MGM Takes Deep Breath as Creditors Allow 3-Month Reprieve

· As Hollywood dramas go, we might look back on the Great MGM Panic of 2009 as a little overreaching: While the flagging, restructuring studio remains more than $3 billion in debt, a temporary forbearance from repaying the interest on that debt will keep some of its prized franchises (including The Hobbit and James Bond) from imminent liquidation. We'll catch up with them in December, when the panic should begin anew like clockwork despite all our best wishes. Poor lion. [DHD]

The Future is now at Warners, NBC leans on J.J. Abrams, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.

· Warner Bros. has made a deal for a feature-length adaptation of the animated nature series The Future is Wild, which predicts the evolutionary havoc faced by Earth's species over the next 200 million years. Which sounds intriguing enough, though if I never again see the distended, razor-toothed mouth of the killer bird-flounder whose picture accompanies this news at Variety, it will be too soon. Consider yourself warned. [Variety]

· NBC coaxed a sympathy lay out of J.J. Abrams, who anchored his upcoming, untitled husband-and-wife espionage drama at the flailing network. This calls for a cigarette. [THR]

· The remake of the Swedish vampire-coming-of-age romance Let the Right One In (now simply titled Let Me In) has settled on its cast, including breakout Road star Kodi Smit-McPhee, (500) Days of Summer's kid sister Chloe Moretz, and Richard Jenkins. [Variety]

· Congratulations to Tom Ortenberg, the ex-Lionsgate boss who last week fled the Weinstein Company and sprinted into the waiting arms of One Way Out, his own new financing, consulting and distribution firm. His motivation? "There are good projects that are not getting made, and good pictures that are made that are struggling to get themselves properly marketed or distributed." Nothing personal, Harvey. [THR]