— Coming Soon reported this a few days back, but Variety have today confirmed the news that “Precious” director Lee Daniels will direct a screen version of the musical “Miss Saigon,” for Cameron Mackintosh and Tom Cruise’s former producing partner Paula Wagner. Frankly, we’re dreading this: the stage show, from “Les Miserables” creators Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil is a glib, sentimental retelling of “Madame Butterfly,” that’s basically an excuse to make a helicopter turn up on stage, and it seems to play to director Daniels’ worst instincts.
— Chris Massoglia, the star of the about-to-open “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant,” which by all accounts is better than it looks, will play Zac Efron’s brother in “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud.” Efron will play a young man grieving for his dead brother, who starts to discover that he can talk with his ghost. “Igby Goes Down” helmer Burr Steers reteams with Efron, after their collaboration on “17 Again” earlier in the year, although this sounds a little darker, and hopefully closer to Steers’ underrated debut. The picture’s currently filming in Vancouver, with Kim Basinger and Amanda Crew (“The Haunting in Connecticut”) also in the cast.
— Actor Hayes MacArthur (yeah, we’ve not heard of him either…) and his writing partner Michelle McGrath have sold a pitch entitled “Substitute Husband,” to Dreamworks. The plot’s being kept under wraps, but, considering the title, we imagine it’s a romantic comedy of some kind.
— “Deadwood” co-stars Garret Dillahunt and Molly Parker are reteaming for the indie drama “Oliver Sherman,” written and directed by short film helmer Ryan Redford. Dillahunt will play an Iraq War veteran searching for the man who saved his life in combat. Donal Logue will also appear in the movie, which began shooting a couple of weeks ago. God, we miss “Deadwood.”
— Paramount have appointed busy bee Carl Ellsworth, writer of the recent “Last House on the Left” and “Red Dawn” remakes, as well as the adaptation of “Y: The Last Man,” to rewrite the action-thriller “C.O.D.” The movie, originally written by Lars Jacobson, tracks a New York City bike messenger co-opted into a terrorist threat.