Final Twilight Movie Sets November 2012 Release

It was either going to be June or November 2012. Summit has chosen the latter. Can't say it’s a foolish call when you look at the number of big-dick tentpoles opposing studios will unleash.

Summit has officially set a November 16, 2012 release date for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part II. That'll make it two days shy of a year when the next-to-last will hit your multiplexes in 2011. That time period has also been kind to the franchise in the past with the successes of the first two Twilight flicks.

My only question is will the "Twilight phenomenon" have died down by the time the swan-song is released? Plenty would love to see it crash and burn simply because *Ick!* girls like Twilight. But it's perfectly fine when fanboys jerk off to a franchise. A strange breed they are, indeed.

MGM Hires Writers for Outer Limits Movie

No resolution in sight for their debt, few studios appear to want them, money-making properties like Bond and The Hobbit are chasing their tail and Cabin in the Woods and Red Dawn are praying for the day they'll be released. But hey, at least MGM has enough dough for an Outer Limits movie.

Common sense would say to the contrary. But the trades report that hasn't stopped the studio from commissioning writers to adapt the revered anthology series. Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (alumni of the "soon to be ending" Saw franchise – like that'll stick!) are onboard.

Their script is due by this October whereupon maybe things are a tad clearer on the lion's future. Doubtful, we'll still be writing articles on how Peter Jackson insists The Hobbit is still happening for Christmas 2012 (Boy, did that ship sail awhile back!) and Daniel Craig remains committed to waiting for his third 007 outing.

And no, this Outer Limits flick (regardless of the quality of D&M's screenplay) won't happen either.

Damn You, Inception!

Matthew Vaughn tells the Los Angeles Times he like totally had an idea for X-Men: First Class not unlike Inception:

"I saw 'Inception,' which I loved. But my heart sank when I saw that a few of the ideas we had were up [on the screen]. So it's either leave it in and look as if you're copying or change things. We completely ripped out about 12 pages of the script and the storyboards."

The scene in question involved a "dream-space combat" harkening back to the comics with the young Professor X (here played by James McAvoy) and others with "spinning rooms and other physics-bending imagery."

Why even come clean about this prior to filming commencing? Maybe because you're trying to add even more nerd-cred to your prequel/reboot/whatever? Buddy, you don't need that at this point. The more we hear about it, the better it sounds.

Jack Bender Directing Jack Ryan Reboot 2.0 Moscow

Paramount's latest crack at reviving the Jack Ryan franchise has landed itself a director.

Vulture reports Jack Bender (an alum of Paramount certified Golden Boy J.J. Abrams, having directed episodes of Felicity, Alias and Lost) will step behind the camera for the first time on a feature since oddly enough Child's Play 3. Not an unwise move, get a director who works well with the material, obviously has skill/talent and will be controllable against executives and a producer like Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

Moscow is the second attempt at rebooting Tom Clancy's CIA do-gooder since the Ben Affleck headlining Sum of All Fears. This time around, Chris Pine will star.

Guillermo del Toro Gave Up Van Helsing for Mountains of Madness

The short-version, this confirms what Pajiba first reported a few weeks back.

When Guillermo del Toro got the go-ahead to direct At the Mountains of Madness, that meant whatever he was working on at the moment (and boy does he have plenty of things in development) was thrown to the waste-side. In this case, the Mexican director was hard at work on a new Van Helsing for Universal.

Here's the twist (i.e. the new info) courtesy of Vulture. Tom Cruise was (still is, actually) wearing the Producer hat and could very well star as the vampire-hunter. This isn't related to the 2004 Stephen Sommers/Hugh Jackman stinker. But it's odd considering Cruise and Jackman are physically similar – minus the height.

Del Toro's involvement was about the only thing intriguing about this reboot (Is that the right term for it?) If he's gone, good luck at finding anyone near as equipped for this material and with the talent/skill. If this doesn’t crawl out of Development Hell, color me surprised.

Liam Neeson Resigns from the Lincoln Presidency

There goes Mr. Lincoln.

For a couple of years, Liam Neeson was attached to play our sixteenth president in a biopic to directed by Steven Spielberg, co-starring Sally Field as the First Lady and written by Tony Kushner. I even recall a press release announcing a February 2009 release. Obviously that came and went with no movie on screens.

Neeson tells Digital Spy he’s calling it a day on working with the Beard again (at least on this project):

"I'm not actually playing Lincoln now. I was attached to it for a while, but it's now I'm past my sell-by date."

Spielberg is about to begin production on his latest Warhorse for release next August. There's no indication just where (and when) Lincoln fits into his current schedule.

Lethal Weapon 5 Suddenly Looks Real Good for Mel Gibson!

What is the road of salvation for Mel Gibson and his crumbling career? Staying off the radar for awhile? Make another public apology – possibly donate to some special-needs group? Gluing his mouth shut? Directing another great epic showcasing his story-telling abilities?

Or better yet, how about finally starring in Lethal Weapon 5!? Hey, that'll make everyone forget the bullshit you've pulled, Mel.

As per What's Playing, word is talks have sprung forth once again between Gibson and producer Joel Silver - even after he killed the project five years ago.

If memory serves me correct, Gibson balked at how series-director Richard Donner was not asked to participate and he basically said, "Donner directs or I don't it!" This was despite a script having been penned by Shane Black and Danny Glover seemingly back on board too. Of course, that was back when he could afford to be that picky. Nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to hear someone say Gibson couldn't benefit from doing Lethal Weapon 5.

We're still in the midst of the 80s nostalgia fest and what better way to bring it back than seeing an AARP card-carrying Riggs and Murtaugh fighting South African terrorists. Boy, does that movie play different these days, huh? But does anyone think Warner Brothers would want to make it now or any of Gibson's co-stars (like Glover) want to be anywhere near him?

Mel Gibson's Crazy Ass Too Much For DiCaprio

To which the world gives out a collective, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm shocked!"

Radar Online (responsible for leaking those Foot-in-Mouth audio tapes) says Leonardo DiCaprio has washed his hands clean of Gibson. He was supposed to star in an untitled Viking epic, written by William Monahan and helmed by the Mad one himself. Last I recall production was expected to get going near the end of this year.

Stick a fork in those plans. DiCaprio (coming off the successes of Shutter Island and current commercial-smash Inception) is on to green pastures with directors with less dirty laundry being aired out. He'll instead headline Hoover for Clint Eastwood. Granted, I'd have rather seen this Viking project personally and, at least, he's taking a breather away from constant-collaborator Martin Scorsese.

Unless Gibson opts to bankroll this himself, good luck on finding financers.

J.J. Abrams Teaching Us of the World's First Robot

Bitched plenty of times (too much, frankly) about how J.J. Abrams slapping on another project to produce has lost its muster. It’s normal for any filmmaker (producer or director) to have multiple projects under development. Just feels like you throw a rock and there’s something else added to Abrams' growing docket to produce.

Heat Vision pegs the latest to be Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel, based on the graphic novel by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett. It tells the "true story" of the world's first robot, meet-ups with T.E. Lawrence and Theodore Roosevelt, involvement in silent movies and fighting in WWI. Basically, it's Zelig with a robot –a great selling point, if it were being pitched to me.

Check out this trailer for the graphic novel to give you an idea:

Fantastic Four Reboot to Feature 100% CG Ben Grimm

Goodbye, silly-looking makeup effects and hello, fancy-pants CG/motion-capture work. Thanks, Avatar!

Screen Rant reports 20^th Century Fox is headed in that direction for Ben Grimm/The Thing in their planned Fantastic Four Reborn reboot. You can expect to hear "It's clobbering time!" in 100% computer-generated goodness. Once they get going on the property that is. Their spies say not to expect to hear diddily dick for awhile as they’re too busy punching the clock on the fast-tracked (and no doubt, effects-heavy) X-Men: First Class.

Normally, this is where we'd bitch and whine asking, "Why can't they do everything practical nowadays?!" But then the defendant (Fox) would showcase the look of Grimm in the Tim Story-directed FF films as Exhibit A (done via makeup, rubber-suits and the works), and the jury would rule in their favor before seeing any other evidence.

The truth is even by comic-book standards, the Fantastic Four is just so Goddamn silly. It feels like a lost cause to reboot this of all franchises.