With “Star Trek” poised to be an imminent success (reviews and buzz are great, even we liked it a lot), producer Damon Lindelof is already talking about the prospects of a sequel. “[Alex Kurtzman], [Roberto Orci] and I are going to be writing it together. We’ve started preliminary talks with J.J., but obviously it’s almost jinxing it to get too far down the road. We want it to come out, we hope it does well, and then we’ll take it to the next year. We’re a little curious as to what the audience wants. We’ll start to get a sense of what they are responding to in the movie. We want to write it for them too.” God, please don’t. The worst parts of the otherwise solid “Star Trek” were the parts that obviously pandered to the core audience. Jettison that stuff and get on with making strong sci-fi action films. [Coming Soon]
After successfully mentoring Juan Antonio Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” Guillermo del Toro will continue this patronage work – this time with Andy and Barbara Muschietti. The two are writing a script based on their acclaimed Spanish-language short “Mama” with Andy to direct under the tutelage of del Toro. The film centers on two girls, Victoria and Lily, who are on the run from a ghostly woman who appears to be their mother in a Gothic home. Filming may also take place in New Zealand to enable del Toro to assist in its production whilst working on “The Hobbit.” [THR]
Writer Alex Litvak has been revealed as the new scribe for the Robert Rodriguez produced “Predators.” The proposed sequel to the popular sci-fi franchise will follow a team of commandos who face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters. Litvak is most likely rewriting the script which Rodriguez wrote some 15-odd years ago. [BloodyDisgusting]
Two more names to add to the growing list of young actors reading for Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor”: Brothers Liam (“Knowing”) and Chris Hemsworth (“Star Trek”). [Movieline]
A new picture from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s “Citizen’s Game” has been unveiled. It features Gerard Butler and Michael C. Hall. [Gerard Butler Dot Net]
Dwayne Johnson isn’t leading McG’s “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” after all. Of the casting rumor, McG responded, “I don’t know where that came from. I’ve never spoken to Dwayne Johnson. You can be the first to report that I have no idea where that came from. I wish him every success, but I never spoke to Dwayne about this.” McG is still chasing Will Smith. [SciFiWire]
The nominees for the 2009 MTV Movie Awards have been released with “Twilight” earnings the most nods. Enough said. [MTV]
Park Chan-Wook’s “Thirst” has taken the South Korean box office by storm beating out “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” who were no easy beat as the film had its own South Korean connection: actor Daniel Henney. [Variety]
Original “Wanted” scribe Chris Morgan has revealed he will still be apart of the writing process for the sequel despite Evan Spiliotopoulos being handed writing duties: “Evan is going to go ahead and write the story that we came up with and I’m probably going to come on later.” Morgan couldn’t jump on board from day one due to “commitments to ‘Gears of War’ and the samurai movie [he’s] doing at Universal.” [MTV]
Could this Rihanna demo, called “Terminator,” eventually finds it’s way on the “Terminator Salvation” soundtrack? That’s the rumor. We’re glad to hear it sounds completely original and not at all like a rehash of all her other material, nope. [AceShowbiz]
