The Random - Primeval, Aronofsky/Portman, The Karate Kid, DiCaprio's Online Poker film, Honey Pot, Friday 13th, The Birds, Akira,

- British dinosaur-themed sci-fi series Primeval will not be returning for a fourth season reports Total Sci-Fi Online. The still popular show has fallen victim to substantial budget cuts at the fledgling ITV network in the UK which has seen other popular shows like crime procedural "Wire in the Blood" similarly get the axe before their time.

- Natalie Portman is attached to play the lead in Darren Aronofsky's supernatural thriller Black Swan says The Hollywood Reporter. Black Swan centers on a veteran ballerina (Portman) who finds herself locked in a competitive situation with a rival dancer, with the stakes and twists increasing as the dancers approach a big performance. But it's unclear whether the rival is a supernatural apparition or if the protagonist is simply having delusions. Mark Heyman has done a rewrite of John McLaughlin's original script for the film.

- Paramount Pictures has picked up an untitled film pitch about the world of Costa Rica-based online casinos for Leonardo DiCaprio to star in says the trades. Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Rounders, Ocean's Thirteen) came up with the idea which DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran will produce for his Appian Way production company.

- Paramount Pictures and Montecito Co. have picked up Liz Meriwether's action-comedy script Honey Pot says Variety. While the storyline is being kept top secret, the film will feature two female leads and be set in the world of international espionage.

- Steven Conrad ("The Pursuit of Happyness") has been hired to rewrite the remake of The Karate Kid for Sony Pictures says Risky Biz Blog. Conrad takes over for Chris Murphy who was originally hired to write the script of the reboot starring Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith and Taraji P. Henson.

- Talking with Movieweb producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form spilled on the progress of various Platinum Dunes projects.
First up, the sequel to this year's hit Friday the 13th remake. "We want to have fun. We want to present something that audiences haven't seen before. One of the things they haven't seen before is Jason in the snow" said Fuller.
The pair also admits that their planned remake of The Birds is still very much stuck in development - "We keep trying. I don't know. That is so hard to get the script right. We struggle with it. I won't have anything to say until the script is finished. We lay ourselves out there and get annihilated out there online all day long,and [The Birds] just opens us up to a whole different level of annihilation…it doesn’t feel like that’s up next for us.”

- The Leonardo DiCaprio-produced live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's classic 1988 anime feature Akira has been ditched according to Bloody Disgusting. The project was a two-part film that Warners and DiCaprio's Appian Way had been developing with Gary Whitta ("The Book of Eli") scripting and Ruairi Robinson directing. Now according to BD, who first broke the news of the project 18 months ago, not only has Robinson left the project but the overall project is "dead as a doornail" according to two sources.

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