Mel Gibson has had an interesting decade in film. He hasn’t acted since 2003, but will return this January in the generic action-revenge film “Edge of Darkness” and then later in a promising comedy directed by Jodie Foster (yes, that Jodie Foster) titled “The Beaver”. However, during these 6 years of no acting, Gibson directed one of the biggest and most controversial films of all time, “The Passion of the Christ” and then a much less controversial, but arguably better film “Apocalypto”.

Not only that, but the guy was ballsy enough to do both films in foreign languages, ancient languages even, so that basically no one on the planet could watch these films in their first language. While his next film probably will not be in some ancient Norse language or something, it is definitely big news because of the talent involved. Both “The Passion” and “Apocalypto” were devoid of big name actors, but Variety reports that this new film about Viking culture will star “A-lister” Leonardo DiCaprio.

DiCaprio has been a very busy man lately, especially when you consider all the films he’s producing with his company Appian Way. From an update of “Little Red Riding Hood”, to a much awaited live action “Akira”, to a big screen adaptation of “A Brave New World”, Appian Way has a slew of huge projects.  He has 31 titles in development on IMDB pro, and he also has 2 films he stars in coming out this year (“Shutter Island” and “Inception”) with 3 more slated for next year, and now this newly announced film as well.

On top of DiCaprio’s involvement, high profile, Academy Award winning screen writer, William Monahan will take on the screenplay. He’s most famous for “The Departed”, but also wrote “Kingdom of Heaven”, (A mediocre theatrical release, but a brilliant Director’s Cut, i.e. his screenplay rocked) and recently, the disappointing  ”Body of Lies” which also starred DiCaprio. We’ll update you on the project as soon as more news is released.

Source: http://worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=16114&count=0

I was on a business trip in Italy when the driver of the car indicated to me that we were traveling along the Appian Way. I was a bit stunned. Here I was on a business trip, where you typically see the airport, the inside of a taxi, a hotel and meeting room, all accouterments of the modern world, and I was cruising in a car on a road that was more than 2000 years old! I asked them to stop the car and I got out and touched the road. Majestic old trees lined both sides of the cobblestone straight as an arrow roadway and as we made our way along it, I got chills as I thought about the Roman Legions perhaps marching along the very road I now traversed. This was the roadway that helped Rome become an empire. Infrastructure matters, especially when it is a game changer – no one else had roadways like the Romans, allowing them to achieve things that others could not.

Let’s do a thought exercise. What would you do differently in your life if you really stretched out your time horizon, say you knew that you were going to live for 1000 years? Today we all seem to operate with a fairly short time horizon. I know I am thrilled if I get 10 years out of a car, others itch for a new one after 3-5 years. How would you feel if you knew you would be driving for the better part of 1000 years? What would you demand in a car? Does the Buick Century all of a sudden become more attractive; perhaps the Millennium series of various Dodge vehicles or maybe you would only shop the Infinity brand?

How would you educate yourself? Maybe I could take my time getting through college, say 50 years, and finally figure out calculus. It would probably take me that long, but then maybe new avenues would open to me. A Ph.D. would become the equivalent of a high school diploma at best and a new higher standard of academic excellence would need to be invented. (A new variation on an old joke – “What do you call someone with a Master’s degree?” – and the punch line is “a dropout”.)

What would you look for in a house or other dwelling? Only a 20-year guarantee on that roof? Can I get a roof with a 200-year guarantee? After all I don’t want to have to replace the roof constantly; I need something a little more durable. If your time horizon is 1000 years, how would you handle issues that today are considered relatively rare? For instance a 100 year storm may happen 10 times in your lifetime and be absolutely devastating to homes and buildings in its path, buildings that are not built to standards to last 1000 years. What about economic cycles or long term development, research or construction projects? How about natural resources? What natural resources are we using today in such a fashion that they will be sustainable in 1000 years time?

Why do you think banks are usually built out of bricks and stone, or with strong looking cement or marble columns? The bank wants to give the impression of longevity that they will be around for 1000 years. How would you feel about going into a bank branch located in a trailer on wheels to deposit your hard earned money? Might make you hesitate. Interesting things happen with a long-term time horizon. For instance if you deposited $1000.00 in a CD at 3% interest for 1000 years it would be worth $6,874,240,231,169,627.00 at maturity. That is 6 almost 7 quadrillion and represents a lot of money. But in 1000 years a quadrillion might not buy what it used to. Just to keep up with inflation at 3.01% during those 1000 years, you would need $7,575,079,084,827,028.00. In other words, .01% inflation above your interest rate would put you almost 1 quadrillion dollars down in purchasing power. What a bummer.     

What about relationships? Would you behave any differently if you knew that the argument you just had might linger for 1000 years? Would we not get into as many arguments or would they just last longer? A mother might say, “Johnny, go to your room and don’t come out until you are prepared to be civil to you sister”. Five years later…. Would we still enter into marriage or would some new form of relationship between men and women emerge? The average marriage today is said to last about 7 years and 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Daunting numbers if you might be around for 1000 years. Say you held off and did not get married until you were 100 years old, with an average marriage lasting 7 years that would mean you would have about 128 marriages in your lifetime. While there are a few celebrities today who approach that number for most of us something would have to change. (I must make mention here that my 28^th wedding anniversary is coming up and I have no intention on aligning myself to the average duration of a marriage.)

It seems like our time horizons are getting shorter and shorter and that impacts our organizations and our careers as well. Public companies today are focused upon making next quarter’s goals, a 3 month time horizon, and those that do not are severely punished in the marketplace. Today’s marketplace clearly does not reward organizations for taking a long-term view.

Take a step back for a moment and take a very long-term view. How would you build a company if you wanted it to last for 1000 years? What would you do differently? How would it be structured? What emphasis would you place on product development and research, on sales and marketing, on quality, on maintaining its reputation? How would you recruit? What personnel policies and practices would you put into place? What competencies must the organization develop that would make it enduring? What would be sacred, unchanging during the life span of the organization and what would be malleable? And how much sense would it make to focus on the next quarter if you were aiming for a 1000 year time horizon?

There was an interview in a documentary about the construction of The Large Hadron Collider at CERN that sticks in my mind. CERN is part of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The Large Hadron Collider is a new piece of equipment coming online (June 2008 is the estimated date for the first experiments to occur) and represents the culmination of a 13 year design and construction process and an engineering tour-de-force that has pushed the state-of-the art to the limit. The Large Hadron Collider will allow physicists to go where they have never been able to go before and to test out theories on the fundamental make-up of the universe. A construction engineer who was involved in building the Large Hadron Collider was being interviewed and in the project construction reviews he indicated that he is continually asked, “what unforeseen events or obstacles have you been able to foresee?” You could literally see his blood pressure rise as he turned red thinking about what was in his mind clear lunacy to ask about how he has foreseen the unforeseen. If you were building an organization with a 1000 year time horizon, while you might not be able to foresee the unforeseen your organization certainly needs to be able to handle the unforeseen. How would you build that in?

James Collins and Jerry Porras wrote “Built to Last” a best selling book about what makes companies endure for the long-term. But more than endure, what makes them the standout leader in their respective industries. They suggest that a company develop core values; things that hold true for the long-term and that around those core values organizations learn how to change those things that need to be adaptable in changing market conditions.  They matched up companies that they felt were truly outstanding organizations against those that while successful they viewed as second tier. It is interesting to me to note that a number of companies that they viewed as outstanding, while still successful by most measures have recently fallen upon harder times. These include companies such as Ford, Citicorp, HP, and IBM. Did they lose their vision, their core? What caused the decline? Maybe they could do a follow up book on how outstanding companies lose their way. It reminds me a bit of the splash that the service profit chain at Sears made when it hit the Harvard Business Review, and while it represents a lot of very good work that approach did not prevent Sears from almost going belly up. The fundamentals need to be in place and the organization needs to be able to cope with changing market conditions in addition to holding onto their cores, their essence.  

So what if your organization was to be built for 1000 years, would you do anything different? What if your life was to last for 1000 years, would you do anything different? And I think most importantly would we derive any shorter-term benefit by thinking with longer-term time horizons? Maybe I should try to tackle calculus one more time.

According to Variety, Leonardo DiCaprio will be starring in The Deep Blue Goodbye for 20th Century Fox. The film will be an adaptation of the John D. MacDonald mystery novel series. Apparantly Robert Downey Jr was once circling the project but he then got wrapped up in Sherlock Holmes.

Producing the project are Peter Chernin, Appian Way’s DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran. The script was written by Dana Stevens. No director is yet attached.

DiCaprio will play Travis McGee. McGee is a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He’s also a knight errant who’s wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he’ll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half. McGee doesn’t even declare himself a detective, but rather a “salvage expert.”

The Deep Blue Goodbye is the first in the 21-volume bestselling Travis McGee series. It originally came out in 1964. Previously the character has been played by Sam Elliott and Rod Taylor (The Birds, The Time Machine and he was also Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds).

The character sounds really good and nothing like a bit of noir set in the sunshine. I’ve not read any of the books but I think I may well pick one up.

You leave the sounds of church bells and car honks behind and head to The Queen of the Roads, from 312 BC.

Okay, it’s not always peaceful. You may have heard there’s no cars allowed here on Sunday, but listen up: not true. There are all kind of specially licensed vehicles that can get through here, so Sunday is not the Appian Way bike ride day.

Come on a weekday, after 3, when the afternoon light is hazy and golden and it’s all quiet and dreamy…

Just you and the few others who took a cab from the historic center (12 euro), straight to the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, where bikes can be rented inexpensively.

 It’s a bumpy ride on the stones, but it’s good to go slow, like the chariots did…

And imagine pulling in here and saying “I’m home!”

Then hearing the bells and looking over the stone wall to discover a flock of sheep…

Sunday here can be fabulous, just not for bikeriding.  My Sunday lunch here with friends last October was one of those “we are making lifetime memories” times. So go on a Sunday morning, wander around the Catacombs, and then have lunch at Hosteria Antica Roma, 06/5940534 or 06/5132888. Say Ciao to Paolo, the owner, mangia and feel heavenly.

Catherine Hardwicke

Segundo a revista Variety, em nota publicada na Folha Online, adiretora Catherine Hardwicke, responsável pelo primeiro filme da saga “Crepúsculo”, irá dirigir uma adaptação do conto Chapeuzinho Vermelho:

Com produção da Appian Way, de Leonardo DiCaprio, e roteiro e David Leslie Johnson (“A Órfã”), “The Girl With the Red Riding Hood” irá adicionar um triângulo amoroso ao célebre conto infantil.

O filme deve seguir os passos de “Crepúsculo”, buscando uma faixa de público mais jovem.

Leia mais clicando aqui.

Matt Damon

By Borys Kit – HollywoodReporter.com

Josh Zetumer has signed on to pen the fourth installment of Universal’s “Bourne” movie series, writing what is being described as a parallel script.

George Nolfi, who worked on “The Bourne Ultimatum,” initially came back for the fourth entry. He also boarded to write and direct “The Adjustment Bureau,” an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story that reteams him with “Bourne” star Matt Damon.

But as that movie nears its September start date, Nolfi had to step away from “Bourne.” Not wishing to slow development and keen on making “Bourne” part of its 2011 slate, Universal hired Zetumer to write a new script. It is unclear what will occur after Zetumer submits his draft or whether his script will be integrated with Nolfi’s.

“Our hope is that Nolfi, a key member of the ‘Bourne’ team, will return after he is done with ‘The Adjustment Bureau,’ ” a Universal spokesperson said.

Bourne Trilogy on DVD

Writing two scripts, though rare, is not without precedent in the tentpole movie world. “Star Trek: Generations,” “Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer” and “Wolverine” are movies that had parallel scripts commissioned and sometimes had them combined. “Conan,” still in development, is another project that falls into that category.

Frank Marshall and Jeffrey Weiner are producing the latest “Bourne” installment.

Zetumer, repped by UTA and Management 360, is generating heat around town for writing “Dune” for Pete Berg and Paramount. He wrote “The Infiltrator” for Warner Bros., to which Leonardo DiCaprio is attached and is being produced by Film 360, Appian Way and David Benioff.

A Appian Way, produtora de Leornardo DiCaprio está desenvolvendo uma nova versão cinematográfica para o clássico conto de fadas Chapeuzinho Vermelho, a ideia é fazer uma versão mais sombria da história.

O filme ganhou hoje uma diretora, será Catherine Hardiwicke (Crepúsculo, Aos Treze), com roteiro escrito por David Leslie Hohnson (A Órfã). Segundo a revista Variety ,a versão gótica da história contará com um triângulo amoroso protagonizado por jovens, impressão minha ou já li uma história parecida em algum livro atual.

Muito antes de ficar conhecida pelo grande público com Crepúsculo, Hardwicke dirigiu dois excelentes filmes voltados também para o público jovem, Aos Treze e Os Reis de Dogwton, ambos recomandissímos pelo blog.

From Variety.com:

Director Catherine Hardwicke

Director adds another project to growing stack

Catherine Hardwicke has added another project to her growing stack.The “Twilight“ helmer is signing on to Appian Way’s “The Girl With the Red Riding Hood.”

Werewolf movie, written by David Johnson, is a gothic retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story, with a teenage love triangle at its center.

Hardwicke has several other development projects on simmer around town, including “Hamlet“ at Overture and “If I Stay” at Summit, plus “21 Jump Street“ and “Maximum Ride” at Sony.

“Red“ is set up at Warner Bros., where Appian Way has a first-look deal.

Special Thanks:  @marcmalkin

View Source.

From SlashFilm.com

Catherine Hardwicke has signed on to direct The Girl With the Red Riding Hood for Appian Way and Warner Bros. The gothic reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood was announced earlier this month, with Orphan screenwriter David Leslie Johnson attached to pen the script.

Not much is known about the new take, other than it will be loosely based on the famous fairy tale, is being described as a werewolf movie, and has a teenage love triangle at its center. Hardwicke is a perfect choice for this project as her filmmaking career thus far has been filled with teenage stories with female leads. She broke onto the directing scene with the Sundance indie Thirteen (starring Evan Rachel Wood), and has since directed The Nativity Story (starring Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary) and, of course, Twilight (starring Kristen Stewart). She also directed the 2005 film Lords of Dogtown.

The story has changed many times over the years, and is best known in the Brothers Grimm variant. But earlier versions were much darker, the earliest printed version from the 17th century ended with Riding Hood being slaughtered by the wolf. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

“The story had as its subject an “attractive, well-bred young lady”, a village girl of the country being deceived into giving a wolf she encountered the information he needed to find her grandmother’s house successfully and eat the old woman while at the same time avoiding being noticed by woodcutters working in the nearby forest. Then he proceeded to lay a trap for the Red Riding Hood. The latter ends up eaten by the wolf and there the story ends. The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending.”

It is unclear which version of the classic tale the Gothic reimagining will take influence from, but one could imagine it might be the older tellings. Hollywood could give a “Gothic reimagining” spin to any of the classic fairy tales and I would be interested. I’m actually kinda disappointed that Disney jumped on Alice in Wonderland, as I was hoping that one of the dark Alice projects would have gone into production.

But don’t expect to see this film on the big screen any time soon, or ever. Appian Way seems to announce a new project in development each month (I might be slightly exaggerating for dramatic effect). IMDb Pro lists 22 upcoming properties in pre-production, but the company turns out an average of one film per year. So, unless things dramatically pick up, chances are we’ll never see this project on the big screen. Appian has a list a mile long of promising projects in development, including: Akira, Atari, Aquaman, Conspiracy of Fools, Ninja Scroll, and a couple projects with both Dicaprio and Martin Scorsese attached. Hardwicke is also attached to an adaptation of Hamlet for Overture 21 Jump Street, and Maxium Ride at Sony.

Amazon Specials!

DiCaprio e Ridley Scott vão adaptar ao cinema Admirável Mundo Novo

Diretor de Blade Runner volta ao futuro, agora com o astro que ele dirigiu em Rede de Mentiras

O diretor Ridley Scott e o ator Leonardo DiCaprio estão desenvolvendo uma adaptação para cinema do livro Admirável Mundo Novo, de Aldous Huxley. Scott dirige e DiCaprio protagoniza, provavelmente no papel de Bernard.

O clássico de Huxley fala sobre uma sociedade futurista organizada sob um sistema científico de castas, cada uma com um papel já definido. Não existe família ou livre arbítrio, abolido através do condicionamento. O status servil não é contestado, uma vez que todos recebem doses regulares de felicidade sob a forma de uma droga sem efeitos colaterias chamada Soma. Cabe a um indivíduo de uma casta inferior, Bernard, desafiar o sistema.

Scott já havia mencionado em entrevistas seu interesse pelo romance de 1931, cujos direitos pertenciam à Appian Way, produtora de DiCaprio. O projeto está em desenvolvimento na Universal Pictures, que chamou Farhad Safinia (Apocalypto) para adaptar o roteiro.

A produção será feita por Scott e DiCaprio. Eles já trabalham no projeto há meses, segundo o blog Risky Biz do Hollywood Reporter, mas o filme ainda está em seus estágios iniciais. Fonte: Omelete.

Little Red Riding Hood? Or A Metaphor For...

Read more HERE.

——-
——-

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company is developing a Gothic reimagining of “Little Red Riding Hood” with screenwriter David Leslie Johnson (Orphan).

The “Red Riding Hood” project has been developed internally at Appian Way but isn’t being positioned as a possible acting vehicle for DiCaprio.

The best-known version of the story — in which a wolf disguises himself to fool a girl delivering food to her sick grandmother in the forest — was published in the 19th century by the Brothers Grimm. Earlier oral versions of the tale, which date back to the Middle Ages, are far darker and sometimes involve a werewolf rather than a wolf; the first published version, by Charles Perrault, concludes with Red Riding Hood eaten by the wolf, with no happy ending.

Source(s): WorstPreviews, Variety

Image via Wikipedia

A produtora de Leonardo DiCaprio, Appian Way, está desenvolvendo uma versão gótica de Chapeuzinho Vermelho. O roteirista David Leslie Johnson está trabalhando no script.

Não se sabe muito a respeito desta versão, apenas que será vagamente baseada no famoso conto-de-fadas. A estória mudou muitas vezes anos afora e é mais conhecida pela versão dos Irmãos Grimm.  Mas versões anteriores eram muito mais sombrias. A versão mais antiga impressa, do século 17 terminava com Chapeuzinho sendo devorada pelo lobo.

Agora é esperar pra ver. A produta Appian anuncia atualmente 22 projetos em pré-produção então quando – e se – este projeto vai adiante, só o tempo vai dizer.

Fonte: /film

Leonardo DiCaprio

La compañía de Leonardo DiCaprio va a hacer el remake Gótico de Caperucita Roja junto con el guionista David Leslie Johnson, según el Variety.

Leonardo DiCaprio aunque tiene muchas ganas de hacer esta cinta, no cree que esté dentro de la movie. La historia que la mayoría conoce es la de la abuelita que está en medio del bosque y que una niña va a llevarle comida mientras un lobo se disfraza para tratar de engañarla. Esta es la versión del siglo 19 que fue recolectada por los hermanos Grimm pero la verdad es que hay versiones mucho más antiguas que estas, algunas datan desde la edad media y son mucho más obscuras donde se habla de un hombre lobo en lugar de un simple lobo. La primera versión publicada, que fue hecha por Charles Perrault, concluye que Caperucita Roja fue almorzada por el lobo, sin tener un final feliz.

Aún no hay una fecha aproximada para el inicio de la filmación.

Mansfield News Journal staff

Since Patty McCormack’s murderess Rhoda Penmark in “The Bad Seed” in the 1950s, the horror movie subgenre featuring wicked kids has been scaring people no matter their age.

Now comes “Orphan,” by screenwriter David Leslie Johnson, who broke into the movie business in his hometown of Mansfield.

He began his career as a production assistant on director Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption.” The 1994 movie, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, was filmed at the historic Ohio State Reformatory, where Johnson’s great-grandfather had once worked as a prison guard.

In an interview Tuesday with DailyActor.com, the 1988 Lexington High School grad said he spent the next five years as Darabont’s assistant, using the opportunity to hone his craft as a screenwriter.

Johnson is a fan of “The Bad Seed,” the 1956 Academy Award-nominated film in which a pigtailed schoolgirl turns out to be a sociopath, killing a classmate, a neighbor and a teasing janitor with relish. Adopted, Rhoda’s bad behavior turns out to be genetic — her mother was a well-known serial killer.

“There’s just something really primal in that mother-child relationship,” Johnson says, “so I felt like that was really the best relationship to exploit and corrupt, to take what should be the most natural bond in the world and turn them into enemies.”

In “Orphan,” Isabelle Fuhrman stars as Esther, who comes across as the perfect child — until she smashes a bird’s head and forces a nun to drive off a snowy road. That’s just for starters.

In many of the evil-child films, the father is absent or bamboozled by his precious kid; it’s left to the mother to come to the slow realization about her offspring.

Johnson follows suit with “Orphan”: Vera Farmiga’s character — troubled by alcoholism, a miscarriage and guilt over the near death of her deaf daughter — figures out there’s something wrong with Esther. Peter Sarsgaard as the father doubts his wife because of her past unreliability and is quite taken in by his adopted child.

Johnson has a special bond with his mother as well — she turned him on to Hitchcock when he was growing up, and “Psycho” was one of their favorite movies.

“My parents were great — I had a completely normal childhood. Everything was fine, I’ve just been a fan of the horror genre and read a lot of Stephen King,” he told DigitalCity.com recently. “I’ve always been fascinated with dark subject matter.”

The local native developed his interest in storytelling as a child, writing plays as early as the second grade. A later interest in film led him, at age 19, to write his first screenplay. He has a fine arts degree from The Ohio State University. In 1999, Johnson wrote an adaptation of the classic Doc Savage pulp novels. Johnson then wrote a miniseries sequel to John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” which brought him to the attention of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, for which he wrote “Orphan.” He’s teaming up with Appian Way again for one of several developing projects — an epic horror and fantasy inspired by a classic fairy tale. Johnson’s next project will be an adaptation of the Australian ghost story thriller “Lake Mungo.”

“Twilight Zone: The Movie” was brought to us by Warner Bros. in 1983, the film that originally starred Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow in certain storyline segments.

Warner Bros. has greenlighted, “The Twilight Zone” to return for another film so the film can be based on different stories from the TV series. Leo Dicaprio’s film company, Appian Way, has teamed up with Warner Bros to make the film. They already hired a screenwriter by the name of, Rand Ravich, who previously written, “The Astronaut’s Wife”.

Variety Reports:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118006171.html?categoryid=10&cs=1

Great news! I loved the first “Twilight Zone” movie, hope they do a good job with the second one.

I wonder if they’ll bring back Dan Aykroyd to continue the story of the Passenger where he is a werewolf. That would be totally cool if they brought the Aykroyd story back to the “TZ: The Movie” sequel.

Do you want to see something really scary? Ha ha! It would be great to hear Dan Aykroyd say that catchphrase again for the next movie if he gets signed for it! Come on Leo, get him!

Kev

By Borys Kit – Hollywood Reporter

In the comics universe, where characters are endlessly reborn and reoutfitted, a motto from the 1980s — “DC Comics is on the move” — could just as well apply to the current, hyperactive state of the publisher as it relates to Hollywood.A year after “The Dark Knight” became a worldwide phenomenon, there are more DC Comics adaptations in the works than at any other point since the company was acquired by Warner Bros. in 1969.

24"x36" Poster NEW!

Among the projects on front burners:

– “The Losers,” an action-adventure drama starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana and Chris Evans, begins principal photography this week in Puerto Rico.

Buy this poster here!

– “Jonah Hex,” a supernatural Western starring Josh Brolin, Megan Fox and John Malkovich, recently wrapped production in Louisiana.

– “The Green Lantern,” Warners’ next big superhero tentpole, is set to star Ryan Reynolds after a long search.

– Fox has picked up the TV series “Human Target,” starring Mark Valley, for the fall.

– And, in a rare example of a film project that has ventured off the Warners reservation, DC has set up “Red,” a spy thriller to star Bruce Willis, at indie producer Summit.

“One of the things that has differentiated us for most of the last 20 years is the depth of our library and the depth of the creative material that we’ve put out and the opportunities that creates for other media,” DC Comics president Paul Levitz said.

Still, when “Dark Knight” invaded theaters last summer, critics of DC and Warners complained there didn’t appear to be a grand strategy in place to exploit DC properties.

In contrast, DC arch-rival Marvel moved quickly in the wake of its successful “Iron Man” to stake out a series of release dates for a slew of movies, branding them as part of one big Marvel universe leading to “The Avengers,” which arrives in 2012.

But DC and Warners have taken a different approach, arguing that DC has a wider breadth of books than other comics companies. They insist their situation isn’t comparable to Marvel, which already has licensed out to other studios a number of its biggest titles: Spider-Man is housed at Sony, while X-Men and Fantastic Four are at Fox.

With fewer marquee superheroes, Marvel works like an animation studio: It only develops select projects and makes most of what it develops, while DC is managing a much larger portfolio.

Still, in the wake of “Dark Knight,” DC and Warners have made strategic moves in the superhero realm, including centralizing the way DC’s titles and characters are developed. In the past, Warners optioned a property, paying DC a fee comparable to what a property could command on the open market. But while the projects ostensibly were being developed under one roof, many were spread out over a host of producers, each with different visions for how to approach each adaptation.

Watchmen (Director's Cut)

To bring competing approaches into sync, Levitz and DC’s Los Angeles-based film exec Gregory Noveck have overseen a reorganization of the development slate. While Warners execs still drive the creative side, DC now has more input, making it an actual participant in the shaping of material.

“The creative process is by and large a true partnership,” Noveck said. “They’ll ask us a ton of questions, and we’ll give a ton of answers. We will talk back and forth. We’ll discuss writers and talent, but ultimately it’s their decision.”

Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins Wolverine

This past fall, Warners quietly hired three of DC’s biggest writers — Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman — to act as consultants and writers for its superhero line of movies. The move involved taking back the reins on projects being handled by such producers as Charles Roven (“The Flash”) and Akiva Goldsman (“Teen Titans”).

Some agents and scribes grumbled about being forced to work with the consultants, never mind that Johns started his career as an assistant to “Superman” director Richard Donner or that Wolfman has worked in animation since the 1980s.

The moves have begun to pay off. Johns worked up a new treatment for a “Flash” script, being written by Dan Mazeau; Johns will act in a producer capacity on the project, which has not attached a director.

The projects Morrison and Wolfman are working on are in the early stages at Warners, whose execs declined to comment.

The process involves one writer taking point, though the trio do collaborate on projects, reading one another’s materials while hashing out a story that will be at once accessible to nonfans yet still adhere to each character’s long history. The writers also work in tandem with producers, writers and the Warners execs overseeing the projects, showing them treatments and providing notes on scripts.

Meanwhile, other superhero projects are moving forward at Warners.

The studio is taking pitches on sci-fi hero Adam Strange and the underwater-breathing hero “Aquaman,” to be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and his Appian Way shingle.

Also in the pipeline: “Bizarro Superman” being written by “Galaxy Quest” scribes David Howard and Robert Gordon; a sequel to “Constantine,” with Goldsman and Erwin Stoff producing; two concurrent Green Arrow projects, an origin story and a prison-set one titled “Super Max”; and “Shazam,” which was set up at New Line but has moved to Warners, with Pete Segal attached to direct.

Unsung in the lineup is Warners’ line of straight-to-DVD animated movies released via Warner Premiere. “Green Lantern: First Flight,” the latest entry, will premiere at this week’s Comic-Con gathering in San Diego and has a July 28 street date.

These movies, produced on budgets in the $3.5 million range, apparently overperformed their targets. “First Flight” is the fifth straight-to-DVD title, with “Superman/Batman: Public Enemies” in production for a September 29 release.

In the home entertainment arena, DC has overshadowed Marvel, with 2007’s “Superman-Doomsday” generating $9.4 million in revenue and last year’s “Batman: Gotham Knight,” taking advantage of the tidal wave of support for the Christopher Nolan movie, generating $8 million, according to tracking site The-Numbers.com. “Wonder Woman,” released in March, already has chalked up $4.4 million. Marvel’s top seller, “Ultimate Avengers 2,” has pulled in $7.7 million.

Not that all the stars in the DC firmament are aligned yet.

Warners and DC still haven’t figured out how to translate “Wonder Woman” to the big screen. In part, that failure reflects the difficulties DC has had turning out a popular Wonder Women comic. Morrison, during a recent Q&A with Clive Barker at Los Angeles’ Meltdown Comics, admitted he didn’t have a complete handle on the character when he was writing the comic “Final Crisis.”

Also, ever since Bryan Singer’s 2006’s “Superman Returns,” a new Superman has been in limbo.

“Our hope is to develop a Superman property and to try again,” Warner Bros. Entertainment president Alan Horn said in April. “What hurt us is that the reviews and so on for the Superman movie did not get the kind of critical acclaim that Batman got, and we have other issues with Superman that concern us.”

 On the Batman front, a sequel to “Dark Knight” also is quite a way off. Nolan is open to doing a third installment, but his next movie is “Inception,” an original script he penned and is shooting for Warners.

All that has put a damper on any movie about the Justice League, whose roster includes the above-mentioned heroes as well as myriad others including Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter. DC would like to present some of the main heroes in their own movies before they are brought together for one big outing, so “League” currently is inactive.

On top of that, there could be another change in how Warners approaches the DC characters, with studio chiefs debating whether to put the operation under one super-exec.

To bring the next generation of superheroes to the screen, DC and Warners might yet have to unleash their own super powers.

Amazon Specials!

Aquaman

From TheHDRoom.com

The Hollywood Reporter has published an extensive article that touches upon the record number of DC Comics projects in various stages of development.

One of the big revelations from the article is news that Warner Bros. Pictures is currently accepting pitches (i.e. looking for writers) for separate movies based on Aquaman and Adam Strange. Both films will be produced by Appian Way which is helmed by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Aquaman has been swimming around Hollywood for several years but has yet to make a big splash. He was part of an HBO “joke” advertisement in Variety congratulating James Cameron on his record-breaking Aquaman film that, of course, did not exist. He was also the focus of an entire episode of Smallville at the WB, and then was to appear in his own standalone WB show whose completed pilot was never picked up.

Aquaman’s last failed attempt to rise from the depths was as a founding member of the Justice League in a Justice League of America movie. That film was on its way towards production under director George Miller until it was canned.

Adam Strange is known to draw comparisons to John Carter of Mars. In that comic, the protagonist is whisked off to Mars where grand adventures await. Strange is instantly teleported to the planet Rann where he must fend off alien invaders. Ironically John Carter of Mars is set to become a film under Andrew Stanton of Pixar fame.

If pitches are accepted and scripts turned in by year’s end, Aquaman and/or Adam Strange could find their way into theaters by 2011 at the earliest, or more likely 2012.

From Bloody-Disgusting.com

Some fantastic news this evening as Warner Bros. is about to unlock the other dimension and cross over into the Twilight Zone.

The studio and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way are moving ahead on the Twilight Zone movie, hiring Rand Ravich to pen a script based on the iconic TV series, which melded fantasy, science-fiction and horror elements.

Ravich’s feature credits include directing The Astronaut’s Wife, a film that carried a very Twilight Zone-esque premise and finale. The original “Twilight Zone” series ran for five seasons starting in 1959 on CBS, with Rod Serling creating the skein and writing more than half of the 156 episodes.

If you haven’t seen ‘em, queue them up on Netflix or Blockbuster ASAP. What you might want to avoid is Warners previous bigscreen incarnation of the property, 1983’s “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” with Steven Spielberg and John Landis producing and directing segments.

Is the Akira project officially dead? Thanks to an article over here we can be pretty sure the project, that started about a year and a half ago, is officially dead.

I don’t think the whole world even cares except for the fans of the anime and manga who are now probably partying their asses off in having heard the best news ever.

They can always easily go on with their other projects as Battle Royale, Oldboy and whatever other story they can steal from somewhere. (Dutch: Here)

Wiki says: “In the early 1990s, Kodansha Ltd. was in negotiation with Sony Pictures to produce a live-action remake of the film. Talk circulated again a decade later,^[13] but the project has yet to materialize. Rumors circulated that the project was canceled in both instances when the projected budget for the film was upwards of $300 million.

Talks began again as Warner Brothers signed on to produce the movie with Stephen Norrington (writer) and Jon Peters^[14] (producer).AKIRA was be developed into two live action films; the first was to be scheduled for a summer 2009 release.^[15] Warner Brothers and Appian Way planned to adapt the two movies from the manga, with each one covering three volumes. Ruairi Robinson signed on as director, Gary Whitta wrote the script and Andrew Lazar, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jennifer Davisson were to produce the film.”