Arachnid crime-fighter Tobey Maguire is dusting off his super powers for Tokyo Suckerpunch, the adaptation of Isaac Adamson's novel, whose rights were purchased by Maguire through Sony Pictures. The deal was made while the rights were in turnaround from Fox Searchlight. To be scripted by Ed Solomon and produced by Maguire and Red Wagon's Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher, the story follows
Billy Chaka?-popular columnist for the biggest Asian teen magazine in . . . Cleveland?-who transforms himself into a macho hero while in Tokyo. The project was first set up in October '01. (Maguire, with Wendy Finerman, also recently secured film rights for Jonathan Tropper's Everything Changes under the Maguire Entertainment banner.)
It'll take a hero to slay the 80-foot shark terrorizing the California coast in New Line's adaptation of Steven Alten's novel Meg. New Line paid mid-six against seven figures for the project, then in turnaround from Disney. Shane Salerno will pen the latest version, a rewrite of the author's scripting attempt. The rights for the novel were acquired by Disney in '97 for around $1 million; the film is now budgeted at a whopping $75 million. Larry Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Guillermo del Toro, Ken Atchity, Chi-Li Wong and Nick Nunziata will produce.
MGM/Lakeshore's Blood and Chocolate features a beast of a furrier, but gentler, kind. Olivier Martinez and Agnes Bruckner will star in the Ehren Kruger?adapted film about a teen werewolf who must choose between her love for a human and her pack family. Katja von Garnier will direct and executive produce. Lakeshore's Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi will produce with Daniel Bobker.
It's back underwater with CritterPix Studios' $4.45 million 3-D animated adaptation of the Kelly Alan Williamson children's book Ollie the Otter. CritterPix has a production deal with New Regency Prods.
In other kid-lit news, film rights for Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice were sold to Warner Bros. Harper will publish the book in the U.S. this fall with the title Revenge of the Witch: The Last Apprentice.
A Hans Christian Andersen biopic is in the works. Director Bille August will focus on the period during which Andersen was about 40 years old, using the author's The Shadow as a central plot device. April 2nd would have been the whimsy-master's 200th birthday.
Andersen's lyrical predecessor William Shakespeare will once again get the film treatment, with DreamWorks' contemporary adaptation of the bard's Twelfth Night. Titled She's the Man, the film will star Nickelodeon alum Amanda Bynes and will be directed by Andy Fickman. Jack Leslie wrote the original screenplay, with rewrites by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith.
DreamWorks will also adapt William Melvin Kelley's satirical 1967 novel, Dem, about a selfish white professional who must reflect on his life when his wife gives birth to a black baby. Neil LaBute is attached to direct, with Brandon Noonan writing for DreamWorks and Pretty Pictures producing.
Spiritual reflection drives the story of David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest, which was optioned against a six-figure purchase price by the New York arm of Wild Child Films. Aimee Peyronette and Ian McGloin will develop with Film Four in London, and Neil Jordan is attached to direct.
There's no spiritual redemption for the vengeful teenagers in Jim Brown's Black Valley, to be adapted by Stephen Susco for George Gatins at Mosaic Media.
A true college tale of the first all-black lacrosse team will go into production from Warner Bros.', with Chip Silverman and Miles Harrison Jr.'s book, Ten Bears. The script will be penned by Josh Shelov. Michael De Luca and Michael De Luca Productions' Alissa Phillips will produce.
Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films and Gary Smith Co. will adapt Simon Mawer's novel Mendel's Dwarf, which follows a scientist struggling with the secrets of dwarfism. Peter Dinklage (of 2003's The Station Agent) will star in the Sonny Murray?penned project, with Murray and Tony Michelman producing. Streisand, Cis Corman and Gary Smith Co.'s Gary Smith will executive-produce. (Dinklage also stars in the adaptation of Pär Lagerkvist's 1994 novel, The Dwarf, now in post-production.)
Hart Sharp Entertainment brings Armistead Maupin's The Night Listener to the screen, under the direction of Patrick Stettner. Bobby Cannavale (Dinklage's co-star in The Station Agent) will play the estranged lover of Robin Williams. The cast also includes Toni Collette, Rory Culkin and Joe Morton. Maupin adapted the script with Stettner.
In attachment news, Frank Langella has joined the cast of the upcoming Warner Bros. feature Superman Returns, replacing Hugh Laurie as Perry White.
Robert Redford will voice the character of Ike in Gary Winick's Charlotte's Web adaptation, which also features the voices of Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey, John Cleese, Steve Buscemi, Cedric the Entertainer, Rebe McEntire, Kathy Bates, Thomas Haden Church and Andre Benjamin (née 3000).
Good news for the geeks out there, male and female. X-hotties Famke Jannsen and Hugh Jackman have signed deals to reprise their characters in X-Men 3.
Kathy Baker joins Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo in Sony's remake of the Robert Penn Warren classic All the King's Men.
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