I am heading out to go see Bad Teacher, but before I go I figured I’d leave you with a second batch of news bits to chew on for the evening including a new role for Emma Stone, a screenwriter for The Crow remake, news on Ron Howard’s upcoming slate and a new cast member in The Lone Ranger. Woo hoo!
Emma Stone has been cast as Elizabeth Bennet in Lionsgate’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s revisionist novel in which Elizabeth and her sisters become zombie slayers after being taught how to fight like Japanese ninjas by Mr Darcy. It’s being described as a Victorian-era Zombieland, a film Stone, ironically, co-starred in. Craig Gillespie, whose remake of the ’80s horror feature Fright Night hits theaters this August, is directing. [Variety]
Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) is in early talks to play a railroad tycoon in the Old West in Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger. It’s being reported as a prominent role in the film that already features Armie Hammer (The Social Network) as the title character who will ride alongside Johnny Depp as Tonto. Filming is expected to begin this fall for release on December 21, 2012. [Variety]
Max Landis, son of John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), is reportedly working on a reimagining of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” for 20th Century Fox. While no screenplay has been written and no director is attached, names such as Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum), David Yates (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) and Ron Howard are all reportedly being sought. [Variety]
Speaking of Ron Howard, the likelihood of him directing The Dark Tower seems to dwindle with each passing day as he is now in talks to direct Rush, a true-life Formula 1 racing drama by screenwriter Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon) as well as a live-action adaptation of the long-running “Mad” magazine comic Spy vs. Spy for Warner Bros. As for that Dark Tower feature, of which screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is preparing to turn in a rewrite in the next couple weeks, it was recently revealed in an interview with producer Brian Grazer and Howard that the film must be greenlit by Universal next month or the rights revert back to Imagine, where Goldsman and Stephen King are determined to make it regardless. [Deadline / EW / [Deadline]
Alex Tse, best known for writing Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, has been contracted by Relativity Media to script their “reinvention” of The Crow, based on the comic book series and comic strip by James O’Barr, which was originally brought to the big screen by Alex Proyas in the 1994 adaptation that went on to spawn several lackluster sequels. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) is set to direct the film with Bradley Cooper attached to star as Eric Draven, who returns from the grave as The Crow and sets out to avenge his wife’s murder. [The Hollywood Reporter]
