Please, people, stop with the telegrams and picket lines and frivolous lawsuits already! We get it! You can’t live without the Screengrab’s daily roundup of the latest wheeling and dealing out of Hollywood. You need to know which superheroes, videogames and misguided horror remakes may or may not ever make it someday to a theater near you. Well, we’ve heard you loud and clear, and we’re pleased to present the return of the Morning Deal Report.
Speaking of videogames, the Hollywood Reporter has the scoop on Gears of War, to be directed by Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) for the “reconfigured” New Line. “Set on the planet Sera, the game thrusts players into a battle for survival between humans and a race of creatures that surface from the bowels of the planet known as the Locust Horde. Players assume identities of soldiers on Delta Squad as they fight to save Sera's inhabitants.” The game’s designer, Cliff Bleszinski, says, “Disney made a great movie out of a theme park ride, and somebody is sooner or later going to make a great one out of a video game.” And by that logic, sooner or later someone will make a great movie out of stereo instructions.
Variety reports that Sam Raimi will helm the latest Dennis Lehane adaptation, this one of a book that hasn’t even been released yet. The Given Day, due in September, revisits Lehane’s Boston turf, this time in 1919 “with the city in turmoil as soldiers are returning home from WWI, having brought back an epidemic of Spanish influenza. Attempts to unionize the police department have set the stage for a historic strike and two cops take center stage.” The same report notes that Raimi is “also aligned to reinvent the Jack Ryan franchise at Paramount,” presumably without either Harrison Ford or fellow Lehane adapter Ben Affleck.
And some news that’s either out of Variety or one of my deepest, darkest nightmares: Kevin Spacey will star in Shrink as a psychiatrist to the stars whose clients include Robin Williams. Stock up on scenery, because there won’t be any left once these two are finished chewing it.