#374. Movie Buzz

1. Avatar's tagline awaits
Well, most of you would have heard the buzz by now from the TIME magazine writer who was blown away by a sneak peek at footage from James Cameron's due-in-December sci-fi epic Avatar.The CGI was reportedly so well done that the writer could not distinguish between live-action and animation.If that's the case, then Avatar may truly live up to its tagline, which was revealed recently at the ShoWest trade event, according to ComingSoon.net.

The tagline: AN ALL NEW WORLD AWAITS.

Seeing is believing, so we're not holding our breath till then - and unless they actually bring in a real IMAX 3D print of the movie, instead of those blown-up 35mm prints.Avatar is about a former soldier forced to settle and exploit a planet that's rich in biodiversity. He then joins the world's indigenous beings in a fight for survival against the colonizing forces.Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana and Michelle Rodriguez are among the cast members.

2. More young blood for Twilight sequel
New Moon, the sequel to Twilight, has gained another young vampire - Jamie Campbell-Bower, of Rocknrolla, who will play Caius, one of the Volturi vamps led by Dakota Fanning.IMDB reports that Campbell-Bower, 20, will be off to Canada in June to join the production on location where shooting has already started.The young man has yet to read any of the novels, so he'll have lots to do between now and then.

3. Scribes Assemble! Marvel plans boost for second-stringers
If you're a fan of lesser known Marvel Comics superheroes like Black Panther, Dr Strange, Nighthawk and the Vision, here's some encouraging news.Marvel Entertainment is preparing to call for a meeting of scriptwriters who are keen to tackle projects involving these second-stringers, Variety reports.The writers would be asked to come up with good scripts as well as creative ways in which Marvel can drum up interest in these properties among moviegoers at large.Up to five writers each year would be selected to develop pitches into scripts, including those currently working on Marvel's comics.

4. Giving vampires' image a lift
If 30 Days of Night proved that screen vampires could be horrific again, then the upcoming Elevator Men is out to show that these bloodsuckers don't really have romance in mind when it comes to dealing with us blood-banks-on-legs.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Summit Entertainment - which ironically produces the lovey-dovey vamp-gal romance series Twilight - has picked up this rather grim script by former DreamWorks exec Marc Haimes.

The report said Haimes wanted to show the dark side of what happens when people try to get close to nasty things ... like vampires.The bloodsuckas of Elevator Men do really cruel things to humans, playing traumatising mind games with them before - well, you know. And sure enough, one of those games apparently DOES involve an elevator.

5. The Thing about script revisions ....
Mark the name Eric Heisserer. The upcoming scriptwriter may soon be known for rewriting remakes.According to reports, Heisserer has been tapped to revise Ron Moore's script for the upcoming remake of John Carpenter's The Thing (which itself was a remake).And, says BloodyDisgusting.com, Heisserer was also tapped earlier to rewrite Wesley Strick's screenplay for the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.Given that Moore (who counts Battlestar GalacticA among his credits) and Strick (Arachnophobia, Wolf, Doom) have established genre credentials, this Heisserer fella must be pretty good ... in the studio execs' view at any rate ... to be given the job of polishing their material.

6. Snakes + Jackson = not what you think
The old formula of tossing in snakes with a dude named Jackson is being rehashed, but not in the way you think.Percy Jackson is the fella's name, and he is the human son of a god in an upcoming Greek mythology-based fantasy movie of that title.The snakes come in the form of a writhing bunch of the crawlers, perched atop the head of none other than Uma Thurman. Yep, the killer of Bill will play Medusa while GoldenEye adversaries Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean are on board as Chiron and Zeus respectively.Variety reports that the Chris Columbus-directed movie will also star Melina Kanakaredes (CSI:NY) and Kevin McKidd (Rome) as Athena and Poseidon respectively.In the movie, Percy - the 12-year-old half-human son of Poseidon - will embark on a quest to recover Zeus' stolen lightning bolt and prevent a war among the gods.Well, we fans will find out for ourselves when the movies are out.

7. Get those @#% aliens off my plane
Die Hard 4.0 director Len Wiseman is set to produce DreamWorks’ mass-alien-abduction tale Nonstop, which is about an airliner full of about-to-be-lost souls. As in, they’re about to be snatched by extraterrestrials in mid-air.If that’s not enough hyphenation in one sentence, think Close-Encounters-Meets-The-Langoliers. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it doesn’t turn out to be Flightplan-9-From-Outer-Space.

8. Facing down Five Killers
Ashton Kutcher, Tom Selleck, Katherine Heigl and Catherine O'Hara will tangle with Five Killers, a comedy from Lionsgate scheduled for a 2010 release.The movie, to be directed by Robert Luketic (21), begins filming this month, according to ComingSoon.net.Kutcher plays a hitman who retires in order to enjoy a life of wedded bliss with a computer technician, played by Heigl.Years later, their togetherness is disrupted when someone puts a contract out on him. Selleck and O'Hara will play Heigl's parents.

9. Flushing demons
Sam Fell, who directed the animated films Flushed Away and The Tale of Despereaux, is up for the live-action teen horror flick Demonkeeper for Fox 2000.According to Variety, the movie is based on a novel by Royce Buckingham and will be about a Seattle teenager who inherits the job of looking after a demon-infested house.When he sneaks out for some "me time" one night, kids break into the place and unleash its most fearsome occupant, The Beast. No, not the new Patrick Swayze TV series..

10. True Grit in her eyes
The Oscar-winning Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men have signed to remake the 1969 John Wayne western True Grit, for which the late star won an Oscar as aging one-eyed lawman Rooster Cogburn.Variety reports that the remake will follow the original novel by Charles Portis more closely.The story concerns a 14-year-old girl who follows two lawmen through Native American territory in search of her father's killer.The remake will apparently be more faithful to the book in that it will be told from the girl's perspective. No casting has been announced yet.