Cinematical

We hadn't heard from child star extraordinaire Haley Joel Osment for a while -- at least not in any productive way. His last film (not counting the unreleased Home of the Giants) was the mediocre 2003 coming-of-ager Secondhand Lions; since then, news about him has mostly involved car accidents and drunk driving. But thankfully, things seem to be turning around. The actor, now 20 years old, will star in this fall's Broadway revival of David Mamet's challenging American Buffalo, alongside John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer. I'm assuming that he'll be taking on the role of teenaged Bobby, played by Sean Nelson in the 1996 film. Not a huge part, but being one of a cast of three on Broadway certainly isn't trivial.

So few child stars make a successful transition into adult careers, but an actor of Osment's caliber deserves one. (The Sixth Sense is all well and good, but A.I.'s "David" was a masterpiece.) Now that he's no longer an adorable moppet, he should probably aim for "character actor" rather than "star." If that's the goal, then American Buffalo seems like a step in the right direction; there are few things like a little Mamet to establish some thespian street cred.

The play starts previews on October 31st and opens in November.

I guess that if there is anyone suitable to be a zombie fighter, it'd be a guy who has experience as a Natural Born Killer. (If you can bring down humans, slow, mumbling zombies must be a breeze.) The Hollywood Reporter posts that Woody Harrelson has signed on to star in a new horror comedy called Zombieland.

This brains-obsessed tale will focus on "a mismatched pair of survivors who find friendship and redemption in a world overrun by zombies." Woody will be one of the two survivors -- "a zombie fighter named Albuquerque." There's no word yet on zombie hunter #2. But more importantly -- where does the redemption fit in?!

The film was written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who worked together on The Joe Schmo Show, although more suitable credits would be Reese's involvement on Monsters Inc. Jumping into the directorial chair, we've got Ruben Fleischer -- most recently a director for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he's also worked with Mike White on Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl.

While my mother swears that Friday the 13th was responsible for many a nightmare in my six-year-old mind (thanks to sneak viewings at a friend's house), Children of the Corn has always been the flick to make my skin crawl. I don't know why. My memories of the film have faded, but the creepy feeling has never completely gone away. And now the kids are coming back to freak me out some more.

It's not like there haven't been rumors of a Children of the Corn remake for a while now. In 2007, Darren Lynn Bousman was said to be looking into the idea. But now rumors are intermingled with casting choices. According to Beyond Hollywood, It seems that instead of a big-screen version, the Sci-Fi Channel wants to whip up an original movie tapping an anti-Heroes player and a chick straight out of Battlestar Galactica. Should this rumor be true, it means that David Anders would take on Peter Horton's role, while Kandyse McClure would take on Linda Hamilton's.

Could Adam and Officer Anastasia pull it off? Does it bum you out that it won't be on the big screen? Sound off below!

Although we're chalking this up to the overeager and rarely reliable British press (England & Scotland, I love you, but your tabloids are crazy), it bears reporting anyway. According to The Telegraph, Cher is said to be in talks with Christopher Nolan to play Catwoman in the third Batman film.

Says some anonymous studio executive: "Cher is Nolan's first choice to play Catwoman. He wants to her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years. The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry's purring creations."

The same article also reports Johnny Depp as having signed to play the Riddler -- and we all know that isn't true. No one knows which villains will appear in the third film. Even Nolan's participation is still up in the air, despite all of this breathless casting speculation, fan art, and fierce "Will they work in Nolan's gritty real-world setting?" debate.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I actually love Cher and I think she could make a pretty cool Catwoman. But if Nolan does do a third film, and if he does include Catwoman, I want an actress that's closer in age to Christian Bale. I'm not trying to be ageist, it's more that I see Catwoman's career as being a parallel to Batman's, much like the Joker. I want that Batman: Year One story. But should they ever make The Dark Knight Returns (and there was much chatter after Comic Con that Frank Miller and Zack Snyder were at some kind of unofficial agreement on making it, so who knows), I nominate Cher to be the retired Selina Kyle. An older Catwoman deserves someone as awesome as Cher to play her -- not the broken down wreck she was in the book. What do you think, readers? Cher for Catwoman and Nolan, or do you prefer the Angelina Jolie fantasy casting?

Believe me, I struggled long and hard to come up with a catchy title like 'From Mars to Metro City' or something like that, but hey, sometimes a pun just isn't going to happen and it's best to move on. Variety reports that Kristen Bell has signed to voice the female lead in the feature film adaptation of Astro Boy. If you know your Astro Boy, you probably don't remember many female leads in the story, but hey, count your blessings if this is the only change in store for the classic manga tale.

Astro Boy was written by Timothy Harris, and is the story of a boy robot who is abandoned by his creator and left to fend for himself in the wilds of Metro City. The robotic Pinocchio tale had it all, absent father figures, betrayal, and robot gladiators, you know, just your usual kid's story. Bell will be joining Nicholas Cage, Freddie Highmore, Nathan Lane, and Bill Nighy in Imagi Studios 3-D update of the classic manga.

So while she may not be Harley Quinn (but I guess it doesn't hurt to fantasize), Bell has three other projects in various stages of production. Unfortunately, they seem to be the usual run of the mill romantic comedies that all young actresses seem to have to make at some point in their career. Bell will also be making a reappearance on TV's Heroes this season as the electrifying baddie, Elle Bishop. But none of these projects will get Bell fans hyped like the rumored Veronica Mars flick -- no matter how misguided that idea might be.

Astro Boy is scheduled to arrive in theaters in 2009.


[Thanks: Coming Soon]

The first Demoted wave came in the form of Michael Vartan and David Cross. Both had signed onto the comedy that focuses on a jerky tire sales associate (Vartan) who torments his less-cool colleague (Cross) -- until the downtrodden gets promoted and gives the cool guy a taste of his own medicine. But it looks like Vartan isn't going to be the only jerky one; he's going to revel in the jerkitude with one of our beloved Goonies members.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Sean Astin will team up with Vartan on the Cross torment, and also be demoted to secretary when Cross gets his revenge. Meanwhile, Sara Foster (D.E.B.S.) is signing on to play Astin's wife, "who's tricked into believing he was promoted," while Celia Weston (Dead Man Walking) will pop up as the head secretary. As such, she "inspires the best friends to plot their revenge." So, who will come out on top? Astin and Vartan? Cross? Foster?

Production begins this September in Michigan.

One of the few '80s remakes I can get behind is Highlander -- the original is something I always wanted to love, but couldn't. I know! It seems tailor made for me, what with Scotsmen, swords, immortals, and finest power ballads known to humankind. But there are levels of ridiculousness I will accept in film, and somehow Highlander just overruns my tolerance for it when a "Spanish" Sean Connery disdains haggis while speaking in a warm Scottish brogue. A remake has always topped my guilty wish list, and it shocks me that Summit went and green-lit it.

But news has been pretty scarce -- so scarce that the moment I saw this rumor on JoBlo, I took it. It seems one of their faithful readers heard Scottish actor Kevin McKidd on a Dublin radio show, and he mentioned that the producers had approached him about starring in the film.

I would actually love this to happen. McKidd not only has the advantage of actually being Scottish, but he's quite an ass kicker as well. If you have been good readers and rented both seasons of Rome like I've told you, you will have seen this for yourself. He also swung a sword in Kingdom of Heaven, but I'm not sure if you can really make him out in that blurry opening fight where everyone dies. So take my word for it. He's a badass -- and that's not surprising since he does hail from the land that probably invented the word.

If not McKidd, who? The Highlander has to be Scottish this time around. While you might expect me to favor Gerard Butler, I think he's dead tired of bulking up to kill people. So I nominate Dougray Scott, who deserves a nice big role after missing out on Bond and Wolverine, and he has the world-weary look of an immortal. McKidd or Scott, Summit. Listen to me, for I know my Scotsmen.

One of the more interesting comic book projects in the pipeline is an adaptation of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass (title likely to be changed?), directed by Matthew Vaughn. We previously covered the action comedy -- about a high school dork who decides to become a superhero despite not possessing any of the gifts normally associated with superherodom -- here and here.

Perhaps hinting at the tone of the eventual film, the first bit of casting was Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Though he may seem like the perfect choice to play a dweeb with delusions of grandeur, Mintz-Plasse was cast in a supporting role. A week later, they've cast the lead: it'll be 18 year-old Aaron Johnson, whom you may remember as little Ed Norton in The Illusionist. Joining him will be Nicolas Cage and TV vet Lyndsy Fonseca. Fonseca will play the love interest, while Cage will play the father of Elizabeth Rappe's future daughter, "a vicious, foul-mouthed 11-year-old who chops down criminals with a katana." Apparently he's trained her to do that as part of his quest to take down a druglord.

Mark Millar, by the way, is the dude behind Wanted, a comic that was about 250 times crazier than this summer's movie adaptation. I'd like to see Shoot 'Em Up's Michael Davis get a crack at a Millar project, but I'll settle for the ultra-talented Vaughn, who can do both over-the-top violence (see Layer Cake) and elegant movie versions of difficult source material (see Stardust).

It was almost a year ago when news hit that Jake Gyllenhaal was going to the moon with director Doug Liman. Literally, not the Honeymooners way. Focusing on a private expedition to the moon to create a Lunar colony, the project was set for another rewrite in June. But that was all we heard. Now rumors are bubbling about casting, and if true, we could see a clash of the private and public.

Just Jared has posted that In Touch insiders have pegged Abbie Cornish as Jake's co-star in the lunar film -- in other words, Jake's current girlfriend Reese Witherspoon's ex-husband Ryan Phillippe's current girlfriend. Oh, those messy Hollywood lives. The insider states: "This is one of those only-in-Hollywood situations. It could work out as long as Reese doesn't visit Jake on the set."

Whatever the potential drama, this would definitely be an interesting casting move for the feature, which is hoping to hit screens in 2010. Cornish has taken on a number of themes over the last few years, from the times of Queen Elizabeth to being a tough Texan girlfriend, so why not add some moon action to the mix? Thoughts?

Here's a movie that's getting stranger and stranger the more details we get -- and I'm loving it. First, Mike Judge's Extract was simply a movie that "explores what it's like to be the boss when everything seems to be shifting around you." Then it became about a guy who owns an industrial flower-extract plant and has to deal with workplace issues and a cheating wife. Now, it turns out that one of the "workplace issues" is an employee who loses a body part in a freak accident, and that the wife is cheating on the protagonist with a gigolo. Awesome.

Jason Bateman plays the factory owner -- that, we already knew. We also knew that the amazing Kristen Wiig is playing the wife, and Mila Kunis another employee. The new info is that Clifton Collins, Jr. has joined the cast as the maiming victim, and Ben Affleck as an ambulance-chasing lawyer who, I'd imagine, wants to milk Bateman's character for all he's worth. No word on who's playing the gigolo.

I got pelted with poop for praising Mike Judge's last movie, the largely direct-to-DVD Idiocracy, the first time I wrote about this project, but I stand by comments. It would have been easy for Judge to do Office Space 2, but it's been gratifying to watch him go in some even more offbeat directions instead.

It's a lonely day in the neighborhood ....

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: I'm not sure whether Warner Bros. was prepared for the ridiculous fanboy (and girl) backlash that came with pushing the film's release date back several months to the middle of July, 2009, though it looks like they've re-grouped, dusted themselves off and are preparing to get that marketing machine up and running again. Following a statement from Warners chief Alan Horn (included after the jump) comes word from our friends at Bloghogwarts that Warner Bros. has sent in a new trailer (marked at a minute and a half) to the BBFC for approval. Could this be the studio's version of make-up sex? (PG rated make-up sex, of course.) Only time will tell ...

Inglorious Bastards: These days, when it comes to the cast of Quentin Tarantino's WWII flick Inglorious Bastards, nothing is set in stone (or badass, motherf**king stone, as QT would say). Thus, we want to be real careful about this latest news (via Variety) that Michael Fassbender is "in talks" to join the ensemble cast. Note that he's "in talks", as were a few other guys (Simon Pegg, David Krumholtz, though the latter is still mentioned by the trade) before they dropped out. Though they don't say who he'd be playing, the German-speaking actor would most likely take on the role of badass motherf**king Nazi in charge of total damage ... which sounds about right to me. Fassbender, of course, is best known for his role as Stelios in 300, and is still set to appear opposite Abbie Cornish in Wuthering Heights.

Once you get a taste of Smart People, deal with Eddie Murphy's Nowhereland, take on a stalkerific Sandra Bullock, and then steal Kate Hudson's work, it's time to get into some dark drama.

Variety reports that Thomas Haden Church has signed on to star in a new indie film called Don McKay, with the likes of Elisabeth Shue, Melissa Leo, M. Emmet Walsh, and Keith David. Coming from writer/director Jake Goldberger and shielded by a Screen Actors Guild waiver, the $5 million project just started production in Boston. The film focuses on a man who leaves his hometown after a tragedy forces him to do so. Twenty-five years later, he comes back when he hears that "his long-lost love is dying." Not surprisingly, his return spins "a web of confusion, deceit, and murder." Old secrets never die in the movie world.

Church says that it's a passion project that he's been trying to develop with Goldberger since Sideways. Aside from the confusion that it should evoke from those into Canadian poetry, this sounds like an interesting project -- especially with this cast.

Above: Rainn Wilson lets his hair down for The Rocker.

Fans of Rainn Wilson's offbeat, hilarious and strangely endearing performance as Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office might expect him to transition into film work with straightforward comedy, and The Rocker confirms that suspicion. However, they might not realize the serious professional motives behind his choice. In the movie, directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Grown Monty), Wilson plays a grown-up dolt named Fish with a scary fixation on classic rock. Abandoned by the band Vesuvius in his teens -- before they became a commercial phenomenon -- Fish spends the next twenty years working deadbeat jobs and wishing things happened differently. Naturally, he gets a second chance: When the opportunity rolls around to drum for his nephew's high school, Fish goes for it. Ageism and slapstick humor ensue.

While not exactly a classic, The Rocker proves Wilson has the charisma to carry a movie. The script could use some polishing, but Wilson manages to play a completely dysfunctional human being without ever becoming an annoyance. It's a testament to his skill as an actor with calculated timing. The humor emerges from the naturalism of his performances, which make you believe in the outlandish characters he portrays. In a conversation with Cinematical recently, Wilson elaborated on his particular strategies as his career advances, reminisced about his days as a New York theater actor, and shed some light on a few upcoming projects.

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? First you become Tromeo, and now -- Gnomeo. Well, people have been trying to rename you to Gnomeo for a while now. Heck, last time Cinematical wrote about the upcoming CGI feature Gnomeo and Juliet, it was 2006 and Kate Winslet and professional voice actor Greg Ellis were attached to voice the film. Almost two years later, the garden gnome romance is still hiking its way to the big screen, and The Hollywood Reporter posts that James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are in negotiations to voice the leads.

While I'm bummed to see another voice actor lose his work, there are some quirks to look forward to with this feature -- namely Elton John classics. At first, a whole new set of romantic songs were going to be penned by Tim Rice and John, but that didn't work out so we get the good ol' classics. Will Gnomeo fall off Juliet's balcony and sing: "I'm Still Standing"? Will the two dance, canoodle, and sing: "Tiny Dancer"? Will "Candle in the Wind" be adapted once again for the tragic finale? Oh, the possibilities.

Now, it's also said to be a "loose and edgy" adaptation, so perhaps these gnomes will get their happy ending -- although I'd hope it wouldn't stray too far from the original. Whatever the case, it'll be a long wait. The project is currently in the storyboard stage, with plans to wrap up production by 2010.

While he isn't really a "super" hero (at least not in the innate superpower sense), William Katt -aka- Ralph Hinkley -aka- The Greatest American Hero has always been my top dog. So, I've been pretty apprehensive about a big-screen reboot of the wacky '80s series -- my nights plagued with nightmares of Zac Efron, topped with a really bad perm, flying into walls.

But at the very least, the new feature might get some old-school cameos. According to MTV, Connie Sellecca says that the famous trio -- her, Katt, and the splendid Robert Culp, have all received offers for cameos in the remake. Whether they take Stephen J. Cannell up on the offer remains to be seen. But at least that's something. In the meantime, there's also a comic book and animated webisodes on the way, so Katt-style Ralph is far from finished.

And as an added bonus to you lucky goons in the states, the MTV link above contains a clip of Culp taking issue with Ralph being called a superhero.