Although Chronicle, about a group of teens with extraordinary powers, hasn’t been released yet, it already has enough buzz that Max ‘son of John’ Landis that Disney has pre-emptively bought his pitch for a space set adventure.
Variety doesn’t have many more details than that, other than it’ll follow “the emotional journey of a brother and sister as they undertake an epic adventure.” Disney is apparently looking at it as a potential franchise with merchandising potential, as the studio feels the need to get more projects like that under it belt. In fact it does seem at the moment the House Of Mouse is only buying ideas they might later be able to turn into an exciting theme park ride.
It’s not the only project Landis has going, as he’s got a Frankenstein tale and a new take on the Pied Piper Of Hamelin at Fox and the adventure thriller Amnesty at Universal, which Ron Howard is attached to direct. Then there’s action comedy Good Time Gang, which has Mark Wahlberg and Jonah Hill on board to play mercenaries. While there’s good buzz about Chronicle, you have to feel having John Landis as a dad is helping Max’s career go stratospheric.
After Graham Chapman’s death in 1989, the surviving members of Monty Python haven’t done all that much that’s involved all of them, however John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin are reteaming for a new project.
You’d have thought that after Arthur Christmas the British animation industry might have wanted to steer clear of festive flicks for a while, but Gateway Films, the company behind Adulthood & Shank are planning one called Saving Santa.
Any film that involves Charlie Kaufman is worth keeping an eye out for. The screenwriter of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation is planning his second directorial outing (after Synecdoche New York), and now actresses Kate Winslet and Catherine Keener have signed on to star in Frank or Francis, according to 
We haven’t heard much about the planned new live-action version of Romeo & Juliet for a while. Earlier reports suggested the movie would film last summer, but that obviously didn’t happen. However things are still moving forward as 
Little Joe bills itself as ‘a magazine about queers and cinema, mostly’, tending towards the more hip and avant garde end of the spectrum. It’s taking its concept a little further by launching A Little Film Club, a monthly screening programme in London, supported by Film London’s new Community Pilot Fund scheme.
The Saint is one of those perennial franchises that always seems like it could make a decent TV series or film, and as a result every so often someone tries to reboot it. The latest to do so is RKO Pictures (which does still exist, despite the fact it ostensibly stopped making movies in the 1950s), which owns the rights to several of the origins Saint movies, starting with The Saint In New York in 1938 and running through eight more movies in the late 30s and early 40s (the character originated in Leslie Charteris’ books in the 30s).
Last September it was reported that Warner Bros. was trying to get Steven Spielberg interested in a new take on the story of Moses. While the director was intrigued, it wasn’t certain whether he’d take on the epic movie. Now a new report from 
Actor Russell Brand certainly seems to want to make a spooky tale. Last year he signed onto and then left an adaptation of Brit TV show Rentaghost and now he has joined the supernatural tale The Hauntrepreneur for Paramount Pictures, according to