Monday, October 24, 2011

UFO movie news round-up (24th Oct. 2011)

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

A Hollywood remake of the 2011 UK alien invasion flick Attack the Block may be on the cards according to the film’s director, Joe Cornish, who tells Empire magazine he’s “also had approaches for a [TV] show to spin off it." However, Cornish adds that “it’s very early days” yet and that he might “like to do something different” for his next project. That’s unlikely to stop Hollywood bigwigs from pressing forward with their stateside version, though.

It was also reported last week that Transformers 4 and 5 are in the works with Ehren Kruger (Dark of the Moon) on writing duties. Paramount plans to shoot the two movies back-to-back in a move that will apparently save on production costs. However, Shia LaBeouf will not be returning as Sam Witwicky and – best of all – Michael Bay will not be helming the projects, despite initial rumours to the contrary. The movies are still only in their early conceptual stages and are unlikely to hit cinemas for at least a couple of years.

On the subject of Hasbro toy line movie spin-offs, Paramount is also to oversee the production of Micronauts, which will be produced by J.J. Abrams (Super 8) and written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese (Zombieland). “Micronauts was an American name for a line of toys that originated in Japan in the late 1970s. For those who don’t remember them, Collider recalls that “The toys were sold as individual figures that had interchangeable parts. They were short-lived, though the franchise experienced two resurrections in the 2000s… the Micronauts are simply a toy line and have no overarching story from which to draw inspiration for a script.”

It is worth noting that the movie’s plot will likely have an extraterrestrial element to it as alien characters featured prominently in the Micronauts toy line.

Finally, Battlestar Galactica is to undergo a Hollywood reboot at the capable hands of director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X Men) and writer John Orloff (Band of Brothers, Anonymous). The Ancient Astronaut-themed TV series of 1978 and 2004 have a strong cult following and so there’s much at stake with the Hollywood movie, but screenwriter Orloff assures Deadline that he’s definitely the right man for the job: “I have wanted to write this movie since I was 12 years old, and built a Galactica model from scratch out of balsa wood, cardboard, old model parts and LEDs… I love BSG, and I would pass on the job rather than frak it up.” Singer also is delighted to have the opportunity to bring Battlestar Galactica to the big screen – something Deadline notes the director has “been interested in doing for at least a decade.”

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