the industry

Shia LaBeouf to Slum It in Non-Franchise Thriller

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LaBeouf Tills Dark Fields: Shia LaBeouf will star in Universal’s Dark Fields, a techno-thriller about a young man who discovers the ultimate smart pill, which allows him to trick Steven Spielberg into single-handedly getting him a movie career. [Variety]

Fox Expands Into Virtuality Programming: Fox green-lights Virtuality, a pilot written by the Battlestar Galactica team of Ronald Moore and Michael Taylor. The plot concerns the twelve-member crew of a long-distance space voyage who keep their minds occupied with an advanced virtual-reality system which, we hope, projects something other than taunting images of Tricia Helfer. [HR]

Back in Blog: The conquest of the MSM by random blogs proceeds apace today as Billboard discovers that AC/DC is recording their first new studio album in eight years under producer Brendan O’Brian by reading about it on the blog of the band Supersuckers, whose producer has to wrap up his engineering gig on the AC/DC album before he can finish the Supersuckers record. Way to trawl, Billboard! [Billboard]

Supermodel Asked to Act: Mega-Über-supermodel Gisele Bündchen has reportedly met with Mike Myers and Jay Roach about taking the female lead in the fourth installment of the Austin Powers franchise. We’ll get around to making a joke about Bündchen once we’ve recovered from our horror at the prospect of a fourth Austin Powers movie. [Boston Globe]

Snyder Animated: Zack Snyder will direct the animated feature Guardians of Ga’Hoole, based on the children’s series by Kathryn Lasky. This will be Snyder’s first animated film, unless you count 85 percent of 300. [Variety]