– Following the lead of fellow horror maestro Guillermo Del Toro, who launched new family horror label ‘Double Dare You’ at Disney last month, Sam Raimi’s production company Ghost House is setting up a new imprint, “Spooky Pictures,” which will focus on making thrillers for family audiences (sort of like the family sitcom fun of “Drag Me To Hell”?). First up is a remake of “The Substitute,” the Danish thriller from director Ole Bornedal (whose film “Just Another Love Story” is also being redone, as we reported earlier in the week) about a sixth grade class convinced that their substitute teacher is an evil alien. Scott Derrickson (“The Day the Earth Stood Still”), pictured left at the 2008 Worst Facial Hair Awards, will helm.
– Currently rolling in Spain is the latest film from actor/director/former-Young-Gun Emilio Estevez, “The Way.” The drama, financed entirely with Spanish money, stars Estevez’s father Martin Sheen as a Californian doctor who travels to Europe to take the ashes of his estranged son on the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. Also starring are James Nesbitt (“Bloody Sunday”), Deborah Kara Unger (“Crash”), Angela Molina (“Broken Embraces”) and Eusebio Lazaro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”).
– Director Chris Wedge (“Ice Age”) announced his return to Fox’s Blue Sky Studios last week for the animation “Leaf Men”, and he’s now added something else to his slate – an adaptation of the God-sim videogame “Spore.” The game, which comes from “Sim City” creator Will Wright, allows the player to create their own single cell organism, which then evolves into weird and wonderful creatures, which in turn are able to develop into an entire civilisation. So, while we find the idea of a film adaptation entirely redundant, we sort of hope it happens, just to watch the Creationists lose their minds over a family movie about evolution. Greg Erb and Jason Oremland, who wrote Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog,” will pen the script.
Dennis Hopper is feeling “better,” after being rushed to a New York hospital this week following flu-like symptoms. The 73-year-old actor has been released.