He’re a round-up of some of the smaller stories coming out of Hollywood…
Brazilian director Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) is in talks to direct New Line’s conservation themed drama, WIld Life. The movie is based on the work of Daphne Shledrick, a leading animal conservationist in Kenya, who devoted her life to trying to save the elephant from extinction by rescuing baby elephants that had been left orphaned. It’s the same film Nick Cassavetes was due to direct (when it had the title Peaceable Kingdom), before he got fired by New Line and then sued them over it. (Source: Variety)
A while ago it was reported that Warner Bros was interested in a strange sounding update of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jeykll and Hyde, with Forest Whitaker as the doctor and 50 Cent as his monstrous alter-ego. However while promoting his upcoming Repo Men, Whitaker announced that he was no longer attached to the movie. There’s no news on the film’s status though, although it could have been derailed by the fact Keanu Reeves also wants to do a Jeykll and Hyde flick. (Source: Shock Til You Drop)
While the horror film Quarantine wasn’t as well received as the original Spanish film it was based on, [Rec], it left the door wide open for a sequel, and it seems Screen Gems is now keen to move forward on a follow-up. They’ve hired John Pogue (Ghost Ship, The Skulls) to write and direct the movie, which will apparently take the vicious virus out of the tenement block and into an airport. At the moment the sequel is planned as a straight-to-DVD release. (Source: Shock Til You Drop)
While it was reported last week that Guy Ritchie was attached to a King Arthur based project at Warner Bros., based on a script by comic-scribe Warren Ellis, it’s now been revealed that while the director is indeed involved in an Arthurian tale, he’s getting Trainspotting scribe John Hodge to write it, and Ellis isn’t involved (although it’s not clear whether the earlier script was dropped, or if this is a different film to the one Ellis was working on). The film will re-imagine the classic legends, with key source material said to be Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. (Source: Variety)