Morgan Freeman sees Red

Morgan Freeman is in talks to star alongside Bruce Willis in Summit Entertainment's espionage thriller Red, based on the WildStorm/DC Comic written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Cully Hamner. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian are producing along with DC Comics' Gregory Noveck overseeing. The screenplay was written by brothers Erich and Jon Hoeber, who also adapted Whiteout.

First published in 2003, Red tells the story of a former black-ops CIA agent now living a quiet life in retirement until the day a high-tech assassin shows up to kill him. With his secret identity compromised and his love interest in danger, the man must reassemble his old team to figure out who is out to get them. The Hoebers' take involves the idea of an older operative set in his ways having to contend with younger agents as well as modern technology.

It was a fantastic comic with some great set pieces. There is no news on what role Freeman will be playing, but he's a class actor (although his personal life seems a tad bizarre at the moment).

Source: First Showing
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Houdini film bags a director

Jeff Nathanson has signed to write and direct the adaptation of William Kalush and Larry Sloman's Harry Houdini biography The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero for Summit Entertainment.

Like many people I find Houdini a fascinating character so seeing him on the big screen should be excellent.

The book, published in 2006 by Atria Books, made waves at the time for insinuating that Houdini was a spy for Britain and was asked to be an adviser to Czar Nicholas II's court in pre-revolutionary Russia. The book also portrayed the master escape artist and magician as a debunker of con artists who pretended to be spiritualists, leading to the theory that his death was caused by the spiritual movement as payback.

According to THR, Summit, hoping to capitalize on worldwide recognition of Houdini's name while potentially launching a franchise, is looking to take a more action-adventure tack -- akin to the one taken by the upcoming Guy Ritchie-Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie.

I'm not sure if his past work fills me with hope for this project. Nathanson has worked on two "Rush Hour" movies and Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." He also wrote Spielberg character pieces "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Terminal."

Who do you see playing the part of Houdini?

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The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Summit Entertainment snapped up the feature film rights to the book, "The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero."

The biography was written by William Kalush and Larry Sloman.

Published in 2006 from Atria Books, the book postulated that Harry Houdini was really a spy for Britain and was also asked to be an adviser to Czar Nicholas II's court in prerevolutionary Russia. In addition to this, the book "portrayed the master escape artist and magician as a debunker of con artists who pretended to be spiritualists, leading to the controversial theory that Houdini's death was caused by the spiritual movement as payback."

The studio is not looking to make a biopic but rather an action thriller featuring a character who is part Indiana Jones and part Sherlock Holmes. Summit hopes to cash in on worldwide recognition of Houdini’s name while potentially launching a franchise.

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Elevator Men - Not your romantic type of Vampire film

Summit Entertainment is in the process of scooping up former DreamWorks exec Marc Haimes' original screenplay "Elevator Men." The producer deals are still in flux but would include Mark Gordon Prods. execs Gordon and Josh McLaughlin ("12 Rounds"). Gordon took the script into Summit.

Summit's Erik Feig and Jean Song will oversee for the studio.

The dark thriller, which likely will change titles, takes a less romanticized look at the human-vampire interactions depicted in such recent movies and series as Summit's "Twilight" and HBO's "True Blood."

"It's a reaction to all of these stories now -- TV shows and movies -- that play this kind of romantic, fantastical, sexy aspect of getting involved with monsters," Haimes said. "This is the dark, sinister version of what really happens when you decide you're going to get close to really bad things. That fantasy element is something I wanted to look at and play the exact opposite: the grim reality of bedding down with a monster." The creatures play diabolical mind games with people, including one that involves an elevator, hence the title.

Haimes, repped by WMA and Benderspink, was an executive at DreamWorks for more than 13 years until the studio split from parent Paramount last year. While there, he developed such thrillers as "Collateral," "Red Eye" and "Disturbia" for the studio as well as "Hotel for Dogs" and "Transformers."

This is Haimes' first screenplay. He is finishing a second spec called "Jitters," a family film he describes as in the "traditional Amblin" mold.

"It's a totally different muscle," Haimes said of segueing from the studio creative side to original storytelling. "It's like Dave Grohl playing drums for Nirvana and then taking on a different instrument in the Foo Fighters."

Source: HR

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Knowing - Another TV spot for Nicholas Cage film

The fifth TV Spot for Knowing which is set to hit theaters on 20th March , 2009.

Director: Alex Proyas
Writer: Alex Proyas
Studio: Summit Entertainment
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury

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Twilight - Vampire love sells out in the box office. It's going to be big. Where's Blade when you need him?

According to Variety, Summit Entertainment’s new teen vampire flick, Twilight, has already sold out almost 2,000 showings, 600 of them midnight showings. It is based on the book by Stephenie Meyer. It stars Kristen Stewart (Into the Wild) as Bella and Robert Pattinson (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) as Edward.

IMDB give the following summary of the film, "Bella Swan has always been a little bit different. Never one to run with the crowd, Bella never cared about fitting in with the trendy, plastic girls at her Phoenix, Arizona high school. When her mother remarried and Bella chooses to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she didn't expect much of anything to change. But things do change when she meets the mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful Edward Cullen. For Edward is nothing like any boy she's ever met. He's nothing like anyone she's ever met, period. He's intelligent and witty, and he seems to see straight into her soul. In no time at all, they are swept up in a passionate and decidedly unorthodox romance - unorthodox because Edward really isn't like the other boys. He can run faster than a mountain lion. He can stop a moving car with his bare hands. Oh, and he hasn't aged since 1918. Like all vampires, he's immortal. That's right - vampire. But he doesn't have fangs - that's just in the movies. And he doesn't drink human blood, though Edward and his family are unique among vampires in that lifestyle choice. To Edward, Bella is that thing he has waited 90 years for - a soul mate. But the closer they get, the more Edward must struggle to resist the primal pull of her scent, which could send him into an uncontrollable frenzy. Somehow or other, they will have to manage their unmanageable love. But when unexpected visitors come to town and realize that there is a human among them Edward must fight to save Bella? A modern, visual, and visceral Romeo and Juliet story of the ultimate forbidden love affair - between vampire and mortal."

From what I can gather you will love it if you are a young teenage girl and the books have been hugely successful in that demographic. If you do a quick look around the web though you will also see that the Twilight books (they are working on sequels to the film) are also hated by an awful lot of people. Either way it looks as if the film is going to be hugely successful so if you don't like the books you won't be best pleased.

Jeffrey Wells says Summit Entertainment is insisting on a no-review embargo on Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight for another 36 hours or so (12:01 am on Friday, 11.21), although the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips has said his review will be up tomorrow (i.e., presumably sometime late tonight online). It can be deduced that Summit is expecting a torrent of press negativity. Well, they're wrong. At least as far as this horse is concerned....

Are you a lover or hater of Twilight? Will you be going to see the film?

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UPDATED: Pandorum photos and plot synopsis

Summit Entertainment asked me to take down the first poster for Christian Alvart's upcoming sci-fi thriller, Pandorum, earlier this week (they were very nice about it). However, Entertainment Weekly's officially published the first images from the film so I think I'll be okay with these.The film, which stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster is about: "Two crewmen awaken from hyper-sleep aboard a spacecraft. None of their equipment is working, and their memories are incomplete. What was their mission? How much time has passed? Where are they? Who are they? As they try to piece things together, they discover they are not alone, and the ship's new inhabitants - tribal warriors carrying crudely made weapons - are moving among them, intent on killing all aboard. As the space travelers unravel the frightening and deadly secrets the ship harbors, they realize the survival of mankind hinges on their actions. They must regain control of the ship before PANDORUM takes over."

UPDATE: Actor Cam Gigandet actually talked about the film in an interview with MTV two weeks ago. Apparently it hasn't even start shooting yet, as he was just about to head off to Berlin to start filming at the time. He explains a bit more about the story, saying "they're trying to find a different place to live, basically, and things go horribly wrong. It's about them figuring out the problem." Gigandet also cryptically mentions that it "could be in the future, but it could not be." That last part makes me think it could be some kind of Twilight Zone plot where the 2 astronauts wake, have no memory of what they are doing, danger ensues and it all turns out they are still on Earth and it has all been a training exercise to see how the effects of long term hyper-sleep, suspended animation, whatever, effect them.

It looks like across between Event Horizon and Alien to me. What do you think?

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Push - Trailer

There are special people in this world that have been born with psychic powers. In 1945, government agencies set up for psychic warfare, trying to turn those people with abilities into soldiers. After the war, governments began to set up divisions with agents trained to hunt them down like animals, test and categorize them. There are a bunch of different types of psychic abilities: A watcher can see the future, A mover is telekinetic, Sniffers who can see the history of an object, Shifts can temporarily change the shape of things, Wipers can wipe your memory, and pushers can put thoughts in other people’s heads. The divisions are trying to develop a drug which would allow normal people to develop psychic abilities, but apparently every test so far has been fatal. Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning), a watcher, teams with a young man named Nick Grant (Chris Evans), to take on a clandestine agency in a race against time the will determine the future of civilization.

Push is directed by Paul McGuigan, of Wicker Park and Lucky Number Slevin previously, with an original script written by David Bourla, of Nostradamus and Larceny previously.

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Poster - New one for Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker

Here's the latest for The Hurt Locker. Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq movie which is meant to be amazing. We posted a review a while ago. What do you think?

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