NEWSCHUNKS for 05.29.09

BARBARELLA REMAKE STILL ON?: Robert Rodriguez is officially off the project, but a "reliable insider" tells Moviehole.net that the Barbarella remake is still on, saying that Universal, and producer Dino De Laurentiis, are "meeting with writers as we speak (...) It's far from dead." (Click the image at left to purchase the original on DVD.)

TRAILER FOR DEL TORO'S STRAIN ONLINE: In addition to the seemingly dozens of film projects he has in the works, Guillermo "I never sleep" del Toro is collaborating with Chuck Hogan on a vampire novel called The Strain. A video trailer for the book is currently online, and it has a nice B-movie feel to it:



AND ANOTHER THING...: This isn't "news" exactly, but if you hadn't heard about the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sequel novel by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer, the Wikipedia page offers plenty of info. While part of me is glad to see the series continue (Mostly Harmless ended on such a grim cliffhanger, and Douglas Adams was apparently considering a sequel shortly before he died,) but what little I've read of Fowl's writing isn't encouraging. Here he is on how he discovered Adams' books: "I first read the Hitchhiker's Guide in my late teens when Ted Roche, a libertine friend of mine, pressed it into my sweaty palms and hissed at me with fanatical intensity that I must read it or be ridiculed forever by the school literati. Relax, dude, I remember saying with eighties' insouciance."

MEGAN FOX AS LARA CROFT?: Rumors say that producers are planning another Tomb Raider movie, but it will be a prequel replacing Angelina Jolie with the younger (and more affordable) Megan Fox and it will be less "action-oriented" and more "character-driven." Seriously? These movies are based on sci-fi/fantasy video games about a globe-trotting adventurer with improbably oversize boobs. This ain't Ingmar Bergman, people.


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