– Sam Raimi, through his Ghost House Pictures production company, will produce the horror film “Refuge” for Mandate Pictures, about a remote town being terrorised by a Yeti. British writer Tom De Ville has written the script, and music video helmer Corin Hardy, who has worked for the likes of Keane and The Prodigy, and whose video for The Horrors can be seen below, will direct. Unusually, a short film with the same premise will be made first, so that Hardy can ‘refine his vision.’
– Platinum Studios, the comic company who provided the material for the upcoming likes of “Cowboys & Aliens” and “Atlantis Rising,” are developing another title, “Mal Chance”, with producer Tony Krantz, whose credits paradoxically include “Mullholland Drive” and “24.” The comic centres on Lola, a member of a clan of assassins who tries to bring down a powerful gangster with the help of an FBI agent. Which doesn’t sound at all generic… Scott Murphy, writer of the “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated series, will adapt.
– We’ve seen anthropomorphic fish, cars and toys in the last few years, so it was only a matter of time before the plants got involved. Now, Chris Wedge, director of the original “Ice Age” and “Robots,” will adapt William Joyce’s children book “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs” for Fox Animation, with the simplified title “Leaf Men.” The project was originally set up at Fox, who put it in turnaround, and Wedge came close to setting the project up at Pixar before the original studio snatched it back. Frankly, we find Wedge’s films fairly soulless, so we’d rather not have him besmirching the good name of Pixar… The story, which sounds remarkably like “A Bug’s Life,” is about a group of insects battling an evil spider queen, who enlist the help of the mythical leaf men of the title. Incidentally, did you know “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” is now the third-biggest grossing film overseas of all time? Madness.
– Slash Film was briefly reporting that Philip Seymour Hoffman was rumored to be joining the cast of “Let Me In,” “Cloverfield” director Matt Reeves’ remake of “Let The Right One In,” but this has been denied by a representative of Overture Films. It’s a shame, as Hoffman makes everything he’s in slightly better – even something like “Along Came Polly” is worth seeing purely for the actor’s Olympic-level pratfall. Slash Film’s original report also stated that Kodi Smit McPhee (“The Road”) and Chloe Moretz (“(500) Days of Summer”) would play the leads. McPhee’s been rumored for a while, but Moretz is a new name, although we’re not convinced – checking their sources, this seems to come from Moretz’s mother posting that she’d been cast in a new film on IMDB, and then the usual gang of mouthbreathers on the boards deciding that the project was “Let Me In.” There’s likely to be an official announcement later in the week, so we’ll keep you posted. Production Weekly also suggests that the title has been changed to “Fish Head,” which is either a codename, or the worst decision in the history of cinema.