Jason Statham May Sorta Play a Modern-Day Robin Hood, and 5 Other Stories You'll Be Talking About Today
Also in this Monday edition of The Broadsheet: Wes Craven reveals an alternate (and awesome) Scream 4 beginning... Festival fave Like Crazy gets a release date... Mortal Kombat: Legacy is the filet of web series... and more ahead.
· If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Jason Statham is in talks to star in Parker for director Taylor Hackford. Based on the novel by Donald Westlake, the film would follow a thief (Statham) who only steals money from the rich. So, it's Robin Hood, but likely with more broken necks. Fingers crossed Hackford's wife Helen Mirren will somehow make an appearance, if only because she needs to co-star in something with Statham. [Variety]
· Talking with EW, Wes Craven revealed a once-planned alternate opening sequence for Scream 4 that sounds positively awesome: Sidney Prescott was going to get attacked. "Then there was a two-year gap while she recovered," said Craven. Great! What caused this beginning not to happen? "Bob [Weinstein] felt that would kind of slow the pace of the story and thought it would maybe be better to go with young characters." Oh. Um, good call? [EW]
· Everyone at Sundance fell in love with Like Crazy, the sorta Blue Valentine-y love story co-starring Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones and Jennifer Lawrence. Soon, the rest of us can love it, too: Paramount has scheduled Like Crazy for release on Oct. 28. [Slashfilm]
· Since debuting online last week, the web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy has been viewed over 3.6 million times, and is the most-viewed YouTube video at the moment in the U.K., Australia, Russia and Sweden. All of which raises the question: How long before Warner Bros. turns this into a feature property? [Variety]
· Movieline hero Armando Iannucci got some great news over the weekend. His HBO comedy Veep with star Julia Louis Dreyfus has been picked up for series. Tony Hale and Anna Chlumsky co-star in what will almost immediately become Must See TV to anyone who watched In the Loop. [THR/The Live Feed]
· Janus Films found Cyrus I. Harvey has died from complications due to a stroke. He was 85. [Variety]

Comments
Canadian comics wunderkind Darwyn Cooke has been adapting the 'Parker' books into four-color funnies for a few years now. He'd started with the full cooperation of Donald Westlake/Richard Stark...until Westlake went and died on him, but the family's still down with the idea! Anyway, the final product has been a surprisingly stylish and gritty set of graphic novels (with more on the way); kind of a mix of Mad Men's visuals and Kiss Me Deadly's clipped dialogue and vicious violence.
For a peek at these books, go here:
http://www.idwpublishing.com/previews/parker/
For two other fantastic film adaptations of the 'Parker' books, check out Lee Marvin in 'Point Blank' (1967) and Jim Brown in 'The Split' (1968).
In case you missed it: WE HAD A BLACK PARKER 50 YEARS BEFORE WE HAD A BLACK PRESIDENT. No thanks to you, the South.
This is great news.Love Jason.