Movieblaze

Warners and power producer Joel Silver have officially selected John Stevenson to drag He-Man from development limbo. Variety is reporting the news, but real credit goes to the fine fellows over at Latino Review who broke word on Stevenson in November.

Now his deal is locked, Stevenson will work on bringing toy company Mattel’s characters Prince Adam and co to the big screen. This time, though, Justin Marks has re-worked the concept to feature a soldier named Adam who stumbles on the magical world of Eternia, where the evil Skeletor is attempting to eradicate magic – the bony git.

You’ll likely recall that He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) battled his nemesis Skeletor (Frost/Nixon’s Frank Langella!) way back in 1987, though the producers are hoping this one will be less cheesy. “I think it’s fair to say, and knowing the epic nature of this script, you will see things you have never seen before. John has that creativity,” says Mattel rep Barry Waldo.

“There was this locked bunker that you had to be escorted into,” Stevenson said. “It was filled with art, some generated by the Mattel artists, and I looked around, and said, ‘I get it! We started formulating a specific vision for costumes, creatures, architecture, and the creation of a mythology and look for a whole world we’ll create.”

Quite frankly this one can’t come soon enough, nostlagic 80′s flashbacks…I’m already there!

Nic Cage has been talking about it for a while now, but Sony is finally, officially laying plans for another Ghost Rider film. Bloody Disgusting tracked down word from the studio that the film is now officially in the early stages with the project out to writers.

Cage has been discussing the concept – which he thinks could work awhich he thinks could work as Johnny Blaze goes to Europe – since September. And while the first film didn’t exact burn with quality, it did enough box office to warrant a sequel. There’s no word on whether original writer/director Mark Steven Johnson will be involved this time – he didn’t return for Daredevil spin-off Elektra (probably wise), but with Cage signed up, this one looks likely to get moving soon.

Were you among those who loved Ghost Rider? Are you excited for another? Confess in the comments!

The greenlighting of New Moon back in November was no great surprise, with Twilight‘s box-office grosses reaching the gazillion dollar mark and a legion of Twilighters eagerly awaiting part two of the quadrilogy. What is surprising is the turn-around for New Moon: the movie has a US release of November 20 and many of the cast haven’t even seen the script yet.

Crikey.

Happily, New Moon cast members Edi Gathegi, Rachelle Lefevre, Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz were at Push‘s L.A. premiere just last night and they didn’t sound too disconcerted, sharing their excitement with Collider.com. Gathegi, who returns as dreadlocked Frenchman Laurent, said: “We haven’t even begun filming yet and we’ll be in theatres on November 20th watching the movie. That’s wild!”

Lefevre will also be there when filming starts in Vancouver in mid-March. “I don’t know anything, except that I’m in the books, so the idea that it has a release date is unfathomable.” The comely Canuck returns as vamp-with-a-vendetta Victoria, and is firing up for another crack at Bella. “She has to be destroyed to cause Edward pain, and he has to be destroyed because he killed James – it’s a dual approach. I’m just trying to figure out how to channel that much anger; it’s dark place to be.”

Click here for more from the New Mooners and a glimpse of the Push hysteria.

Negotiations are under way for Emily Blunt and Jason Segel to hop on board and keep Jack Black company for Gulliver’s Travels. But the film, directed by Shark Tale and Monsters Vs Aliens helmer Rob Letterman, could threaten Blunt’s secured role as Natasha Romanoff aka the Black Widow in Iron Man 2.

Due to a contractual technicality from when Blunt starred in Devil Wears Prada, Fox hold an option on her which they could use to secure her for the giant adventure, over any other project. But Blunt’s people are squirrelling away, trying to work out the schedule clash so that she can do both. Gulliver begins shooting in the U.K. in late March;  and Iron Man 2, filmed in Manhattan Beach, California starts just weeks later in early April.

Blunt will play a princess that Black’s Lemuel Gulliver becomes infatuated with, and Segel will be Horatio, the friend who rescues him – both of whom will be part the tiny Lilliputian community Gulliver finds when he is shipwrecked on his travels to the Bermuda Triangle.

The film will see Segel – up next in best-man buddy comedy I Love You, Man – reunited with his Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller who co-wrote the screenplay.

For your viewing pleasure here we have the final one sheet for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, and while it’s nowhere near as purty as past posters for the eagerly anticipated film it does look pretty sweet, albeit a tad photoshopped, but hey, it’s Watchmen, it can’t fail to be cool!

Roll on March 6th, and another awesome IMAX experience…

Recent rumours have suggested that Seth Rogen’s take on The Green Hornet might be in serious trouble – but now Rogen wants to set the record straight. The writer/produer/actor contacted Hitflix to contradict the idea that the film might be close to shutting down altogether.

The Green Hornet has many people working for it, including production designers, costume designers and many conceptual artists, office staff, etc.,” he said during our e-mail exchange back and forth,” he tells the site, “the studio heads have every intention of making it, and assuming we’re able to hire a new director in the upcoming weeks, which seems like a distinct possibility, it should still hit the release date.”

And there’s a different story floating around the web about the movie – a much more positive one, depending on your view of the person involved. Seems that Adam Sandler- with whom Rogen is working on Judd APatow’s next directorial effort Funny People – might be appearing in a small yet key role – a “surprise superhero”. Care to guess who it might be?

Oh, and for those thinking The Lone Ranger… He’s a little busy being contracted to Disney.

Tag this with a big rumour sticker for now, but recent internet chatter is hinting that Robert Rodriguez has signed up to make a new movie in the Predator franchise. A ‘reliable source’ dropped Bloody Disgusting a line, revealing that Rodriguez is producing a Predator reboot for 20th Century Fox through his company Troublemaker Studios.

There’s no word on a director or script, but a pitch doing the rounds in Hollywood implies that there would be more than one Predator.

“In the reboot a team of commandoes face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters,” it reads. I’m not sure if this information is legit, but Rodriguez does actually have history with the franchise. Back when Rodriguez was a eager youngling waiting to put Desperado into production, he wrote a spec script for Predator 3, beginning on an 18th century Galleon attacked by Predators.

Sounds better than AvP, at any rate, and while we are on the sibject, will this news throw AvP3 into development hell?

Question is, is Rodriguez the man to bring back Predator?

There’s good news for fans of raffish rodent Reepicheep: 20th Century Fox has picked up the rights to the Chronicles Of Narnia series and started work on a script for Voyage Of The Dawn Treader.

I’m hoping Fox can help bring the magic back to Narnia, after the gritty-yet-strangely underwhelming Prince Caspian. They’ll be aided and abetted by a more adventuresome storyline, with Dawn Treader reuniting the younger Pevensies with Caspian on a seaborne quest to find Narnia’s seven lost lords.

Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley return, joined by Will Poulter, Son Of Rambow‘s biffer-in-a-beret. Poulter plays Eustace Clarence Scrubb, the Pevensies’ deeply disgruntled cousin. No word yet on whether Eddie Izzard will return to voice the punchy mouse, but Michael Apted (The World Is Not Enough, Enigma) has signed on to direct which does nothing to fill me with inspiration!

The plan is to start shooting Dawn Treader in Australia this summer once all the budgety stuff is out of the way, for a release around November 2010. Fox, who jumped in to partner Walden Media after Disney bailed out on the series, have high hopes for Dawn Treader… the question is, do you with it being in the hands of the studio that gave us Eragon?

OK, so Doomsday was a slight, if enjoyable, misstep box-office wise, but otherwise, I’ve got a soft spot for Neil Marshall, one of the few British directors out there with skill to match his ambition. Which is why I.m glad to see that he’s put a nice little cast together for his next film, the Roman epic, Centurion.

Michael Fassbender – so hot right now as a result of his turn in Hunger, Eden Lake and his forthcoming role in Inglourious Basterds – has signed on, along with Quantum Of Solace’s leading lady, Olga Kurylenko and Dominic West, who shall forever be given a pass for his involvement in The Wire.

Fassbender, who got his abs out to great effect in 300, will play Quintus Dias, the sole survivor of an attack on a Roman fortress by savage Picts (tribes who lived in what would become Scotland) in A.D. 117. Under orders to wipe out the Picts and their leader, Gorlacon, Quintus journeys north with the legendary Ninth Legion and their leader, General Virilus. Cue much bloody mayhem – if we don’t see at least one decapitation, I’ll be sorely disappointed.

Marshall, as is his wont, also wrote Centurion, which will be produced by Christian Colson. It sounds a little more akin to a Roman Doomsday than, say, Dog Soldiers or The Descent, but either way, I’m looking forward to this one.

John Carpenter’s The Thing may well be one of the greatest horror movies of all time – dark, intensely atmospheric, wildly imaginative and grimly surreal. Even though it is itself a remake – of Christian Nyby’s The Thing From Another World – we’ve thrust our fingers in our ears and gone ‘la-la-la’ whenever anyone has suggested a remake or reimagining.

But today, Universal officially announced plans for a prequel which will detail how the shape-shifting alien was uncovered by “those crazy Swedes” (in reality, a Norwegian research team) and went on to wreak bloody havoc – and I have to say, I’m a little intrigued. Just a little, mind.

Mainly because the movie will be written by Ronald D. Moore, the big brain behind the wonderful revitalisation of Battlestar Galactica. If he can do for Carpenter’s shape-shifting alien what he did for those frakkin’ Cylons, then this could be worth watching. But that’s a big ‘if’.

And I have to say, I’m a little concerned by the hiring of Matthijs Van Heijningen to direct. Van Heijningen has been attached to direct Zack Snyder’s Army Of The Dead, true, but he’s a commercials director by trade, and I’m instantly sceptical that he has the tools and the talent to match up to Carpenter at his finest.

You have to wonder, though, at the audience for this movie. The long-rumoured sequel (Frank Darabont came close to making one for the Sci-Fi Channel), which might have brought back Kurt Russell as the gruff MacReady, last seen about to freeze to death? Sure, that has an in-built must-watch factor. But even though I’ve often wondered how exactly the Norwegian scientists fell apart and how that two-headed monster came to be, I’m not exactly sure if it will sustain an entire movie, given that it can only really be a retread of the events of The Thing.

Still, benefit of the doubt and all that…thoughts, as ever, below…