— While many studios are halting development altogether at the moment, New Regency have a fairly healthy slate, putting at least four movies into production early next year, including Rob Cohen’s period actioner “Medieval,” and the excruciatingly-titled “Mother Trucker,” from “Hustle & Flow” director Craig Brewer. The biggest news in Variety‘s piece on the company, however, is the news that director Bill Condon is now attached to “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” The script, which ranked highly on the Brit List a few weeks back, and comes from Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” scribe Simon Beaufoy, is an adaptation of a bestselling novel about a cuckolded civil servant in the Middle East. Condon’s career seems to be on something of a curve — we love “Gods & Monsters”, “Kinsey” is OK, and “Dreamgirls” is more or less unbearable. This is promising though, although it’s unclear where it’ll come in relation to the Richard Pryor biopic he’s also circling. We have the script to “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” and we’ll try to have a look in the next few weeks.
— Director George Tillman (“Notorious”) has bought the rights to the graphic novel “I Saw You: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections,” with the intention of turning into it into a romantic comedy. The book compiles a collection of stories of missed connection romantic ads – you know, “I saw you on the L-train, you were in your Subway uniform. We locked eyes for a second and smiled”, or “I saw you in your apartment, through my binoculars, last night, and every night since you moved in.” An excerpt from the book is on the right. If Tillman can figure out a way to make it charming, rather than creepy, it’s pretty good subject material for a rom-com, we guess.
— Empire has premiered the first shots from the period thriller “Tracker,” which, as we reported last week, recently began filming in New Zealand. Ray Winstone plays a Boer war veteran, tracking a fugitive (Temeura Morrison) accused of killing a British soldier. It’s exciting to see these two head to head — anyone who remembers Morrison from “Once Were Warriors,” rather than the Star Wars prequels, knows he’s an actor to be reckoned with. Empire has pictures of both stars over at their site.
— Warner Bros have purchased the golfing novel “Missing Links” for Jay Lavender (“The Break-Up”) to adapt. The book, by Rick Reilly, follows a group of keen golfers who play at a run-down course in Boston, who compete to join an elite golfing club. Steve Carell will produce, and, although there’s no mention of this in the Variety story, will presumably star, if it works out.