The Blues Brothers May Head to Television, and 5 Other Stories You'll Be Talking About Today

Also in this Wednesday edition of The Broadsheet: The Thin Man gets a screenwriter... more info on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea... Paul Dano could become a College Republican... and more ahead.

· They're on a mission from God -- to never let this franchise die. Variety reports that Judy Belushi (John's ex-wife) and former Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts, (plus Wayne Catania and Kieron Lafferty) have written a pilot script for a new Blues Brothers television series and are currently pitching it to networks. The possible show would pick-up with Elwood looking for his biological father (gag) while Jake assists in his journey. Original Blues Brother Dan Akyroyd will not appear as Elwood, but rather as Jake and Elwood's parole officer. Oh, and there will be singing: "It would be Route 66 meets Glee, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket," Beatts said. Huh. Maybe Ghostbusters 3 isn't such a bad idea after all. [Variety]

· Sometimes it seems like the only screenwriter working in Hollywood is David Koepp. This is one of those times. The busy Koepp will write the Johnny Depp-led remake of The Thin Man for Warner Bros. and director Rob Marshall. Koepp is also writing the Jack Ryan reboot for Paramount and just finished his action thriller Premium Rush with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. [Deadline]

· Speaking of screenwriters, Coming Soon's Ed Douglas sat down with Contagion scribe Scott Z. Burns and found out a slew of information about two upcoming projects: Steven Soderbergh's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and David Fincher's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. "I thought it would be really fun to go back and look at spycraft in the Cold War and what you could and couldn't do," Burns said about U.N.C.L.E. "When you think about the world in the 1960s just in terms of cars and fashion and the aesthetic, to be able to go and shoot that world with today's cameras and today's technology, I think we could do some really cool stuff."

Also cool? The 20,000 Leagues remake. "David and I were trying very hard to find something to do together and I wanted to do something that was science fiction with David because I think science fiction is maybe the most exciting area to work in right now. David is so visually gifted that I was like, I'd love to be able to sit there at my desk and come up with any kinda crazy shit and know that David Fincher is going to turn it into something. As it so happened, David and I both loved 20,000 Leagues when we were kids. It was one of my favorite books. So David came to me and said that Sean Bailey had contacted him about doing 20,000 Leagues at Disney and I said, 'I would love to do that. 'Then we met with Sean who was really great and said, 'Come to Disney and let's try and make a really cool version of a classic story.'" [Coming Soon]

· According to a report from The Wrap, Paul Dano will play Karl Rove in Richard Linklater's College Republicans, an origin story (of sorts) for the modern Republican party. [Wrap]

· I Am Number Four co-star Callan McAuliffe has joined the cast of The Great Gatsby. He'll play a young Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the Baz Luhrmann-directed film. [Variety]

· Awesome television "That guy!" Alan Dale has signed on for a small part in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo as the production closes in on the finish line. Dale is best known for his work as Caleb Nichol in The O.C. (just me?), but he has also appeared on Lost, The West Wing, Entourage, 24, Ugly Betty, The X-Files, ER and NCIS. [Variety]