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As noted in The Hollywood Reporter, work on Walt Disney Pictures’ release of Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has come to a halt due to a change in the screenwriting staff.

Randall Wallace (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers) will be doing rewrites to the movie which was originally announced at the beginning of this year, and has already gone through two other scripts, the first from Bill Marsilli (Deja Vu) and the second from Justin Marks (Fast Forward, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li), whom /Film.com called “a screenwriter who gets the geek niche.”

Nemo will tell the origin story of French science fiction novelist Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo—a character Disney has visited once before in their 1954 live-action adaptation of Verne’s novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea—and how he created his revolutionary (for Victorian England, that is) undersea ship, the Nautilus. Though some Nemo’s origins are explored in Verne’s sequel novel The Mysterious Island, it’s currently unknown how much Marsilli, Marks, and now Wallace are going to include.

McG (Charlie’s Angels, Terminator: Salvation) has been attached as the director, and in the Variety article I linked to above, it was said that there was a bidding war over making this his very next project. There are also numerous rumors over who would be playing the Indian-born but originally Polish-created Nemo, ranging from Will Smith to Dwayne Johnson, but no one has been cast in the movie yet—probably because they keep changing the script.

Filming is supposed to start this year; let’s hope Wallace can type quickly.

Thanks to the recent success of The Hangover (over $204 million grossed domestically versus a $35 million budget), Sony Pictures has decided that next year, five guys in a comedy will get precedence over a superhero film as their beginning-of-summer push.

According to Variety, the Adam Sandler-penned-and-starring Grown-Ups will be opening on June 25, 2010 moving up from its original March release date and moving the Seth Rogen-penned-and-starring Green Hornet forward to July 9.

Honestly, I can’t blame them for making that choice because as Peter Bart possibly predicted last September and had been born out by some of the types of movies that came out of the Great Depression, it seems as if people love, want, and need their “lovely happy bunny movies” during this economic crisis—as the numbers for The Hangover and The Proposal (over $100 million worldwide, over a budget of $40 million and still in fourth place this past weekend) have proven.

Other films that will be opening around both movies in 2010 are:

June 25: Despicable Me (Universal Pictures), Predators (20th Century Fox)
June 30: Twilight: The Eclipse (Summit Entertainment)
July 2: The Last Airbender (Paramount Pictures)

Recent Posts: Columbia pic gets five comedy stars, Green Hornet gains director Michel Gondry

Yesterday it was reported by the Associated Press that actor Karl Malden died at the age of 97 of natural causes in a statement that was made by his family to Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Best known by people of the Internet generation as that guy who kept telling people not to leave their homes without their American Express cards, Malden started his acting career on the stage in such plays as “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “All My Sons,” and “Key Largo,” and it through director Elia Kazan that he was able to make the transition to Hollywood.

After serving in World War II, Malden appeared in a string of successful classic films such as the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) for which he won the Academy Award for his supporting role as Mitch, Marlon Brando’s character’s best friend. Malden and Brando had worked on the stage in New York City before, and they would work together again in On the Waterfront (1954) with Maldon playing the priest to Brando’s character, garnering him another Oscar nomination.

In 1972, he gravitated to the small screen where his role as Lt. Mike Stone in “The Streets of San Francisco” for which he was nominated four times for the lead actor Emmy but never received, sharing the screen with a young talent by the name of Michael Douglas.

I’ve always been fond of him as an actor and his range always astonished me, especially his role as Herbie in Gypsy (1962) where he was called upon to act, sing, and hold his own against Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood. You can check out his other work in this Washington Post slideshow.

Apart from his wife Mona (to whom he was married for over 70 years) Malden is survived by daughters Mila and Cara, his sons-in-law, three granddaughters, and four great grandchildren.

When they’re on a roll, the Furst brothers are really on a roll.

Not long after the producing duo of Sean Furst and Bryan Furst released the trailer to the upcoming Daybreakers (which stars Ethan Hawke and hopefully will forever destroy the notion that vampires sparkle), Variety reported that the two were set to produce the remake of the 1981 classic horror movie An American Werewolf in London through Dimension Films.

More important, however is Variety writer Dave McNary’s tip of the hat to the team at Bloody Disgusting.com for keeping on the story they teased out of original director John Landis during an interview at last year’s HorrorHound convention in Pittsburgh, PA.

No word yet on who’s writing or directing the remake, but judging by how damn awesome Daybreakers looks and feels, this is one remake I’m actually looking forward to seeing on the big screen.

Earlier this year, I said that Mark Wahlberg must have breathed a sigh of relief when it was announced that Christian Bale and director David O. Russell came to the rescue of the production of a long-awaited project he has championed called The Fighter—based on the true story of how “Irish” Mickey Ward (played by Wahlberg, of course) became a championship lightweight boxer, aided by his former druggie half-brother (played by Bale).

If the negotiations reported last last night by Variety conclude successfully, he’s probably going to break out into a victory dance, for Amy Adams (the upcoming Julie & Julia) will be joining the cast as ”a gritty bartender from Massachusetts who ends up dating Wahlberg’s character.” THR also notes that Academy Award nominated actress Melissa Leo (Frozen River) has been cast as Wahlberg and Bale’s mother.

Shooting begins next month in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Related Posts: Christian Bale, David O. Russell to give Mark Wahlberg film a fighting chance

Hemingway made it his home, while and Hollywood stars made it their playground. Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, a trio of movie producers are looking to bring some of that former lustre back to Havana, Cuba.

Based on the best-selling non-fiction novel by T.J. English, Havana Nocturne will tell the story of how American mobsters turned Havana into a primo vacation destination and how everything fell apart when Fidel Castro’s revolution came.

The three who are producing are Eric Eisner (Hamlet 2), Gil Adler (Superman Returns), and Shane McCarthy (Sweet Judy Blue Eyes); Matt Cirulnick (“South Beach”) is writing the screenplay.

I think that showcasing this part of Cuba’s history is pretty important to capture on film because so many classic films involve a subplot of going to Havana for a night of fun and freedom, like in Guys and Dolls where Miss Sarah Brown gets drunk on a rum drink that the Wall St. Journal has now more accurately described as a Doncellita.

To get to see and visualize what that period of time was like would be pretty cool; here’s hoping that they can get some great talent to go with this movie.

As reported by several sources including CNN, her representatives announced that after battling the disease for three years, Farrah Fawcett succumbed to anal cancer. She was 62.

Though most of her fame came from her single season role as Jill Munroe on the TV series “Charlie’s Angel,” Fawcett had previously had some small roles in such popular movies as Logan’s Run (1976) and The Cannonball Run (1981).

After her departure from the show, Fawcett enjoyed huge acclaim in TV movies such as The Burning Bed in 1984 for which she received Emmy and Golden Globes nominations and Extremities in 1986, in which she also appeared in the stage play of the same name.

Her last serious film role was as Robert Duvall’s wife in The Apostle in 1997 for which she also received an Independent Spirit award nomination.

She is survived by her son Redmond O’Neal by her longtime lover Ryan O’Neal.

Yesterday, TMZ.com first broke the story that Michael Jackson had suffered from a cardiac arrest and had been rushed to the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif. Later on, CNN confirmed that he died while en route to the hospital at 2:26 pm PST.

Though known primarily as the “King of Pop” for his numerous contributions to the world of R&B and pop music, Michael Jackson’s cinematic contributions are actually quite considerable. His first cinematic role was in The Wiz in 1978 as the Scarecrow and was warmly acclaimed for his performance.

He also worked with Francis Ford Coppola and Anjelica Houston on a 17-minute 3D short called Captain EO that was installed and played at Tomorrowland in Disneyland (1986–1997) and EPCOT at the Walt Disney World resort (1986-1994) hundreds of people several times a day, making it one of the most viewed movies in cinematic history.

I personally remember the most Michael Jackson’s work in his 1983 “Thriller” music video (which was helmed by An American Werewolf in Paris director John Landis) for its inclusion of classic movie horror star Vincent Price’s narration as one of Price’s last performances and the accompanying behind the scenes special they did that showcased the excellent special effects work of the legendary Rick Baker. In fact, most of his music videos played like little movies, and it was no surprise that he won numerous awards for them.

Jackson is survived by his three children.

Variety reported last night that Ryan Reynolds’ next movie will be an indie film called Buried, wherein he’ll play a civilian contractor who gets kidnapped in Iraq, only to wake up in a coffin with a knife, cell phone, and candle next to him.

The film has a typical indie pedigree with it being directed by Rodrigo Cortes (The Contestant), written by newcomer Chris Sparling, and produced by Peter Safran (Disaster Movie) and Adrian Guerra.

And while production is set to start in Barcelona this month, I do have my suspicions about the part of the article where Michael Fleming states Reynolds’ motivation for taking the role:

He decided to go the indie route as a way to stretch his acting chops in a movie with a claustrophobic premise, and one in which he holds the screen through most of the picture.

Oh really? Who said that? Was that in the press release? Or did his publicist or agent tell you? If so, why not quote your source? Or weasel out and write, “A source close to Reynolds said that…”?

Knowing that even print journalistic standards are slipping makes me weep and gnash my teeth.

Though I’m not a huge fan of the sport itself, I do love me a good baseball movie, mostly because film takes away what’s dull about the sport and gives you all the action. (For the record, my favorite baseball movie of all time is Bull Durham.) I like the internal drama of the characters more than the drama of the game, mostly because I know that in a real baseball game, there are so many stretches of time between real dramatic moments.

I do have to wonder if my reasoning ties into what Sony Pictures co-chairman (and head of production for Columbia Pictures) Amy Pascal’s was thinking when she put Moneyball, a movie that was to be directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Brad Pitt, into limited turnaround as reported by Variety last Friday.

Based on a non-fiction novel by Michael Lewis, the story behind Moneyball is all about how Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane managed to put together teams that went deep in the World Series against other teams like the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees which can buy “better” players whose agents ask for extraordinary salaries.

The article teases that Soderbergh’s most recent draft of the script was different than what she liked about it when Pascal first agreed to greenlight it back in October 2008, and that noting that even with Soderbergh including former baseball greats like David Justice and Darryl Strawberry in interview segments that would be interspersed throughout the narrative and Pitt reducing his salary, spending more than $50 million on a baseball movie with an iffy script is suicide because the movie would have to gross at least three times that amount around the world in order to be considered a success—and the mostly American sport doesn’t translate well in some major overseas markets.

And before you get all indignant about the idea of a woman nixing a baseball movie on the ground that she “just doesn’t get it,” may I remind you that according to Pascal’s bio that A League of Their Own was made during her time there?

Soderbergh has until today to either back down from the script changes to push it through with Sony/Columbia or find another studio who’d be willing to take a chance on a baseball movie. The truly heart-breaking part for everyone else on the production team is that the movie was just three days away from rolling film in Phoenix.

[Due to my on-going Internet problems at home, I wasn’t able to post this when I wanted; my hope is that because it’s about one of my favorite actors you’ll forgive the tardiness. -TL]

Fans of actor and Broadway star Neil Patrick Harris (or NPH, as he was famously dubbed in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) will have more movie-goodness to rejoice about as The Hollywood Reporter posted the day after his awesome hosting gig at the Tony Awards ceremony in early June that he has booked roles in two films that will be filming during the summer hiatuses from his role as womanizer Barney Stinson in “How I Met Your Mother.”

The smaller part is in Beastly, a modern retelling of the French “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale that’s based on the ALA-favored novel by young adult writer Alex Flinn. Set in modern day New York City, NPH will be playing the blind tutor to the film’s main character Kyle Kingsbury, as played by young Brit actor Alex Pettyfer, who is no stranger to book-to-screen adaptations (Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Stormbreaker). The “beauty” to Pettyfer’s “beast” will be “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens, while the witch who starts all of the action will be played by Mary-Kate Olsen (the one who has anorexia, not the other one). The production studio is CBS Films.

NPH’s other role will be the male lead in an indie comedy called The Best and the Brightest, another film set in New York City on the Upper East Side, where he and his social status-seeking wife Bonnie Somerville have moved from Delaware and are attempting to crack their way into the world of the tonied private schools.

Directed/co-written by Josh Shelov (Hooligans) and produced by Robert and Patricia Weiser, Nicholas Simon and Richard Schiffrin, I gotta tell you that it’s really some of the rest of the cast that has me salivating over Brightest more than Beastly; with names like Amy Sedaris, John Hodgman, Peter Serafinowicz, and Kate Mulgrew how could you go wrong?

Beastly is in pre-production in Montreal while Brightest is currently filming in Philadelphia.

Sometimes, being a living author whose books are in demand to be turned into movies is a good thing.

Take Stardust, for which original author Neil Gaiman did extensive promoting in his blog because due to his producer credit he got to be involved in some decision-making. Sometimes, it can turn into a travesty—like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (but then again, I am starting to feel as if any writing project of Alan Moore’s is instantly doomed to failure on the big screen because he really is a warlock).

Nicholas Sparks is one of those living authors whose books have been made into movies with a variety of success, starting with 1999’s Message in a Bottle (which grossed $118 million worldwide on a budget of $80 million) and culminating in The Notebook, which grossed $115 million worldwide on a budget of $29 million).

Sparks’ next film adapation was going to be Dear John, starring Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum as the main pair of lovers, and when I read the Wikipedia entry on the novel, I thought there was nothing I could ever read that would ever trip my Overwrought Drama™ sensors even more…until I read the recent news about his other film adapation.

According to Variety, Academy Award nominee Greg Kinnear (As Good as It Gets) and Razzie winner Kelly Preston (Battlefield Earth) have been cast as Miley Cyrus’ parents in The Last Song, a movie whose plot sounds like a very special episode of Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana”:

Kinnear and Preston will play the parents of Cyrus’ character, a rebellious teen sent to spend the summer with her estranged father. He tries to reconnect with her through the one thing they have in common: music.

Under the hands of freshman feature director Julie Anne Robinson (most known as a TV episode director for “Grey’s Anatomy” and the U.K.’s “Holby City”), the movie is being produced by Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot for Touchstone Pictures, and already there are set pictures online of a stream-drenched Cyrus kissing her on-screen love interest Liam Hemsworth.

I’ll admit that I never understood the “Montana” phenomenon, but I did make the effort on behalf of my niece who is 5 years old and loves the show. And I’ll also admit that in a way I get it, because when I was a kid, I was hooked on “Kids Incorporated” because I hoped that one day I, too, could be in a band that played in an aging Hollywood theater.

And when it comes to making your feature film debut that’s not a concert, you can’t go wrong with a best-selling novelist like Sparks creating a role just for you in a book that’s not even out yet:

Sparks is penning the script based on his own book, which he wrote specifically to turn into a star vehicle for the “Hannah Montana” star. Book will be published this fall.

The movie is set to be released on January 8, 2010.