Brett Ratner Wants to Make a Guitar Hero Movie

Through the Fire and Flames: In an interview with MTV News about his Best Director nomination (for Miley Cyrus’s “7 Things�!), Brett Ratner revealed that he’d “love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if Activision would ever let [him].� Don’t worry, it’s not like he wants to tell some lame story about “a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the Guitar Hero competition.� (We’re pretty sure those bases have been covered, both in real life and cartoons.) Either way, could somebody please put this on Ratner’s IMDb memorable quotes page: “I’m trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise? Not that I would make a bad movie.� [MTV]

Fox and WB Become Millionaires: Fox Searchlight and Warner Bros. will join forces to release Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, written by The Full Monty’s Simon Beaufoy, based on Q&A by Vikas Swarup. Story follows Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai who’s one question away from winning 20 million rupees on India’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, until the police arrest him for cheating because they’re like, “WTF? How could an orphan know this stuff?� The kid tells them his life story, and each chapter of the novel reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions. His travels explains how he knew the first answer, for 100 rupees, when Indian Regis Philbin asked, “Which country shares a border with India: (a) Nepal, (b) Thailand, (c) Greenland , or (d) Disneyland.�
[ComingSoon]

Portrait of the Artist As a Young Lennon: First-time feature director and visual artist Sam Taylor Wood will direct Nowhere Boy, a biopic of young John Lennon to be written by Matt Greenhalgh (Control) and filmed on the streets of Liverpool. In 1886, Lennon’s father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and, in May 1887, when Lennon was 17 years old, his eldest brother Alexander was arrested and hanged for participating in a terrorist bomb plot threatening the life of Czar Alexander III. Later, he met Paul McCartney, and history was changed forever. [HR]

Perelman Heads Toward the Light?: Maybe, just maybe, House of Sand and Fog’s Vadim Perelman is in talks to direct MGM’s Poltergeist remake, according to an unconfirmed story at Bloody Disgusting. Verified or not, the movie’s mere existence constitutes a major victory in Hollywood’s War Against Original Ideas, one that makes us proud to be Americans. [Bloody Disgusting]

Some Guy to Direct Voltron: First, put on some lovesick music, then read our love letter out loud: “Dearest Voltron, Our love for you overflows like sexy rainwater from some kind of love bucket. Even though New Regency put you into turnaround, even though Relativity wants to cut your budget, and even now that you’ve got a random TV guy attached to direct you. Oh, Voltron, please oh please, tell us you don’t really love director Max Makowski, a man who thinks he can tame your five robot lions just because he tamed five gay guys directing Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? Our heart weeps like a million baby seals with shampoo in their eyes. Love always, Vulture.� [Latino Review]