Movie Minesweeper - The Voter Registration Freephone Edition

It's been too long since my last Minesweeping session. I've missed you.

- Fox sources are insisting that Hitman is still be to released with an R rating and that Xavier Gens has not been removed from the project.

- Amy Sherman-Palladino is to direct Sarah Jessica Parker in HBO's feature adaptation of Amy Cohen's memoir, The Late Bloomer's Revolution. Unfortunately it isn't adjunct to Tulip Fever.

- Persepolis has an okay poster.

- Plenty of Spider-Man/2/3 props, equipment and memorabilia are to be auctioned next Monday. 'A portion' of the proceeds will go to charity and the rest, of course, will be pocketed. Absolutely disgusting. Money grabbing thieves. What justification do they have for this at all? Aren't they paid enough?

- The Band's Visit has been booted from the Oscar Foreign Language longlist because its dialogue is over 50% in English. Sounds fair.

- An on set image from Guerilla shows Benicio del Toro in Che get up.

- Fisher Stevens is going to be on Lost.

- The inspiration for Sony's Play Doh bunnies has been identified.

- A number of creatives (Glen Morgan, Laeta Kalogridis, Jason Smilovic) have lost their handles on the Bionic Woman control console and now, Jason Katims is running the show.

- I reported a long time ago that David Milch's next show would be set in the 70s and be about cops - now we know it's about the Knapp investigation.

- John Rambo is now to be called Rambo To Hell and Back, which is probably more appropriate if slightly less literally accurate. I saw the link at AintItCool.

- The marketing plans for sex-doll comedy Lars and the Real Girl are to involve getting pastors to discuss the film in sermons. Really.

- Michael Madsen has filed a $10 million lawsuit against Innovative Artists on the grounds that the agency is still trying to collect for work he has negotiated since parting ways with them four years ago.

- Is Bryan Singer trying to talk Terrence Stamp into reprising the role of Zod in the next Superman film? Yes, indeed he is. And he won't take too much persuading, I'm sure.

- George Huang's Madman movie is still moving forward.

- Zack Snyder has cooked up the premise for The Last Photograph. In his plot, said photo prompts two men to enter war-torn Afghanistan. Does the snap seem to suggest somebody is alive when they are 'supposed to be' dead, I wonder? Kurt Johnstad is to script, Snyder may direct.

- Simon Pegg is to play Scotty in Star Trek. Hmmmm. I wouldn't have cast him, personally. And I think he's wonderful. Anyway, a thousand proper geeks (that's just about all there are left - witness the Grind House box office) exploded with joy when this broke 12 hours or so ago and that, in its way, was pretty exciting. Better casting, I think, is John Cho as Sulu.

- More digital projection of Paramount pictures, more of the time. In Europe, anyway.

- Brian De Palma has confirmed that, sadly, his film Redacted has been redacted with a closing montage of real casualties of war being rendered unrecognisable by having their faces covered by black marks. Of course, this also increases their power in many respects.

- Staying on my mother continent, Michael Ballhaus and Jean Luc Godard are to receive special gongs at the European Film Awards this December.

- Tobe Hooper is to direct the film of From a Buick 8. The script is by Johnathon Schaech and Richard Chizmar.

- George Clooney and Grant Heslov are to produce a film adaptation of Ole Steinhauer's spy thriller The Tourist.

- Warners have snapped up the movie rights to School of Fear on the sole basis of a proposal for a series of four kid's books. The premise revolves around a summer camp that tries to cure kids of their phobias. The first book is due two years from now.

- Frank Langella has also climbed inside Richard Kelly's Box. This should be Kelly's best film so far, and by a considerable distance, because the source story is a real humdinger.

- Empire will star Will Smith as a global media mogul, be written by John Logan and directed by Michael Mann. When's it out? I think I might have to wash my hair.

- The Sims, and previously the far superior Sim City, creator Will Wright is to have the honour of BAFTA fellowship bestowed upon him.

- Carice van Houten has slipped into the cast lists of both Body of Lies and Repossession Mambo.

- Marc Fienberg's Play the Game is shooting now. Andy Griffith stars as an oldie taught how to hit on girls by his grandson - played, I believe, by Paul Campbell. Clint Howard, Doris Roberts and Marla Sokoloff are also onboard.

- Warners have optioned Brock Clarke's just published, and brilliantly titled novel An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England.

- Paul Greengrass is now also linked to They Marched into Sunlight, a Vietnam war film.

Back shortly with more.