Movie Minesweeper - The Little Bits Of Movie News Edition

Women in Animation, Chinatown, The Two Jakes, Southland Tales, Charlie Bartlett, Saw IV, Joel Schumacher, Johnnie To, Iron Man, Bertrand Tavernier, Avatar, Machete.

- The Women in Animation events were recorded and are now downloadable as MP3s. Feed your iPod well for a day or two. I saw the link at Cartoon Brew.

- Special edition DVDs of Chinatown and The Two Jakes are imminent.

- Southland Tales is to be released to North American cinemas on November 9th.

- Meanwhile, Charlie Bartlett has had its release date snatched back.

- As much as I don't like the Saw IV poster, it is easily the most intriguing one in the whole series. Infact, it asks some real questions and makes the plot seem a lot more interesting that I bet it actually turns out to be.

- Joel Schumacher is to remake Johnnie To's Breaking News. As it was with The Departed, this will probably make me appreciate the overrated original a whole lot more.

- Empire have a new Iron Man picture on their new cover.

- Bertrand Tavernier is writing a DVD blog. About French DVDs. In French. A must read for me, really, because it has so little competition that I'm aware of.

- Will Machete ever see the light of day? I sincerely doubt it, but the Babysitter Twins have been talking it up all the same.

- Ubisoft will be behind the Avatar videogame.

Fame Again

Fame is to get a relatively low budget remake, due out next Summer. A director and writer are in place, but not yet announced - feel free to put your guesses in the comments below. I'm thinking Tommy O'Haver, though Jamie Babbit would be my second stab. Joel Schumacher's just too busy for this right now, I think.

Some songs will remain, and I dare say at least one new tune will feature. How the plot will be affected by the whole Pop Stars, American Idol, X-Factor business, I do not know, but they'd do well not to ignore it.

Sandman Movie Chatter

The IESB sez: Joel Schumacher would fancy directing a film of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Luckily, that's as far as the story goes, there's no indication he'll ever get his wish or that this is more than idle chit-chat.

Phew.

The Sandman's sister Death is still slated to come to the big screen in a film written and directed by Gaiman, Executive Produced by Guillermo del Toro and starring Shia LaBeouf. There: that washed the taste of Schumacher out of my mouth.