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‘Friday the 13th’ 2009 has its first poster

The new Friday The 13th 2009 from Warner Bros., directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift (Freddy Vs Jason) stars Jared Padalecki (Supernatural), Derek Mears (Hills Have Eyes 2), Amanda Righetti, Danielle Panabaker, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo, Adam Finberg, Nick Mennell (Rob Zombie’s Halloween), Jonathan Sadowski, Nana Visitor, Arlen Escarpeta, Ryan Hansen, Richard Burgi, Julianna Guill and Willa Ford. It hits theaters Friday, February 13th, 2009! Here’s a look at the leaked trailer and teaser poster that was shown at the San Diego Comic-Con a few days ago.

‘Indiana Jones 5’ on the way?

With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull having earned a massive $743.7 million worldwide (#27 on the all-time worldwide list), The Sunday Times asked George Lucas if he, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford would be up for a fifth film:

“We were hoping for box-office figures like that, which is, ultimately, with inflation, what the others have done, within 10%,” Lucas explains. “So, we squeaked up there. Really, though, it was a challenge getting the story together and getting everybody to agree on it. Indiana Jones only becomes complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and ‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little hard on a practical level.

“If I can come up with another idea that they like, we’ll do another. Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension. This recent one came out of that. It’s kind of a hybrid of our own two ideas, so we’ll see where we are able to take the next one.”

Jennifer Lopez returns to the big screen in ‘Governess’

Jennifer Lopez will topline Yari Film Group’s romantic comedy “The Governess,” with Nigel Cole directing.

“The Governess” was written by Kevin Wade, who also penned Lopez starrer “Maid in Manhattan,” and Wendy Braff. Don Roos is polishing the script.

Story centers on a professional thief who, in order to pull off a major bank heist, poses as a nanny to the three unruly children of a wealthy widower. When she starts to fall for the kids and their father, she must decide if she can give up her past for a chance to start over.

Bob Yari will produce along with Sid Ganis, Alex Siskin and Simon Fields, Lopez’ producing partner. Shooting’s set to begin in Massachusetts in the fall.

“The Governess” has a SAG waiver. David Glasser, president of YFG’s sales arm Syndicate Films, will handle international sales.

Lopez is in pre-production on indie project “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits,” with Roos directing from his own script.

Cole previously directed “Calendar Girls.”

YFG recently wrapped production on thriller “Nothing But the Truth,” comedy “The Maiden Heist” and drama “Real Men Cry.” Joe Carnahan’s “Killing Pablo” is scheduled to begin filming in the fall.

‘Dark Knight’ fastest to $300 million

Batman buried his rivals at the North American box office for a second weekend on Sunday, racing past $300 million in a record 10 days.

The Caped Crusader’s blockbuster outing, “The Dark Knight,” sold an estimated $75.6 million worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday, taking its total to $314.2 million, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said.

A week after it scored a record-breaking $158 million opening, “The Dark Knight” added a new title to its impressive list of superlatives: the best second weekend, surpassing the holiday-boosted $72 million haul of 2004’s “Shrek 2.”

The $180 million movie, which stars Christian Bale as Batman and late actor Heath Ledger as the anarchic Joker, has reportedly been drawing strong repeat business, and also has piqued the interest of people who avoid superhero flicks or rarely go to the movies at all.

“The Dark Knight” now ranks as the second-biggest movie of the year, just behind the $315 million haul of “Iron Man,” and the 23rd-biggest of all time.

The previous speed record for a $300 million film was 16 days set by “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” in 2006. The next target is $400 million, which took “Shrek 2” 43 days to reach. Warner Bros. distribution president Dan Fellman predicted “The Dark Knight” would take just 18 days to reach that milestone.

“Where we go from there, it’s uncharted waters,” Fellman said.

The last movie to break $400 million was the 2006 “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, which ranks No. 6 on the all-time list with $423 million. The 1997 epic “Titanic” leads the field with $601 million.

“STEP BROTHERS” STRONG

Elsewhere, the Columbia Pictures comedy “Step Brothers,” starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as perpetual adolescents, opened surprisingly strongly at No. 2 with $30 million. The 20th Century Fox sci-fi sequel “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” came in at No. 4 with $10.2 million, a figure at the lower end of expectations.

In between, Universal Pictures’ ABBA-inspired musical romance “Mamma Mia!” slipped one place to No. 3 with $17.8 million while its 10-day total rose to $62.7 million.

“Step Brothers” represents a strong rebound for Ferrell and Reilly, following their recent respective bombs “Semi-Pro” and “Walk Hard.” The actors, along with director Adam McKay, previously worked together in the hit 2006 comedy “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”

Industry pundits had forecast a $25 million opening for the $65 million film, which received mixed reviews from critics. Ferrell and Reilly’s emotionally stunted characters are forced to live together when their single parents marry. Two-thirds of the male-skewing audience was aged under 25, Columbia said.

“The X-Files: I Want to Believe” also marks a reunion, this time between former FBI agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson). But it failed to spark much enthusiasm among fans or critics. Fox said it had targeted an opening in the $10 million to $15 million range.

“We made it for the fans and they have come out,” said Chris Aronson, senior VP of distribution at the News Corp-owned studio.

The sci-fi mystery comes to screens six years after the underlying TV series “The X-Files” ended its run, and a decade after the first big-screen spinoff. That film, also called “The X-Files” opened to $30 million on its way to $84 million domestically.

The $30 million sequel marks the third consecutive disappointment in as many weeks for Fox, following the Eddie Murphy comedy “Meet Dave” and then the animated “Space Chimps.” The studio, noted for keeping costs down and sharing the risk with outside partners, has had a quiet year highlighted by the early-spring release “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who,” which grossed $154 million domestically. Next up is the August 15 horror film “Mirrors” starring Kiefer Sutherland.

Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner Inc. Columbia Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp while Universal Pictures is a unit of General Electric Co.

Will Smith confirmed for ‘I Am Legend 2’

Last year, Will Smith starred in an update of Richard Matheson’s future shock novel I Am Novel, which became the second-biggest non-sequel of 2007, and ever since then, there’s been a lot of rumors and speculation and curiosity whether Warner Bros. would try to do some kind of prequel or sequel to it. (Note: If you haven’t seen it or read the book, the next sentence will probably spoil both.) A prequel would be the most obvious because it would mean that Will Smith could return as Dr. Robert Neville, and we’d be able to see more of the time in between the virus being unleashed in New York and where the first movie picks up the story.

Francis Lawrence was at Comic-Con International to talk about the new NBC series “Kings” for which he directed the pilot and the first couple of episodes, and we had a chance to ask him a few questions about the rumor about a prequel, which he confirmed he would definitely be involved with. “Yes, yes, absolutely, we’re actually trying to crack that. We’re trying to figure out some ideas for it, but yes, it would be a prequel.” He did confirm that Will Smith, who’s done a couple of sequels in his career, would definitely be into doing more with the character.

The pilot for “Kings” has a lot of great aerial shots of New York City, which is doubling for the city of Shiloh, and talking about that lead to us talking about how it was portrayed in Legend. “Akiva and I really wanted to do ‘Legend’ in New York, because it’s such an iconic city and it’s just more striking to see it abandoned than Los Angeles, ’cause honestly, parts of Los Angeles can look abandoned in the middle of the day.”

We asked him whether he’d have go through the same things in creating an abandoned New York as he did for I Am Legend and whether it would be easier for a prequel, having already figured out how to do it. “Well, even as we went through them with the movie itself, it got easier. The first time you got out there and shut down 6th Avenue, it’s like, ‘How are we going to do this day after day after day?’ but by the end, it’s just like you know how to do it. You got the P.A.’s who know how to shut it down, how to let the traffic through in between set-ups and you just sort of get the routine down, so that’s not the issue.”

That led directly into Lawrence sharing some interesting ideas that might go into making the proposed prequel: “In the prequel, it’s slightly different because it’s earlier. We were three years later so we did a lot of research into the way nature would have sort of overtaken the city, with the cracks in the streets and the weeds, so if it’s just back earlier, it’ll be slightly different so the approach will be different. We’re not positive of the time of the year, because if you go in winter, you can do some entirely different kinds of things.”

As far as getting Richard Matheson’s blessing on this prequel, Lawrence commented, “I’m sure we’ll definitely keep him involved in the prequel just in terms of updating him and inviting him to read the script and see what he has to say. Matheson was very happy (with the first movie). It was a great moment when we showed him the movie. He had read the script and I invited him when we were done to see the movie and he brought his family, and I called him when we were on the international junket in Japan and I was really nervous, because it’s an adaptation and it’s different, and he knew along the way, it’s Richard Matheson. He really loved it and I had this great letter from him about it.”

As far as some of the other things on Lawrence’s slate, he told us, “There’s something on my IMDb page called ‘Eddie Dickens and the Awful End,’ which is not happening. That was an animated project that I was going to do alongside with ‘Legend’ and that we sort of decided with the studio not to do. Then there’s a Disney thing called ‘Snow and the 7’ that I’m still working on which is a modern retelling of the Snow White story.” He said that it would be a family movie in the sense of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies. “It’s in that kind of a vein. It’s 19th Century China, a British girl is discovering who she really is, and it’s a great action-adventure story. That one’s a ways away but we got this great writer in and we’re working on the script. This great world and great ideas.”

 

Leonardo DiCaprio and Warner Bros. to adapt ‘The Twilight Zone’

Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way are in the early stages of seeking material for a feature take on one or more episodes from the classic TV series “The Twilight Zone,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The trade says that the studio and production company are quietly putting out word to creators that they are looking for pitches and script ideas based on the show for feature development.

The companies are not seeking to remake an episodic movie, as the only big-screen version of the show did 25 years ago, but rather hope to build one continuing story line based on one or more episodes.

Warners owns rights to the Rod Serling-penned episodes, which comprise the bulk of its 1959-64 run.

Darren Aronofsky is confirmed to direct ‘Robocop’

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures has signed Darren Aronofsky to direct and David Self to write a new installment for its ROBOCOP franchise. Aronofsky, the director of “The Fountain,” and Self, the writer of “Road to Perdition,” make a formidable creative team, fast tracking the ROBOCOP motion picture and spotlighting it as one of the most anticipated new films for 2010.

The announcement was made today by Mary Parent, Chairman, Worldwide Motion Picture Group, MGM.

In making the announcement Parent said: “Darren is undeniably one of the most talented, original and visceral film makers, and David is one of the greatest writers in Hollywood. All of us at MGM couldn’t be more excited.”

Phoenix Pictures’ Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer, Brad Fischer and David Thwaites will produce ROBOCOP. Cale Boyter, Executive Vice President Production at MGM will oversee the project for the studio.

Phoenix Pictures’ Chairman and CEO Mike Medavoy said: “After making the first ROBOCOP at Orion more than 20 years ago, I’m thrilled to be helping to return this character to the screen with our partners at MGM and through the eyes of Darren Aronofsky and David Self.”

Phoenix co-presidents Brad Fischer and David Thwaites added: “With a filmmaker of Darren Aronofsky’s vision and imagination and a writer of David Self’s caliber, we are poised to bring to the screen an entertaining and provocative film, which will now be under the creative guidance of two of the best storytellers working in our industry today.”

Aronofsky’s credits include “Pi,” “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Fountain.” He is completing the feature, “The Wrestler” with Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. He is repped by CAA and attorney Carlos Goodman.

David Self’s credits include “13 Days” and “Road To Perdition.” He wrote “God of War” for Universal, to which Brett Ratner is attached to direct, and was a writer on Universal’s “Wolfman” currently in production. He is represented by UTA and attorney Karl Austen.

The original ROBOCOP, which premiered in 1987, was “part man, part machine and all cop.” The film’s storyline focused on the future of law enforcement as a terminally wounded cop returns to the police force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories. The original film was nominated for two Academy Awards — Best Film Editing and Best Sound. Since the film’s debut, ROBOCOP has become one of the most successful titles in MGM’s vast film library. The franchise continues as a worldwide phenomenon, especially in the U.S., Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. ROBOCOP, ROBOCOP 2, and ROBOCOP 3 have sold approximately 4.1 million gross DVD units worldwide.