Alex Proyas Being Hunted For Silver Surfer Gig

Alex Proyas is rather busy at the moment - his Dark City director's cut is a more ambitious overhaul than first thought, including new effects work; he's making the Dracula prequel, currently being called Dracula Year Zero, and joining Mark Romanek in rebooting Universal's Monstrous sideline; and now, what I thought I already knew has more backers, because he seems to be squarely in the frame to direct the Silver Surfer movie.

This is by no means the first I've heard of this, but it is the first 'mainstream' news source I've seen lend credence to the grapevine mumblings. Adding the rumours into the mix, the deal seems to be this: J. Michael Straczynski is currently working on a script for a Silver Surfer film, Avi Arad is negotiating for Proyas to sign, shooting is likely to take place in Australia in the second half of next year and there's no sign of The Fantastic Four anywhere in the film's concept.

Proyas and Straczynski should be enough to keep this film far away from, say, Scorpion King levels of irrelevence - or, for that matter Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer levels of incompetence.

Fraser And Weisz Snubbing Third Mummy

I haven't been keeping up on the projected third Mummy film, so excuse me if this is old news, but I've had it confirmed for me this morning that neither Brendan Fraser or Rachel Weisz will be appearing - at all - in Rob Cohen's upcoming snorefest. A source near the film dropped me a line directly and as I've been skimming Mummy news at best, it certainly seemed to be a bit of new news, and I thought you'd like it.

Apparently, neither Fraser nor Weisz liked the script at all and didn't find it at all hard to root out better projects to do. I mean, there's always wet paint somewhere and hair washing, if done properly, can provide a fully engaging experience. Suffice to say, they have now definitively walked away, brushing their hands clean.

The film will now centre on their characters' son - which was, I think, common knowledge already. It's going to be set in the East too, right? A few bits and bobs have been sinking in.

At this stage, nothing about the project makes it sound any better or worse than the previous two installments. Frankly, I always preferred the kitsch panto of the The Scorpion King spin off anyway.