B.A. Cinema: Twentieth Century Fox is pushing forward with an A-Team remake for release in the summer of 2010, with Joe Carnahan directing/co-writing and Tony Scott and Ridley Scott producing. The best/saddest part is how Carnahan has to put his troubled Pablo Escobar passion project on hold in order to do the movie, saying, “Reimagining a show that I remembered as a kid was tough to turn down,†which is code for “This one oughta make me more money.†[Variety]
McQueen vs. McQueen: Why does this always happen? David Foster, along Overture-Anchor Bay’s Kevin Kasha and St. Louis Rams owner Dale “Chip†Rosenbloom, have announced they’re producing a Steve McQueen biopic, challenging the previously announced one from Michael Cerenzie and Christine Peters. Foster was McQueen’s publicist before becoming a producer, and the film will be adapted from McQueen’s first wife Neile McQueen-Toffel’s book, My Husband, My Friend. Also, Foster produced Short Circuit. Unless we hear otherwise, this is shaping up to be the Armageddon to that other McQueen flick’s Deep Impact. [Variety]
Avert Your Eyes!: Uh-oh: The Love Guru director Marco Schnabel and Little Fockers writer Larry Stuckey are collaborating! The two are co-writing the high-school comedy Girlfriend in a Coma for Fox Atomic. We can only assume that neither Morrissey nor Douglas Coupland want anything to do with this surefire monstrosity. [HR]
Presidents and Apocalypse: Whole bunch of pilot news for you. ABC has picked up I, Claudia — about the early days of a future presidential candidate — Inside the Box, Grey’s Anatomy’s Shonda Rhimes’ war-correspondents drama, and an untitled pilot about a detective with a boy genius brother. Meanwhile, NBC’s future was looking up for a minute with the pickup of Day One, a post-apocalyptic survivor drama from Heroes and Lost writer Jesse Alexander, before the network preemptively blew its good vibes by picking up Who Do You Think You Are?, a, yaaaawn, genealogy-themed reality show. [Variety, Variety]
Sigma Calls: Brazilian director José Padilha (Bus 174, Elite Squad) is slotted to direct Universal’s The Sigma Protocols, based on Robert Ludlum’s last completed novel. The plot shares similarities with Ludlum’s Bourne series: namely, a dude running around Europe killing people while trying not to get killed himself. Scriptwriters Matt Holloway and Art Marcum (both of Iron Man), are updating the plot into the current economic climate – the main character is an expert in economic catastrophes known as “black swan events.†Fools! Don’t they know this whole economy thing is gonna blow over in a couple of weeks? [HR]
No Jolie: Warner Bros. is planning a Tomb Raider remake; the studio acquired the rights last month, which previously belonged to Paramount. There is no writer or director yet attached, but producers Dan Lin, Stephen Gilchrist, and Ian Livingstone are planning a sharp turn away from the two Angelina Jolie flicks from earlier this century. This is awesome because now even 11-year-olds get to complain about how Hollywood is raping their childhood. [HR]