MGM has acquired and greenlit The Cabin in the Woods, a thriller penned by Joss Whedon (Serenity) and Drew Goddard (“Lost”, Cloverfield) with Goddard signed to make his directorial debut and Whedon producing. No story details have been revealed. [Variety]
Animated film Planet 51 has been picked up by TriStar Pictures for release on November 20, 2009. The film starring the voice talent of The Rock and Jessica Biel centers on an astronaut who lands on Planet 51 thinking he’s the first to set foot on it. To his surprise, he discovers it’s inhabited by little green people who live in a white picket-fenced world reminiscent of 1950s America. New Line originall had the project when it was announced in November of 2007, but when New Line folded into Warners it was ultimately let go. [Variety]
Sam Shepard, Rosanna Arquette, Jordi Molla and French star Vincent Perez are joining Dermot Mulroney and Diane Kruger in the organ transplant thriller Run for Her Life. Shepard plays a district attorney whose illegal heart transplant persuades Mulroney and Kruger’s characters to seek one for their daughter. Arquette plays a pediatrician they consult with, and Perez plays a doctor whose practice isn’t quite what it seems to be. Molla plays a corrupt police officer. On top of Repossession Mambo and Repo! The Genetic Opera it seems transplants are very entertaining. [THR]
Harry Potter series star Rupert Grint, known primarily as Ron Weasley, will star in Cherrybomb, a Belfast-set teen drama about two friends whose furious competition for a beautiful but manipulative girl has tragic consequences. Kimberley Nixon stars as the girl, with emerging Irish actor Robert Sheehan playing best buddy and love rival to Grint’s character. It is the joint debut of co-directors Glen Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa from a screenplay by Daragh Carville. [Variety]
“Elfquest,” the cult comic by Wendy and Richard Pini, is heading to the big screen courtesy of Warners Bros. and Rawson Thurber. Thurber will write, direct and produce the feature, whose format is undetermined. The original comic, which the Pinis initially self-published starting in 1978, followed a tribe of elves known as the Wolfriders in their attempts to survive and link with other dispersed elves on an Earth-like planet with two moons while on the lookout for tribes of humans and trolls, both of which acted as allies and enemies. [THR]
