Multiple sources are reporting today that Universal has invited John Landis into the office for a couple of meetings about potentially directing The Wolf Man, probably at the behest of the film's creature effects maestro Rick Baker, who Landis worked with on the seminal modern werewolf picture, An American Werewolf in London, many full moons ago. There are reports that the studio was taken aback by the hissy fit that the usually compliant Harry Knowles went into over the studio's almost-sealed deal with Brett Ratner to take over the project that Mark Romanek has inconveniently exited, and so now they're keeping their options open by meeting with a whole host of potential candidates. I don't really buy that -- there's no way the Universal brass actually takes fanboy reaction that seriously, but nevertheless, here we are, and I'm left with one question: John Landis -- really?

Landis has been persona non grata in Hollywood for a long, long time -- being negligent enough to allow Jennifer Jason Leigh's dad to be decapitated on your movie set is a great way to have your phone calls go unreturned -- but he did get at least a couple of comeback opportunities in the 90s, most notably the chance to helm a third Beverly Hills Cop film, and he bungled that opportunity fabulously. BHCIII is one of the worst big-budget action-comedy films I've ever seen in my life, so lifeless and listless and such a franchise-killer that even Jerry Bruckheimer will tell you, if you ask, that he wouldn't be involved in a fourth one if they begged him. Landis's 1992 vampire film, Innocent Blood, was also a hokey disappointment. Still, some swear by the man who brought us Trading Places, Three Amigos and American Werewolf, and would be giddy at the thought of his return to the brass ring. Are you one of those people?

An eclectic group of online film notables, including former Times critic Elvis Mitchell, AICN's Harry Knowles, my colleague Glenn Kenny of Premiere.com, Roger Ebert's sidekick Jim Emerson and Jen Yamato of Rotten Tomatoes have gotten together to have a long, in-depth discussion about one of the year's top awards contenders, No Country for Old Men. A lot of topics are discussed during the free-floating talk, ranging from macro subjects like the film's much talked-about ending and the theme of old vs. young to minutiae like what happened to the coin that the gas station attendant won his life with and the significance of Javier Bardem's Prince Valiant haircut. There's also a lot of talk about the significance of feet in the film -- one character gets wounded in the foot and Bardem's character has a peculiar obsession with keeping his feet clean and there are lots of shots of walking feet in the film. What does it all mean?

It's the controversial ending that prompts the most debate, and Harry Knowles talks at one point about a screening of the film that took place in Austin with Josh Brolin in attendance: "A member of the audience stood up and [said] 'Why did they end it like that?!' and Brolin just looked at the guy and he looked angry." Kenny offers a unique interpretation of the last act, specifically referring to two events that happen in quick succession involving Bardem and another character. He believes Bergman's The Seventh Seal was an influence for the Coen Bros. on that. To hear the whole thing, just download the MP3 off the film's official website and enjoy.

The big talk of the past couple days is the overtly hostile audience reaction that greeted The Poughkeepsie Tapes at Harry Knowles' Butt-Numb-A-Thon this past weekend. For those who haven't seen it, Poughkeepsie is a horror-mockumentary, a "found footage" movie like The Blair Witch Project, in which we're told about and shown clips from the 'found' video library of a prolific serial killer who terrorized Poughkeepsie, NY for years. At BNAT, the audience greeted the film with boos and hisses and the mood was so hostile that a planned Q&A with the filmmakers was cancelled on the spot. Today, AICN and other sites are running advance reviews that spoil the movie's secrets and trash it as a completely failed project.

Here's where I come into this -- I saw The Poughkeepsie Tapes at Tribeca and I enjoyed it, but only because I was seeing it on a completely different wavelength than the filmmaker. You see, the director actually thinks his movie works as a faux-documentary. He thinks the audience is fooled. Not only is it not fooled, but when watching the film at Tribeca I never even imagined a serious attempt was being made to trick me into thinking this was real. It was only later, when I conducted an exclusive interview with John Dowdle, that this came to light. See, I thought it would be perfectly okay to talk about the film not being real during the interview, and I happily pointed out all the 'cues' that clued me to the fact that it was phoney. This caused John great agita and weeks after the interview was published, I started getting frantic, panicked emails from the film's publicity people asking me to cut out the passages where I talked frankly about the film being fictional.

John, get a new marketing team. No human being with a third-grade education or higher is fooled into thinking your movie is a legit documentary. Again, I didn't even know I was supposed to think that. But the point is that I didn't care -- I thought the movie actually worked as a horror-comedy and I gave it a positive review, and I certainly wasn't the only one. That's the direction to spin this thing. Otherwise, you're just pissing people off by insulting their intelligence.

One of the most versatile filmmakers around, Michael Apted is no stranger to picking up franchises that were begun by other people. Most respected is his continued following of up of 14 individuals, who have been presented every seven years in what are collectively known as the _ Up documentaries (49 Up was the most recent). He took that project -- which was not originally intended as a lifelong series -- over from Paul Almond, director of Seven Up!, for which Apted served as a researcher. A few years ago, he took on the 007 franchise for a single shot effort, The World is Not Enough. Now a little bird has told Harry Knowles at Aint it Cool News that Apted will be taking over the Chronicles of Narnia series.

I haven't seen the first of the Narnia movies, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I wasn't planning on it, but now I'm gaining some interest. Franchises are always more appealing to me when they switch up directors midstream. It worked great for the Harry Potter movies, which completely raised their cred by bringing in Alfonso Cuarón for the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, following Chris Columbus' welcome departure after the first two. Apted may not be as great a filmmaker as Cuarón -- I lost interest in his fiction filmmaking after the J. Lo vehicle Enough (not to be confused with his James Bond effort) -- but he should bring some freshness to the Narnia movies. If the little bird is correct, he will take on the third movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, which also currently is rumored to have Neil Burger attached. One or the other will replace Andrew Adamson, who, like Columbus, has been the series' director for the first two installments -- he is currently directing the second, Prince Caspian.

Extra, extra! Read all about it! Professional gore-slinger Eli Roth to attend South By Southwest this March, sit on a horror-geek panel, and show off a brand-new clip from his upcoming movie Hostel: Part 2! Cool!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First the panel news: The event ("Panel of the Dead: Horror Films of Today") will be held on March 11, with AICN's Harry Knowles moderating the discussion. Panelists will include Mr. Roth, filmmaker Scott Glosserman (Behind the Mask), producer Lauren Moews (Cabin Fever, Borderland) and yes, yours truly, because if you're going to invite a film critic to sit in on a horror panel, you should probably choose one who actually appreciates the fine art of cinematic horror ... as I so definitely do. (There may be some more panelists announced down the road, so stay tuned!)

But what about the movies? Well, in addition to the aforementioned Hostel: Part 2 clip, SXSW attendees will be able to enjoy the following fright-centric flicks:

Borderland (World Premiere) -- Sean Astin, Rider Strong and the amazingly gorgeous Mircea Monroe star in this tale of lost kids, wrong turns and human sacrifices.

Grimm Love (North American Premiere) -- Before he was handed the reins on the upcoming Hills Have Eyes 2, German filmmaker Martin Weisz created this unpredictable (and fairly controversial) tale of hardcore cannibalism. (Over the past year or so, I've been asked "Have you seen Grimm Love yet?" at least a dozen times.)

Mulberry Street (North American Premiere) -- SXSW producer Matt Dentler described this one to me as "Zombies overtake New York, only they're like Rat-Zombies. It's pretty damn wild." Sign me up.

Sisters (U.S. Premiere) -- All I know is that it's a remake of the Brian De Palma flick, and it stars Stephen Rea and Chloe Sevigny ... which is all I need to get at least somewhat interested.

Them (U.S. Premiere) -- A French chiller also known as Ils, it's about a couple who get absolutely terrorized by a group of unseen assailants. And by "unseen," that means by the audience as well.

...and of course the SXSW brain-trust has its collective eye on a few more horror titles, so if you feel like visiting Austin and you really like scary, spooky, splattery movies -- I say you make your trip mid-March.

And now, the third installment of our new weekly podcast, Coming Distractions. I'm your host, Cinematical.com Editor-in-Chief James Rocchi, and this week's edition of Coming Distractions features myself and Cinematical.com contributor Scott Weinberg talking about Pirates, Ain't It Cool News' 10th Birthday and and much, much more. Download and enjoy -- and let us know what you think in the comments section! The Podcast can be found ... right here.

(Coming Distractions theme: 'Overdose,' Dumb.)

Okay, so you work in Marketing at IFC. You've got to get the print ad done for Sorry, Haters -- a shot-on-DV movie that's getting mixed reviews. And ... something happens. You (and this part is multiple choice):

a) Don't get that Ain't it Cool News takes reports from readers with pseudonyms, and that Vincent Hanna is the name of Al Pacino's character in Heat. You run the ad, with Hanna's blurb between the endorsement of Ebert and Roper, The Hollywood Reporter and Entertainment Weekly.

b) Completely understand that and yet have no compunction about running a blurb from a pseudonymous fictional character because, hey, could you pick Lisa Schwarzbaum out of a line-up? Maybe she's fictional, too.

c) Were working on proof-reading the ad quite diligently until you realized that 'Wacky Steve' from IT was having his farewell party at that place near the thing you went to that one time where they have drinks.

d) Were distracted by the pleasure of finally meeting David Manning and then awoke screaming from your Charlie Kaufman-esque nightmare.

e) All of the above.

Share your thoughts. And see the full, uncropped ad scanned from the San Francisco Bay Guardian after the jump.

Austin Film Society announced the recipients of its Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund grants this week. Of the 27 recipients, I recognized several of the names: Kyle Henry (Room), Kat Candler, Rusty Kelley (the young actor from Dear Pillow), and even local writer Spike Gillespie, who is working on a documentary.

I had never heard of Emily Hagins, who received funds to complete work on her feature film Pathogen. Harry Knowles points out that the filmmaker is 12 years old and Pathogen is a zombie movie. Knowles claims that Hagins saw her first zombie film at a Butt-Numb-A-Thon film festival a couple of years ago and has been in love with the genre ever since, as well as eager to learn how to make her own movies.

I am intrigued by the idea of a zombie film written and directed by a pre-teen girl and wish Emily Hagins all the best. I hope I'll get to see Pathogen someday. The film's Web site includes production stills and a trailer, which hints that some of the violence may be a bit, well, PG-13.  And you gotta love a production company called Cheesy Nuggets.