the industry

The New Hollywood: Frank Miller Bigger Than Leonardo Dicaprio

Courtesy of DC Comics


Miller’s Ronin to Film: Warner Brothers sets sights on next 300; options graphic novelist Frank Miller’s Ronin, story of samurai loose in futuristic New York City. Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard) will direct in similar style to 300, with the green screens and the soundstages and also we hope with the glistening torsos. We recommend Future Hiro to play the lead samurai. [Variety]

Leo’s Doc Gets Release: The 11th Hour, Leonardo DiCaprio’s environmental documentary, is picked up by Warner Independent for release this fall. Leo seven times as hot as Al Gore, The 11th Hour expected to make seven times as much as An Inconvenient Truth. [Variety]

Zaillian to Columbia: High-profile writer-director Steven Zaillian lands first-look with Columbia Pictures with mandate to create “modestly budgeted, character-driven films.†Helmer of A Civil Action and All the King’s Men looks forward to making more intelligent, underperforming films for adults. [Variety]

Gordon-Levitt Is King: Adam Davies’s long-percolating novel The Frog King is finally being filmed, with script by Bret Easton Ellis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Novel features a young assistant editor who gets in an affair with an easy-to-recognize cougarish editrix. Judith Regan presumably already lobbying to thinly veil herself. [Hollywood Reporter]

Otherworldly: Author Michael Scott makes his second big book-to-film deal in as many years, selling his fantasy novel Otherworld to Kopelson Entertainment for “high six figures†based on a fifteen-page treatment. (Scott’s yet-to-be-published The Alchemyst sold to New Line last year.) Novel follows ancient demons unleashed by global warming. Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio to fight it out for lead. [Variety]

Jason Patric Out of LaBute’s House: Frederick Weller replaces Jason Patric in Off Broadway world premiere of Neil LaBute’s In a Dark Dark House, co-starring Ron Livingston. Patric leaves due to “creative differencesâ€; he argued strenuously that LaBute writes too many plays. [Playbill]

Ego Trip Ends at St. Martin’s: Much-hyped London anonynovel Ego, supposedly written by prominent agent, has precipitous fall in marketplace, landing at St. Martin’s for an undisclosed (read smaller than expected) sum. [Publishers Weekly]

John Cusack in Jan de Bont Action Flick: John Cusack will star in Jan de Bont action thriller Stopping Power, about a test pilot who blah blah to save his daughter blah blah. Yes, Lloyd Dobler, this is exactly what we had in mind for you. [Hollywood Reporter]