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A lot can change in a year. Back in 2008, Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise were getting ready for the U.S. remake of The Tourist. Now Miss Theron is out, and The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz Blog reports that sources say Angelina Jolie is in talks to replace her. But don't worry -- this won't result in the most epically awkward and strange pairing of all time. (Can you imagine Jolie and Cruise getting busy with sex and espionage?) See, Cruise has since left the project as well, and Sam Worthington has signed on -- an actor who is quickly making a big name for himself between Terminator : Salvation and the upcoming Avatar.

The original, Anthony Zimmer, focused on a regular person pulled into a mess between a criminal, the mob, his mistress, and the law, because he resembled this criminal. When Theron signed on, however, the remake was said to focus on an "American vacationer who gets sucked into a dark world of espionage when an Interpol agent taps him to help her catch a sneaky bad guy." Not quite the same thing, but with all the changes going on, who knows how it will turn out? What Risky does say is that her role is "one-part seductress, one-part action," so it sounds like the final product will come out somewhere between the two plots.

But that's not the only changes coming to this long-in-gestation project. It seems that Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day helmer Bharat Nalluri is also out; so much for seeing him jump from retro comedy to international intrigue. I could ask who you think should replace the director, but it's not like this project is taking easy-to-guess jumps. Tom Cruise to Sam Worthington. Charlize Theron to Angelina Jolie... Stay tuned to see how it all turns out! But in the meantime, what do you think of the changes?

When it reached American audiences two years after it opened in France, 2006's District 13 (or B13 here) served as a breezy introduction to the art of parkour, not to mention director Pierre Morel's knack for shooting action sequences both energetically and visibly (an underrated quality, that last one). Morel moved on to Taken, though, while parkour began to infiltrate more high-profile Hollywood fare, like Casino Royale and Live Free or Die Hard.

However, writer/producer/all-around action maven Luc Besson stuck around to cash in on the promise of a follow-up, and now we're greeted with District 13: Ultimatum, a competent if flabby rehash of the first film's race-against-time plot and dystopian setting.

By Scott Weinberg. Reprinted from Sundance Film Festival, 2009

Raw, blistering, harsh and compelling in the way that only a really good "prison film" can be, Nicolas Wining Refn's Bronson is a rather rough experience. Fortunately it's also very smart, dark, intelligent and disturbing, supported by a force-of-nature lead performance and a screenplay that focuses more on the "character study" angle and less on the "wow, prison sure is disgusting" perspective.

Based (apparently very closely) on actual events, Bronson is about a British thug named Michael Peterson, a rough, gruff, and muscle-bound troublemaker who somehow earned the title of Britian's most violent prisoner. Incarcerated for a stupid (but non-violent) post office robbery, Peterson adopts the moniker of American film star Charles Bronson and begins a long and rather unpleasant life behind bars. Although he's more of a angry man than an outright evil one, poor Bronson has a serious problem keeping his temper in check. Stuck in a cell with little to do besides build muscles and pace around nervously, Bronson snatches every opportunity to dole out some raw-knuckled fisticuffs whenever the "screws" invade his cell.

When you think of a man of brawn who can outwit the ruthless Predator, you think of two men: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Adrien Brody. What, you didn't picture that last one? Well, Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod Antal did. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brody and Topher Grace are both set to join Alice Braga, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Walt Goggins, Danny Trejo and Oleg Taktarov in Predators, a franchise reboot of sorts that will follow several of earth's "killers" who are kidnapped and dropped on the Predator's home planet for a game of hide, seek and be brutally murdered.

All joking aside, Brody and Grace's unassuming demeanors will be a big part of their characters. Brody will play a soldier forced to become a leader (presumably because the Predator killed the old one), but is fit for the job because he's "a hunter of men." Grace will play a nerdy, accountant type whose very ordinariness hides the fact that he's a serial killer.

The rest of the cast is a little better suited for the lethal jungle. Braga will play a tough female killer, while Ali is a man who is unafraid to die. Goggins is a loose cannon (there's always one!) and Takatarov will be a former Russian operative. But baddest of them all is Trejo's Cuchillo, "a hardened warrior with two uzis strapped to his back." I don't know about you, but my leader would be the one with the twin uzis. That's just me though.

Shooting begins next month in Hawaii, and then moves to Austin. Variety notes that Brody lobbied very hard for the role, and has already signed on for future installments. So, I guess we know which operative makes it out of the jungle ...

Well, it's October now, and just as all sites set their... well, sights on all things horror, Horror Squad's been ahead of the curve by covering it all year round! A-ha!

Seriously, though, as Weinberg told you, we've kicked off our Fates Worse Than Death series -- today's entry from yours truly regards that ever grisly Event Horizon. (Your suggestions are also welcome.) Peter's got the latest on the best in this week's genre discs (Trick 'r Treat, ho!), and newbie Brad McHargue keeps up the Fantastic Fest coverage with his look at Jake West's horror-comedy, Doghouse.

Mind you, the Sci-Fi Squad crew ain't slouching either, whether it's concerning their new genre DVDs of the week, their Fantastic Fest interview with Stingray Sam director Cory McAbee, their wonderfully gonzo glimpse at next month's disaster-tastic 2012, and a gallery of the downright geekiest tattoos I have ever seen.

So get crackin'! After all, this October only comes one time a year... or something.

I'm beginning to think that Liam Neeson owns Hermione Granger's Time Turner, or that he has a lifelong supply of Red Bull because he's signed on for another role -- and this one would appear to be filming simultaneously with The A-Team. According to The Hollywood Reporter reports that Neeson has just joined Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks in Paul Haggis' The Next Three Days.

Days is a remake of the 2008 French thriller Pour Elle, and accuses an ordinary woman (Banks) of a gruesome crime she insists she didn't commit. She's sent to prison and becomes suicidal, and her desperate husband (Crowe) plots to break her out. (Ah, love!) But she'll have a little help from Neeson, who plays an ex-con who has broken out of prison multiple times, wrote a how-to guide about it, and offers his assistance to Crowe. The role is being described as "cameo in nature" which suggests Neeson might be narrating his own Dummy's Guide to Escaping From Prison, or is at least available to Crowe by cell phone to work out the tougher bits.

Filming just started on Days in Pittsburgh last Friday, and wraps on December 12. The A-Team just started filming too, so I'm honestly surprised that their schedules can coincide so neatly. Maybe Neeson is ducking down to Pittsburgh and filming this one on the weekends. I think they're missing a prime opportunity here to tie The Next Three Days into The A-Team universe. If there's one thing Hannibal Smith knows anything about, it's being accused of crimes you didn't commit, and evading the law until you're free of them.

Overture Films' remake of Sweden's critically acclaimed Let the Right One In has been decried as unnecessary by a lot of critics and film fans. But it's happening no matter how much digital ink we spend complaining about it, and at least they have gone and hired themselves one heck of a cast. In an official press release, Overture has announced that Richard Jenkins, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Chloe Moretz have been cast in Let Me In.

The roles are the same, though the names have been Americanized. Smit-McPhee will be playing Owen, the lonely boy who befriends the strange smelling girl who haunts his apartment complex. Moretz will be playing Abby, the immortal with a child's face. Jenkins will play her caretaker, Hakan. (They haven't decided what to change the name to, I guess. I bet you'll see him renamed Hank or Henry before long.) While I haven't seen enough of Moretz to judge her work, I know Smit-McPhee and Jenkins will be fantastic. (If you haven't rented Romulus, My Father, do so! Its a wonderful film, and it'll give you a preview of what you can expect out of Smit-McPhee in The Road.)

Of course, the performances will all depend on how the troubling, eerie story is handled by director Matt Reeves. If the nuances of the characters are bungled, then it won't matter how good the cast is. Let Me In begins filming in New Mexico (now there's a departure from the Swedish snow) this fall, and will hit theaters January 15, 2010.

Last night saw attendees of the Real D-sponsored Fantastic Fest greeted with an extended look at footage from James Cameron's forthcoming Avatar, and with it (for me at least) a more defined shift in expectations for the long-awaited film. The footage -- more often than not composed of extended scenes from Avatar Day -- still looks terrifically realized in 3-D, but the bits and pieces of story filled in by producer Jon Landau between scenes and the voice-over of Sam Worthington's character during them suggest something a little less... rapturous.