This just in from Deadline: Dimension Films, who has the rights to David Cronenberg's 1981 telepath sci-fi horror pic Scanners, is adapting the genre film not into further sequels or remakes but into a television series. French horror director Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, Piranha 3D) will exec produce the drama and may direct the pilot. [Deadline]
In case you haven't grown tired of fast forwarding through 55 minutes of General Hospital soap schmaltz to find one anticlimactic James Franco scene in which the actor can't keep a straight face, get excited! The embattled Oscar host is returning to the daytime series on Sept. 20 for a "longterm" story arc that will again center on his character's obsession with Jason Morgan (Steve Burton), who is set to marry Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco) this fall. Set your DVRs accordingly. [TV Guide]
"Really enjoyed HP7," Simon Pegg wrote on Twitter earlier on Friday afternoon, "and credit where it's due the 3D did an extraordinary job of making everything really dark, blurry and difficult to see." Ouch, Simon! If Pegg thinks the 3-D in The Deathly Hallows Part 2 is bad, just wait until he gets a load of the crappy post-conversion third dimension in Captain America: First Avenger. Quick warning as you head into the weekend: search out the 2-D version. [@simonpegg]
Riiiiiight: "Zac Efron could become the latest actor to play a superhero in a movie based on a Marvel comic book character. [...] There's just one tiny little problem -- he's been offered a role playing Namor the Sub-Mariner. The Sub-Mariner is one of Marvel's earliest superheroes, debuting in 1939. He's the mutant son of a princess from Atlantis and a human sea captain with a variety of superpowers, including strength, speed, flight, and the ability to breathe underwater (he's like a merman with legs)." [Gather via ONTD]
Annette Bening will play Kristen Wiig's mother in Imogene, the tale of "a moderately successful Gotham playwright (Wiig) who stages a fake suicide attempt to win back her ex-boyfriend, only to end up forced into the custody of her gambling-addict mother." I hope this means the return of the shifty, savvy Bening we saw in The Grifters. I assume Kristen Wiig has a mean Anjelica Huston impersonation in her arsenal. In the meantime, Bening is working on He Loves Me with Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan. Oscar, please! [Deadline]
Warner Bros. isn't bringing Zack Snyder and Man of Steel to Comic-Con this year, but there's always next year. Thursday, the studio announced that the Snyder-directed Superman reboot will hit theaters on June 14, 2013, a change from the previously set time period of December 2012. That gives the film separation from not only The Dark Knight Rises, but also The Hobbit -- two other major WB properties. It also gives Kurt Johnstad time to finish those script revisions. Mark those Google Calendars accordingly. [Coming Soon]
"You will be shocked," Rock of Ages co-star Malin Akerman says about Tom Cruise's vocal performance in the upcoming Broadway adaptation. "I kind of wasn't that surprised, because when Tom does something he does it 150 percent. So he really just brought his fucking game and he sounds like a rock star." Are you kidding, Malin? "I'm not kidding. He could be an opera singer if he wanted to. His voice is really powerful." [E!]
The last Arnold Schwarzenegger film to debut in the studio dumping ground that is January? Pumping Iron, which opened in New York on Jan. 18, 1977, before January was even considered a studio dumping ground. Now, 28 films later, Lionsgate will release The Last Stand on Jan. 18, 2013 -- 36 years to the date of Iron. Spooky! [Deadline]
"Lionsgate has announced director John Lussenhop (Takers) has selected newcomer Dan Yeager to play Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, a new installment in the franchise that picks up where the original 1974 film left off." [Worst Previews]
"Looking like Harry Potter means people discard every convention of social interaction to inform you that you look like Harry Potter. [...] One time, in a bar in Philadelphia, an overweight bald man announced to the room, 'Everybody, look! It's Harry Potter! He looks like Harry Potter!' I said to him, 'You look like a fat asshole.' It came to blows. I removed my glasses first. (Presumably, I looked less like Harry Potter as a result.)" New York Observer writer Michael H. Miller might want to invest in contact lenses. [NYO]
Indie auteur Paul Thomas Anderson and Bridesmaids star Maya Rudolph welcomed son Jack on July 3, Rudolph's rep confirmed today to People. Baby Jack makes three kids for Anderson and Rudolph, joining daughters Pearl and Lucille in the brood of one of Hollywood's most unlikely-sounding (but awesome) pairings. Congrats, parents! [People]
Variety has it that Shia LaBeouf, who may or may not be the new Michael J. Fox, is set to co-star with Robert Redford in The Company You Keep, a political action thriller adapted from Neil Gordon's novel that Redford will direct. LaBeouf will play a young journalist out to expose an ex-Weather Underground radical in hiding (Redford) and make a name for himself. If this combines the journalistic cred of All the President's Men and the sinister air of Disturbia, I'll be pleased. Hopefully it doesn't combine the length of Out of Africa with the senselessness of Eagle Eye. [Variety]
"I'm sorry Universal passed, but not really surprised," author Stephen King told EW in an email about the crumbling Dark Tower project. "As a rule, they've been about smaller and less risky pix; maybe they feel it would be better to stick with those fast and furious racing boys. I bear them no ill will, and trust Ron Howard to get Roland and his friends before the camera somewhere else. He's very committed to the project." Not for nothing, but isn't Universal spending $200 million on Battleship? If that's not risky, what is? [EW]
But not for the reason you might think (or want): The actor, twice a victim of News Corporation phone hackers who has since embarked on a very public crusade against the company, regrets working for the Rupert Murdoch-owned 20th Century Fox. "It would certainly stick in my craw to work for Fox. I did make one film for them 16 years ago, but I was naive then. I didn't even know who owned it [the studio]." Right. [EW via The Guardian]
Apparently, it just wasn't meant to be -- for now. Per Deadline, Universal has decided not to go forward with the crazy-ambitious adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower that director Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer and screenwriter/producer Akiva Goldsman had planned over three films and two companion television series. Howard is now free to shop the project to other studios, though whether one bites remains to be seen. This is the second major geek property that Universal has passed on this year, following Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness. [Deadline]
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