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Once upon a time, Sgt. Rock was in the hands of Guy Ritchie, and many an Easy Company fan was upset. But you'll undoubtedly wish that Ritchie and Joel Silver had made it to the finish line, because Sgt. Rock will not make it to the big screen in a form you'll recognize. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he has a new director in Francis Lawrence and a whole new space-time continuum. Joel Silver is still on board as producer, and he's bringing Akiva Goldsman on board to help. They've hired newcomer Chad St. John to pen the script.

As you may or may not know, Sgt. Rock is a WWII soldier. He's always fought in WWII. The poor guy has never even gotten to leave the European theater. (It was rumored in Swamp Thing that he was transferred to the Pacific, but never confirmed.) Any attempt at a movie adaptation has always gone forward with this central idea of keeping him in his element. But budget, politics, and popularity has always been an issue, and no one believes you can make The Dirty Dozen in this day and age unless you're Quentin Tarantino. So Warner Bros has decided to bypass the drama, and put Sgt. Rock in the future. CG is cheaper than Nazis, and a nondescript soldier of the future is less problematic than an American fighting a good fight. (While no war is a good war, I do think we can all agree that fighting Nazis was a good thing.)

Nothing else is known about this storyline, so I hate to jump to a knee-jerk conclusion as to who or what Sgt. Rock will face there, or whether he will be transported to the future from WWII. But I think this is an unfortunate thing to do to a character who resides in WWII for a very specific and honorable reason. The last thing he should become is a Universal Soldier or Terminator ripoff.

If you are the type of person who likes to get their Christmas shopping done early, I've got some good news for you, because now is your chance to buy some seriously cheap DVDs. Variety is reporting that the online stores for Walmart, Target, and Amazon, have gotten into a DVD pricing war and passing those savings on to you. But don't worry, these aren't your usual discount bin selections, instead, big name titles like Star Trek, Night and The Museum 2, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be going for the low price of only $10 each.

It all started when Walmart announced last Thursday that they would be offering titles like Angels & Demons, Julie & Julia, and Terminator: Salvation at a lower price (but you were only guaranteed the discount price if you shopped online). The reason for the discount according to Walmart was to, "help families holiday shop during this difficult economic environment.", but most have just speculated that the retailer was suffering online and this sale is just the latest attempt to drum up flagging business.

It didn't take long before Target and Amazon jumped into the fray and now an all out 'pricing war' has begun between the three retailers. But before you get too excited, keep in mind that this isn't a shift to a new price scale for DVDs, and the discount is simply to drive new customers to shop online. Prices are expected to go back to normal by the time these titles go into wide release later this month -- so if you love a bargain, you're going to need to act fast.

Get a few chuckles with a skit, and soon it will become a film. If you're a fan of the BET Awards, you should be familiar with Sheneneh and Wanda. The two made up the super-stylishly named bank-robbing team Skank Robbers, a faux trailer parody (after the jump) that aired during the awards, played by Martin Lawrence and Jamie Foxx respectively. This skit got enough laughs that it wasn't only deemed successful, but also cinematic -- Variety reports that the pair have decided to turn the brief concept into a film, a la Machete.

Sheneneh and Wanda, two characters dreamed up during the comedians' stand-up days, will be "modern-day independent women trying to make it on their own, one bank robbery at a time." The pair have been wanting to star in a movie together for a while, so this is their big shot -- one that Foxx is writing and Screen Gems is fast-tracking. ...This is it?

Granted, I'm not some old-school Sheneneh fan, but what exactly is it about this pair that makes them worthy not only of a feature film, but also being fast-tracked? Hasn't Hollywood already gotten enough comedians cross-dressing? Don't these men have something better to do than ... this? And if now is the time to bring In Living Color to the big screen, oh, the other characters I would pick.

MacGruber, Sheneneh, Wanda ... what skit is next?

Se7en... I'll never forget the first time I watched it, nestled with friends into the old seats at Gettysburg's Majestic Theater, all of us enamored, shocked, chilled, and buzzed on the thrill of the film IMDb ranks as #27 out of the Top 250 Films. It's one of those movies that elicits glazed eyes of fandom at its mention. But could the magic be brought to life again?

The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision Blog reports that Se7en alums David Fincher, Andrew Kevin Walker, and Michael De Luca are re-teaming to make a new adaptation of Max Ehrlich's The Reincarnation of Peter Proud for Columbia Pictures. Fincher is, of course, attached to direct, and Walker will pen the script. (The book was originally adapted by Ehrlich himself for the film back in 1975.) The story focuses on a college prof who becomes plagued by recurring dreams and nightmares that he realizes are memories of a past life. With the help of his girlfriend, he tries to find the source of the visions and "discovers a woman and her grown-up daughter who are keys to his past life." The original story got in some hot water for a subplot rife with incest, but methinks that will be diluted or deleted this time around as everything gets updated.

With all of this in place, the only blocks left are the cast. It might seem like an easy pick, but I'd love to see Kevin Kline bite into this. Yes, he's the go-to guy for college professors, but he's also severely talented and severely under-utilized. A role like this could rip him out of the crap. But if the choice was yours, who would you like to see crack the past? Or are you just recoiling at word of another remake?

I hope you don't hate vampires, because they don't seem to be going anywhere. Now Amy Heckerling, the woman behind Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, is getting in on the bloodsucking. According to Screen Daily, Parlay Films has grabbed the international rights to an upcoming romantic comedy called Vamps, that Heckerling will write and direct.

"The film will be a modern-day tale of two young female vampires living the good life in New York until love enters the picture and each has to make a choice that will jeopardize their immortality." Krysten Ritter will star as one of the lead vamps, and they're still searching for the other bloodsucker. This marks a big jump from the actress, who has moved from bubbly side gigs on shows like Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars to some cinematic supporting roles, a lead gig in the web series Woke Up Dead, and now her first starring film job.

Perhaps I'm being overly hopeful, but it's time for Heckerling to bring us her next comedy classic, and I'm hoping this is it. There was a 13-year span between Ridgemont and Clueless, and it's been 14 years since Cher found love with Josh, so could this be the next Heckerling extravaganza we won't want to heckle? Or, just another project in an oversaturated market?

Having dipped into the seductive waters of sexy courtesans, Stephen Frears is now looking towards the future, and the future's got lots of gambling. The trades are reporting that Frears is set to direct Lay the Favorite, a dramedy that will rejoin him with High Fidelity scribe D.V. De Vincentis. The project stems from an upcoming memoir by Beth Raymer called Lay the Favorite, Take the Dog, which will be published this Spring.

Now, why did I say trades and not pick one? That's because it's time to play Pick the Plot.

In one corner, we've got The Hollywood Reporter, who says that this is a world of "geeky gamblers" who "figure out how to work the sportsbook system in Las Vegas for their own profit. It centers on a woman in her early thirties who has made a series of bad choices but achieves a redemption of sorts when she meets and then becomes involved with the gamblers." De Vincentis says: "This is the version of 50-year-old math geeks from Queens in basketball shorts who have pet guinea pigs."

In the other corner, we've got Variety describing the story as a "young woman's journey into the world of sports gambling. She starts out as a cocktail waitress but gets caught up in gambling until falling in love," calling it a cross between High Fidelity and The Grifters.

So, geek fest with gambling and a little romance thrown in for good measure, or a romantic world where a cocktail waitress can gamble her way to money ... and love. Which do you choose?

After a year of speculation (Will it be James Bond? Will it be Maximum City? Trainspotting 2?), Danny Boyle has finally settled on his next project. Variety reports that it will be 127 Hours, the tale of mountain climber Aron Ralston. Boyle has been loosely attached to the project since June when the LA Times reported that Boyle and Fox Searchlight had signed a long term, best friends forever deal. Boyle has already penned a treatment, and Simon Beaufoy is in talks to write the script.

In this age of flashmob media stories, you might have forgotten the tale of Ralston. Like your humble authoress and Balloon Boy, Ralston hails from Colorado. He became famous for a Utah climbing accident in 2003, when an 800 lb boulder shifted and crushed his hand. Ralston was forced to choose between life and limb, and in a stomach-turning story heard around the world, he amputated his own hand with a pocketknife. In the media frenzy that followed, Ralston was hailed as a hero and as an idiot, because he had chosen to go climbing alone and without notifying anyone. It was particularly intense locally, and I still remember the heroism debate Ralston sparked in my American Culture class. (It even inspired one student's final project!) Since those heady days of early fame, Ralston has enjoyed success with his autobiography, continues to climb, and is a motivational speaker.

The director is already on the casting hunt for the part of Ralston, which Variety declares will be "a plum job" because it will force an actor to work solo for most of the shoot. Below the jump, I've embedded a video of Ralston describing his amputation. Watch it to prepare for two hours of unflinching detail, and sound off on who you think should be lucky enough to act out a very painful 127 Hours.

Battleship. Monopoly, Candy Land, and Ouija. A Clue re-do. If it's a board game, chances are it's going to get put into development sometime in the near future. If Hollywood wasn't such a wacky world of insane ideas, I'd be surprised that we hadn't gotten this one earlier. Nikki Finke is reporting that Sony Pictures has bought the rights to Risk, piling more cinematic coin into Hasbro's coffers. The project will be developed by Hasbro in conjunction with James Lassiter and Overbrook Entertainment.

Columbia Pictures pres. Doug Belgrad says audiences have "shown a great desire for films that bring to life everything that has made these franchise properties stand the test of time," and mentioned the likes of Transformers and G.I. Joe. Unsurprisingly then, he says the film will be an exciting movie with "an action-packed, thrilling story." It makes sense -- a game where you roll the dice to world domination is just asking for a big blow-out action flick. That being said...

First of all, there's been no "great desire" to see board game movies get adapted. Nice try. Second, in the piece, Finke talks about Belgrad mentioning the two old cartoon redo's before noting that he did not mention "the dismal movie from the board game Clue." While I understand some people dislike the film, dismal is quite a strong statement -- especially in a world where we're getting Battleship. Finally, with the ever-rising popularity of all things geek, I'm kinda disappointed that this won't be a tongue-in-cheek comedy about a bunch of geeks playing Risk. But who knows? Maybe that will come when someone gets around to buying Magic: The Gathering.

Once you've made emotional mincemeat out of legions of adoring young girls, what's next? How do you transcend tweendom and seduce the seas of adult women (Twilight moms not included)? Bedding Nicole Kidman is a start. Screen Daily reports that Robert Pattinson and Kidman have signed on to star in an adaptation of Guy De Maupassant's Bel Ami. Adapted by Rachel Bennette, the film will be directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod.

Published in 1885, Bel Ami is an erotic tale of journalist Georges Duroy and how he sleeps his way to the top of Parisian high society. After a few years of military service in Algeria, Duroy works as a clerk in Paris until he becomes a journalist, aided by Mme Forestier (presumably Kidman). She helps write his first articles, he works his way up to chief editor, and she uses her political connections to get him the information he needs, which also leads him to his own network of increasing power. Bit by bit, he sleeps with influential women, using his loins to work his way to the top.

If you've seen Little Ashes, this is just wiping away the Dali quirks and throwing Pattinson into a Parisian life roughly 25 years earlier -- which wasn't quite the visual and social jump then as it is now. And while I wonder why Kidman so often gets cast opposite young males (at least this one's of age!), it's not hard to imagine a retro world of Parisian enticement with Pattinson and Kidman at the center of it.

Production begins this February in London and Budapest.

Another classic cartoon is getting ready for the feature treatment. This time, it's your friendly neighborhood bears. USA Today reports that Shawn Levy (director of the Night at the Museum flicks) is gearing up to produce The Berenstain Bears into a feature comedy with Walden Media. This cartoon family has been around since 1962, and have had a handful of television specials, a series in the mid-80s, and another in 2003.

But, like anything Hollywood, the family is getting updated. They won't just live in Bear Country this time around. Levy is planning a mix of live action and computer animation where "the comedy comes from this bear family coexisting in a more recognizably real world." That means updates on mom's polka dots, dad's overalls, and, presumably, interaction with humans. The plan is to incorporate details from popular books in the series, and Walden Media CEO Michael Bostick compares the clan to "outcast" families like The Beverly Hillbillies and The Addams Family.

While many redos get under my skin, I'd love a new addition to the Berenstain legacy -- but like this? When did they become outcasts? They're a friggin' metaphor for human, everyday families. The whole point of the series was to mimick everyday lives and share familial lessons. The Messy Room is the reason I'm always organizing things. I read about their Visit to the Dentist when it was time to have the teeth looked at, or get healthy when there was Too Much Junk Food, rethink lying with The Truth, or reel back on the boob tube when there was Too Much TV. And in between these lessons, I memorized The Spooky Old Tree and would recite it to myself every night before bed. (check it out after the jump)

It says a whole lot of childhood lessons and morals are considered "outcast" fare...