MovieSet

The man who runs United Artists and who remains one of the world's biggest box office draws may finally be starring in his own superhero film. Tom Cruise is interested in possibly starring in Sleeper, an adaptation of a harder-edge comic book series of the same title published by DC Comics/Wildstorm. As you may or may not recall, at one point Tom was interested in playing Iron Man, years back and well before Robert Downey Jr. got involved. Perhaps the $300 million dollar domestic take of the Marvel superhero movie got Mr. Cruise to reconsider making a superhero movie?

The business of making movies sometimes makes me ask, "why" This time the why comes in the form of a film I like a lot, just as it is, being... you guessed it - REMADE.

This time it's Poltergeist according to The Hollywood Reporter. The reason I'm asking why is that this film originally done in 1982, directed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre helmer Tobe Hooper and produced and co-written by none other than Steven Spielberg, still plays very well today. That's the typical argument from producers, they want to update the story for today's audiences.

Like it or not, for the past four years around Halloween there has been a new Saw movie and 2008 won't be an exception. Saw V is going to come out on October 24 and I'm pretty sure that there will be more gruesome traps and gory deaths to behold. One of the cooler aspects of the Saw franchise is that they get a blood drive going during the lead-up to the new movie's release. Even if you think that this franchise has been tapped and drained dry, you have to admit that it is kind of cool that the studio is trying to do something positive from all of their imaginary bloodletting.

According to an Australian news report, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law all gave their salaries for performing in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus to Matilda Ledger, Heath Ledger's 3-year-old daughter. The trio of A-list actors were called in to finish the remaining scenes in director Terry Gilliam's fantasy movie with each of the men playing a different version of Ledger's character. Since the movie involves Ledger's character moving through different worlds, each version of the character will be played by a different actor.

20th Century Fox has been claiming ownership of the rights to the comic book adaptation of Watchmen for some time now. Warner Bros., the movie studio making the picture, had asked a federal court judge to dismiss Fox's claims of creative rights ownership that stem from contracts done up between producer Lawrence Gordon and Fox in the early 1990s. Now that same judge has dismissed Warners plea, leaving the door open for Fox to gain some measure of ownership or a share of profits derived from the Watchmen movie.

The sixth film in Warner Bros. epic Harry Potter film series has been pushed back eight months. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had originally been scheduled for release on November 21, a juicy position for the holiday box office season. But Warners has decided to change its plans, leaving the date open for some other film to snatch.