Disney is on the verge of putting Rob Marshall in as director of a fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” a move that puts the film on track for a 2010 production start, with Johnny Depp back as Captain Jack Sparrow.
Last night, during the Hollywood premiere of Dunstan’s The Collector, I reconnected with the Twisted Pictures producing team who were able to confirm what I’ve been hearing about since January. A 3-D Saw sequel is coming…and it’s likely going to be part 7.
HBO announced the renewal of its entire summer lineup of original programing, ordering another round of freshman comedy “Hung,” veteran comedy “Entourage” and hit vampire drama “True Blood.”
Network executives addressing the critics at the Television Critics Association’s semiannual press tour said “Hung” will get a second season, “True Blood” a third and “Entourage” a seventh. The new seasons will debut in 2010, with “Blood” planned for summer.
Twentieth Century Fox is resuscitating its “Alien” franchise. The studio has hired Jon Spaihts to write a prequel that has Ridley Scott attached to return as director.
Spaihts got the job after pitching the studio and Scott Free, which will produce the film.
The film is set up to be a prequel to the groundbreaking 1979 film that Scott directed. It will precede that film, in which the crew of a commercial towing ship returning to Earth is awakened and sent to respond to a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. The crew discovers too late that the signal generated by an empty ship was meant to warn them.
Michael C. Hall will topline indie “East Fifth Bliss,” directed by Michael Knowles.
Hall will play a 35-year-old whose static life comically unravels when he embarks on an awkward relationship with the 18-year-old daughter of a former high school classmate.
Knowles adapted the script with Douglas Light from Light’s novel of the same title, which received the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award for Fiction.
