The Spice Of Life

You've gotta love Variety. Every day, they line up all of the big announcements - who will direct what, who will star, who will pay for it, so on and so on, and then the internet, basically, pillages this information and reprises it on countless sites and blogs.

Like this one, I suppose.

In the last 24hrs or so, my favourite bits and pieces of Variety have been the following:

Gavin Hood's Rendition is to start filming soon with Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Peter Sarsgaard in the cast. The plot revolves around a CIA agent becoming disillusioned with his vocation after seeing unethical behaviour on the part of the secret-police. Of course, not just any unethical behaviou - he'd have quit on day one. This must be something particularly dodgy.

Walden Media are planning another of those Walden Media-type films - that is to say, an adaptation of a children's book ready to be leavened with Christian subtext. This one is called The Dark is Rising and has David Cunningham attached as director. Lately, he gave us that The Path to 9/11 TV show, so this seems like something of a turnabout in genre terms if not politics.

Gregg Chabot and Kevin Peterka are the screenwriters responsible for The Mark, an in-devlopment Will Smith vehicle that they spun out from an 'idea' by Rob Liefield (practically inverting the comics/film polarity of the Guy Ritchie story from a few days back). While The Mark waits to be made, they've been busy selling an untitled supernatural thriller spec script. I'm betting we see this second screenplay go into production before the first, even though the world needs another medicore supernatural thriller like I need A Hole in My Heart.