American Eagle Outfitters is dipping its leather sandal-clad toes into the film business. Variety reports that the clothing manufacturer has launched an entertainment production arm called 77E. 77E will produce "original web series and content around events it sponsors, but also will use the entity to segue into TV, movies and music." The first self-produced AE project is a "webisodic comedy" about mall employees called It's a Mall World. The project was directed by Heroes star and Rocky's son, Milo Ventimiglia, who once asked out a friend of mine. The series stars Sam Huntington (Not Another Teen Movie, Superman Returns), and was written by Adam Green (Hatchet).

Where can you see these videos? Content will be available on AE.com, on video screens in American Eagle stores (can't a man shop in peace?), and through outside partners like MTV, which is showing Mall World. Clips will also be available on myspace, facebook, and youtube, which I am told are popular internet webbysites. Kathy Savitt, executive Vice President of American Eagle Outfitters, says of the kids today: "Content is so important to who they are and how they're living their life. They're so smart and discriminating. We need to make deposits into the cool jar." I would think step one on the path to being cool would be eliminating phrases like "cool jar" from one's vocabulary, but what do I know? AE's first film tie-in is expected to debut shortly. Can a deal between Abercrombie & Fitch and Larry Clark be far behind?

For anyone who is as big a Terry Gilliam fan as I, the following might need to be read while sitting down. According to Variety, Handmade Films, the production company co-created by George Harrison, is set to remake Time Bandits, which Gilliam made for the company twenty-five years ago. Possibly my first introduction to the fantastic film maker and also to many of the Monty Python cast, the film is very dear to me as both a Gilliam fan and as a child of the '80s. It tells of a young boy who travels through time and space with a group of little people who have stolen a special map from "the Supreme Being" in order to guide them on a tour of events throughout history, robbing from characters as diverse as Agamemnon, Robin Hood and Napoleon along the way.

Without Gilliam's cooperation and without the cast, which originally included Sean Connery, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Ian Holm and the finest bunch of diminutive actors ever, I just can't imagine how good a Time Bandits redo could be, though I will say that if Handmade reuse Gilliam and Palin's script, it won't be too terrible. I'm not that excited about whatever kind of computer effects they might employ, however.

Handmade, now headed by Patrick Meehan with a production arm led by former Nelson Entertainment exec Anthony Rufus-Isaacs, is supposedly looking to remake more of its older films and in addition to Time Bandits is also working on an update of The Long Good Friday, which originally starred Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren, and a new version of Mona Lisa, which also starred Hoskins, to be directed by Larry Clark.

[via Cinema Blend]

And now, the fifth installment of our 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's Erik Davis. This week's edition of the Podcast finds Erik and I discussing Larry Clark's abdominal obsession, The Beastie Boys' foray into filmmaking, Dakota Fanning's accelerating career 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.)