Author: Robert Greenberger

So, Woody Harrelson has discovered genre filmmaking.  In addition to his super-hero film, Defendor, he is now making Zombieland, described as a horror/comedy by Columbia Pictures.  

Actor Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) is said to be negotiating to appear opposite the actor. According to The Hollywood Reporter,they would play “a mismatched pair of survivors who find friendship and redemption in a world overrun by zombies.”

Eisneberg’s character would be Flagstaff, described as “a terrified shut-in whose cowardice makes him an expert at surviving the zombies but who is forced out of his shell to join the band of survivors.

The movie is scheduled to be directed by Ruben Fleischer (Gumball 3000: Six Days in May) from a script by the Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (The Joe Schmo Show)

Harrelson will first appear in Defendor, where he will be a normal guy who thinks he’s a super-hero complete with secret identity.  Kat Dennings (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist) just joined the cast last week, playing a street kid Harrelson’s Arthur befriends.  Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy) plays Arthur’s psychiatrist. The movie is written and helmed by Peter Stebbings (Across the River to Motor City) in his directorial debut.

Another animation company has been formed as Marvin Gleicher, co-founder and former CEO of Worldwide Operations for Manga Entertainment, has opened Marvin Media. His first effort will be adapting Paul Kanter’s Floating Moon as a feature-length animated film.  It will be directed by Keiichi Sato (Wolf’s Rain) from Manabu Ishikawa’s screen adaptation. The movie can be expected in 2010. Kanter, founder of the Jefferson Airplane, wrote the ecological tale.

Marvin Media is also producing High Def, a comedy from Island Def Jam Music Group, which will be 26 half-hour episodes expected in late 2009.

Gleicher co-founded Manga Entertainment in 1994 and is behind the domestic success of Ghost in the Shell.
 

James Marsters has quite the fan following as an actor but also an equally loyal following as a reader of audio books.  The latter fans will be delighted to know that he has signed on to read the remaining six Harry Dresden novels by Jim Butcher.  These titles include Death Masks, Blood Rites, Dead Beat, Proven Guilty, White Night, and Turn Coat (to be released simultaneously with the hardcover due out in April 2009).

Death Masks will be released when Roc re-releases the book as a hardcover in November 2009. Blood Rites and Dead Beat can be expected when the hardcover reissue of Blood Rites is released in July 2010.

Butcher’s series about Dresden,  freelance wizrd/private investigator has been running for a decade or so now and was adapted as a one season Sci Fi Channel series.  The Dabel Brothers are also producing Dresden comic books and graphic novels, the firstof which will be reviewed here on Wednesday.

As a performer, he will next be seen in 2009’s Dragonball, the adaptation of the anime Dragonball Z.

Actor Bill Murray spoke at a New York news conference for City of Ember and repeated his interest in appearing in Ghostbusters 3.

The comedian also said that a script is moving forward at the moment. "There’s two fellows from The Office that are writing a script, but I’ve yet to see it. And I’m more involved with, you know, trying to get the dessert we ordered at lunch than I am with the new Ghostbusters sequel. But it’s possible. It’s a great idea that they hired these two guys to do it, because I think it’ll be a … it could be a fresh look at it. And it could be funny."

If true, he would reprise his role of Dr. Peter Venkman and appear alongside Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson, Jr. more than 20 years after Ghostbusters 2.

Of the latter, he admitted, "We did a sequel, and it was sort of rather unsatisfying for me, because the first one to me was the goods. It was the real thing. And the sequel, you know, was … it was a few years later. There was an idea pitched. And it was like, well, they got us all together in a room. We just laughed for a couple of hours. And then they said, ‘What if we did another one? Here’s an idea.’

"So they had this idea, but it didn’t turn out to be the idea when I arrived on the set. They’d written a whole different movie than the one [initially discussed]. And the special-effects guys got it and got their hands on it. And it was just not the same movie. There were a few great scenes in it, but it wasn’t the same movie. So there’s never been an interest in a third Ghostbusters because the second one was kind of disappointing … for me, anyway."

City of Ember opens this month.
 

Writer/director Henry Selick gave Toon Zone an interview in preparation for the release of his stop-motion animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

During the wide-ranging conversation, Selick nicely compared a book and a film, saying,

“books have a kind of language with internal dialogue and things like that; how do you bring that to a screen? Ultimately, it resulted in creating another character, this annoying neighbor kid Wybie. It’s a dangerous thing to do that to books, but I just could not find another way to flesh out Coraline. Just the cat in the real world? She didn’t know he could talk. So it took a long time, but I’d like to think Wybie went from a device to an important character. And he has a backstory that is connected to the house, so it pays off nicely.”

The book features a girl who discovers another reality just on the other side of a door in her home. The 2002 novella earned the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers.

“The two most important things in adapting that I wanted to keep was holding onto the essence of Coraline and not making her overly heroic,” Selick explained.  “Not making her Kim Possible, giving her incredible fighting skills. It still had to feel that she’s skeptical. She doesn’t trust adults. Ultimately resourceful, brave, and tenacious. That was the most important thing to hang onto. The book was written over many years; it was actually inspired by Neil’s older daughter, when she was growing up, and then his younger daughter. So she actually seems to change ages in the book. I always liked that, and I think kids can regress, so she can say to her father, ‘I’m not five years old!’ and then act exactly like a five-year-old. Also, the relationship with her real mom. The real mom at the end of the book is not suddenly nice and caring and warm and touchy. She’s the same. There’s no real lessons learned; she doesn’t remember being rescued. It’s Coraline who sees everyone in a new way – she appreciates them.”

The film will open February 6, 2009.

We were among the many sites to report that low ratings may kill Sarah Connor long before a T-1000 gets to complete the mission. To be fair, we should also be reporting that Fox is scoffing at the reports.

"The rumors are all speculative and never fact checked with the network or studio," a rep told i09.

The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has received okay reviews but the ratings are down to under 6 million viewers which usually bring about a pink slip.  The production continues to chug along, fulfilling their order for 13 episodes.

The competition, Mondays at 8 p.m. is quite fierce as they oppose popular sitcoms The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother on CBS, Chuck on NBC, Dancing with the Stars on ABC and Monday Night Football on ESPN.

A few days back we told you about Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt’s new novel, Dracula: The Un-dead. It had been purchased by Harper UK but now we learn from Publisher’s Weekly that Dutton publisher Brian Tart won the domestic rights.

The last time the Stoker family gave its seal of approval to a Dracula project was the 1931 Universal film starring Bela Lugosi.

The deal was concluded by Danny Baror of Baror International and Ken Atchity of Atchity Entertainment International who have sold international publishing rights to the book which will be released in October 2009.

Atchity will also act as producer, with Blue Tulip’s Jan de Bont (Speed), on the film adaptation which they hope to have before the cameras by June. A screenplay adaptation has already been completed by Holt and Alexander Galant.

Dutton’s parent company, Penguin USA, has also announced that a previously unpublished version of the 1987 novel, in its original unedited form, will be released in May. It was this version with Bram Stoker’s notes that helped inform his descendant as to how to best handle the characters who will reappear in the new book, set in 1912.