By: Henry J. Fromage –

First off, a couple of high-profile projects have finally decided on directors.  Marc Webb, unfortunately, will stay tethered to the aggressively mediocre The Amazing Spiderman franchise, a bit of a surprise after some public feuding with the studio.  Meh.  On a more encouraging note, after Rupert Wyatt bailed on The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes due to concern over a fast shooting schedule, a list of directors that included Jeff Nichols for some crazy reason and Guillermo Del Toro in a bit of ridiculously wishful thinking has now been pared down to one- Matt Reeves.  You never like to see directorial changeovers and rushed schedules, but hopefully this one does well so Reeves gets to shoot some of his interesting passion projects we’ve discussed here before.  After all, the man already has a penchant for delivering on projects that looked iffy on paper.

Justifying the existence of a foreign remake is no mean feat….

One blockbuster film that really, really didn’t seem to beg for the sequel/prequel treatment was Passion of the Christ.  Yet, that one grossed $ 612 million worldwide, so here we are.  Now, Mary Mother of Christ won’t have any connection to Mel Gibson, with Alister Grierson (Sanctum) directing, but it will have the same screenwriter.  Already cast are Peter O’Toole as Symeon and Ben Kingsley as King Herod, with Julia Ormond, Judi Dench, Hugh Bonneville, and Odeya Rush (The Odd Life of Timothy Green) as Mary being rumored as well.

Now, just get Taylor Lautner and a few explosions and voila! Hollywooded.

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Speaking of franchisification that nobody ever requested, for some reason just now the ball is getting rolling on Yogi Bear 2.  The first one has a special place in my heart as one of the first films I ever reviewed for MovieBoozer, and the de facto first Six Pack on the site… an experience that plays at the margins of my nightmares to this day.  It’s pretty unlikely that handing the reins of the series over to Jay Chandrasekhar (Club Dread) will help matters much, and it’s almost certainly not going to give me back all of those nights of tortured half-sleep.

Anna Faris… eyes… so dead