi Channel miniseries starring William Hurt.

The project is out to writers, with the producers looking for a faithful adaptation of the Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning book. The filmmakers consider its theme of finite ecological resources particularly timely.

New Amsterdam's Richard Rubenstein, who produced Sci Fi's "Dune" and sequel "Children of Dune," is also producing alongside Sarah Aubrey of Film 44, Berg's production banner. John Harrison and Mike Messina exec produce.

Paramount envisions the project as a tentpole film.

Berg and Misher enjoy strong ties dating back to Misher's executive days at Universal Pictures. Misher also produced Berg's second directorial outing, "The Rundown."

Actor-turned-helmer Berg most recently directed the upcoming Will Smith starrer "Hancock." His directing credits include "The Kingdom" and "Friday Night Lights."

Splitting Harrys

VARIETY: Last 'Potter' to be split in half
Warner to make two films from final 'Harry'
By DIANE GARRETT - Posted: Wed., Mar. 12, 2008, 4:45pm PT

Warner Bros. will split the last "Harry Potter" tome into a two-part film, with the installments unspooling six months apart.

David Yates will direct and Steve Kloves will write both parts, which will be filmed concurrently.

Part one of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will bow in November 2010, with the second to debut the following May.

The unusual "Kill Bill" strategy solves a thorny problem for the studio, which had been wrestling with a way to adapt J.K. Rowling's hefty tome and successfully conclude its lucrative franchise, which has generated $4.5 billion at the worldwide B.O. It's not yet clear exactly how studio will split the 784-page book, however.

Warner Bros. prexy Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov, prexy of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, are expected to discuss their plans for "Deathly Hallows" during the studio's ShoWest presentation at 2:45 p.m. today.

"Deathly Hallows," the seventh in the series, is weighty in more ways than one: The boy wizard and his pals battle archnemesis Voldemort to the death. Tome sold a record 11 million copies during the first 24 hours after it hit bookshelves last July.

The sixth movie in the franchise, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," debuts on the bigscreen in November. It is also being directed by Yates, who helmed the fifth installment, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Kloves has also been a steady presence for the franchise; he will have written seven of the eight adaptations, having missed only "Order of the Phoenix."

David Heyman has served as producer on the entire series, which last year surpassed James Bond as the top-grossing film franchise (Daily Variety, Sept. 11). Franchise has also proved lucrative on DVD and in other ancillary markets; among other ventures, Warner and Universal have partnered on a theme park attraction devoted to "Potter."

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Two movies! Yikes - if there's a Quidditch match in the last book, it'll be able to go on for twenty minutes or more, now that there's four or five hours at the filmmakers' disposal.

Wild Things Clip Looks Pretty Cool

The track record for children's books being adapted into feature films is pretty poor, so I didn't get very excited when I heard that Spike Jonze was bringing Where The Wild Things Are to the big screen.

However - there's a clip (brought to you via Gawker/Sloan) that's leaked (or 'leaked') out that happily looks really promising. Granted, the picture quality is pretty poor, so the effects could be anything under all that grain. But the character interaction is really charming - I'm really curious to see what kind of story is surrounding this! It looks like I'll have to wait 'til next year to find out...

UPDATE (2/20): Here's Spike Jonez's explanation of the clip...

DARK HORIZONS: Jonze Responds To "Wild Things" Clip
By Garth Franklin - Wednesday, February 20th 2008 2:47am

Warner Bros. has released a statement from director Spike Jonze regarding "Where The Wild Things Are" in response to a clip that was posted recently online.

"That was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work.

The clip doesn’t look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours Griffin who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before.

We love him, but he is not in the actually film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later."

The film is scheduled to open later in the year.

Wes Anderson Turns To Animation

MTV MOVIES BLOG: Wes Anderson Enlists Bill Murray For ‘The Fantastic Mr. Fox’
Published by Josh Horowitz on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 7:04 pm.

It will be five films in a row for the collaboration that is Wes Anderson and Bill Murray. I talked to Anderson about his upcoming animated flick based on the Roald Dahl story and he confirmed his voice cast. “George Clooney is going to be Mr. Fox. Bill Murray has a part. Jason [Schwartzman] is doing a voice. That’s our team,” he told me.

But don’t line up at the multiplex just yet…this one is still a long ways off. “It will take a couple years to do the animating,” said “The Darjeeling Limited” helmer, adding that they are about to record the voices. As for the animation, “It’s stop-motion. It’s like ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ or those Christmas specials. These [characters] have fur, so it’s not like claymation.”

It sounds like Anderson will make this one quite unique (big surprise). “The settings will be very natural. We want to use real trees and real sand, but it’s all miniature,” he said.

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I haven't liked a Wes Anderson film since "Bottle Rocket", so I'm not thrilled about this news. It's hard for me to see how Anderson's chilly storytelling will mesh with the content and the new-to-him medium. I remember liking the book, but I'm not even sure how well it'll adapt to film - I'll have to read it again.

Remake OTD: The Illustrated Man

VARIETY: Zack Snyder to direct 'Illustrated'
Filmmaker also producing redo for Warners By DIANE GARRETT - Posted: Tue., Aug. 28, 2007, 5:32pm PT

Warner Bros. has tattooed Zack Snyder's name on its redo of "The Illustrated Man."

The helmer, busy prepping "Watchmen" for the studio, is attached to direct and produce the remake based on Ray Bradbury's collection of short stories by the same name. "Watchmen" scribe Alex Tse will tackle the screenplay.

The collection, first published in 1951, is narrated by a mysterious man with living tattoos that predict the future. Rod Steiger starred in the title role for the 1969 bigscreen adaptation, distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts; Claire Bloom co-starred.

Di Novi Pictures and Snyder's shingle, Cruel and Unusual Films, are producing the remake. Denise Di Novi, and Deborah Snyder, the helmer's wife and producing partner, are also producing, along with Frank Darabont. Cruel and Unusual's Wesley Coller and Di Novi's Alison Greenspan are exec producing.

Snyder and his wife signed a first-look deal with the studio in the wake of his success with "300" (Daily Variety, Jan. 30). They are producing "Illustrated Man" through Cruel and Unusual.

Di Novi's shingle has produced numerous films at the studio under its production deal, including "Nights in Rodanthe."

Degrees Of Separation

Swazzle shot a video to help promote the Summer Library Reading Program's theme - Get A Clue - for the California Library Association convention.

As it turns out, Get A Clue is also the tagline for Warner Brothers' upcoming Nancy Drew movie. Since that was the case, the studio made the SLRP its partner and is now promoting it on their website. And because of that, the CLA donated the Swazzle Rex & Boots video to view on the Get A Clue with Nancy Drew page.

So - Anita's puppetry is linked to the site of a major motion picture! Cool!