No, no, there's not going to be a remake of A Clockwork Orange starring Mick Jagger. At least I don't think so. This is just a fun bit of what-could-have-been. We like to play around with alternate-universe casting here once in a while, and this one's a doozy. Someone found a letter from producer Si Litvinoff to legendary director John Schlesinger, urging him to consider directing an adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel. And part of the pitch was that Mick Jagger wanted the role of the psychopathic Alex, and that the Beatles "love[d] the project" and wanted to provide the musical score. Fortunately (?) Schlesinger wasn't interested and the project eventually wound up falling to good old Stanley Kubrick.

The Clockwork Orange we got was -- like all of Kubrick's work -- too singular a film to even try to imagine how someone else's version would have been different. But I admit I'm amused (and intrigued) by the notion of Jagger taking on the Malcolm McDowell role. Hell, after watching the manic two-hour stage show he put on in Shine a Light at age 63, I'm kind of convinced that he's actually omnipotent. As for the Beatles? That's just creepy. I'll stick with Kubrick's classical selections.

[hat tip: Movie City News]

With a little over a month to go before the release of Rob Zombie's Halloween, the director has released a whole slew of character posters on his MySpace page. They're not nearly as high-quality as the Golden Compass character sheets we brought you recently -- they all have the same background, so its mostly a cut and paste type of job, but they're not bad. There are posters for pretty much every major character here, from Scout-Taylor Compton as (a presumably smaller-chested) Laurie Strode to Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis. There are two for Michael Myers, one of Tyler Mane as the adult, masked Michael and one of Daeg Faerch as the young Myers, with some kind of party hat pushed up onto his head and a creepy look on his face. There are even some posters for Danny Trejo, William Forsythe and Udo Kier -- I didn't even know the first two were in the movie until seeing these posters.

Also in his MySpace update, Zombie lets fans know that the official website for the film has been updated, with some new images in the cast bio sections. I took a look, and they do look like pics I haven't seen floating around yet, so hop on over if you're a Zombie-head. As of now, Halloween has its ticket punched for August 31, when the competition will be Balls of Fury, the Jennifer Lopez festival film Bordertown and Kevin Bacon's Death Sentence, which is being directed by another horror mainstay, James Wan. Looks like Wan isn't afraid to go head-to-head on this one -- we'll see who wins.

Though director Rob Zombie has stated that he's done with the Halloween franchise following this summer's re-imagining of John Carpenter's original 1978 film, that will not stop Dimension from moving forward with additional sequels IF Zombie's version does well at the box office. Of course, this means that whoever doesn't die in the film might be needed for a second, or third, or fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or seventh, or eighth film. In speaking with Rotten Tomatoes, Malcolm McDowell (who's taken over for the late Donald Pleasence in the role of Dr. Loomis) informed them that, should a sequel happen, he'll most definitely be there. He says, "I've signed for three. How about that? They obviously think it's going to be a big hit."

Funnily enough, McDowell had never seen a Halloween film prior to filming; in fact, when he asked Zombie whether he should watch one, the director told him not to. On how he feels people will react to his Loomis, McDowell notes, " ... it's a reinvention of it and he is completely different, my Loomis, I presume. So I guess there will be some people that will be sort of disappointed if they think I'm just going to copy him because I'm not." Based on the little bit of Loomis dialogue in the trailer, I'm confident he'll do a fine job in the role. I'm a little pissed the film isn't coming out on Halloween; then again, it might be better to enjoy whatever goodies Zombie has planned for the DVD while I'm scarfing down the candy I didn't hand out to those kids. (Wait, someone knocked on the door? I didn't hear them.) Halloween arrives in theaters on August 31 -- Labor Day weekend will never be the same ...

The last casting announcement we got from the sci-fi thriller Doomsday, was an exclusive from the director Neil Marshall (The Descent), to our own Chris Ullrich. Now Empire Online has reported that Malcolm McDowell is the latest addition to the cast. The story takes place 30 years after a plague has wiped out a good chunk of the population; inspiring a quarantine that mainly entails walling off the infected. Of course, the virus doesn't stay contained for very long and an elite team is put together to stop the disease from spreading. Written and directed by Marshall, the film also stars Bob Hoskins, Rhona Mitra, and Alexander Siddig. McDowell has signed on to play Kane, a global expert on the virus who advises the team on how to fight the spread of the disease.

It seems slightly out of character to have McDowell in a good-guy role in a film. Despite his varied career, nobody can play the steely-eyed villain like McDowell. Well, maybe Paul Bettany, but I guess that example might not really count. McDowell is currently doing his bad-guy best as Linderman on the NBC series Heroes right now, but there is no solid word on whether his work on the show is firmly in the guest star camp, or whether he has signed on for the long haul. Production on Doomsday began back in February, and between his turn as Dr. Loomis in Rob Zombie's Halloween remake later this year and his possible TV commitments, it looks like we will be seeing plenty of McDowell soon.

Some new Halloween tidbits today: the first photos of Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode and Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis have been splashed by Bloody-disgusting.com. For his part, McDowell looks almost exactly as he does for every role, and certainly doesn't seem to have found it necessary to do the chrome-dome Donald Pleasance thing. Taylor-Compton is seen in a group photo along with fellow cast-members Danielle Harris and Kristina Klebe and is sporting some blockish, nerdy glasses. Her two friends each have on Haddonfield High varsity jackets, which is a nice touch.

The folks at BD, who must monitor Rob Zombie's MySpace page night and day, also report that Zombie is peppering his remake with some unusual cameos, including Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees as a gun shop owner. Calico Cooper, the daughter of vintage rock star Alice Cooper, has also supposedly finagled herself into a small role in the film -- she says so on her official website. BD also recently posted a couple of new photos from Zombie's Grindhouse fake trailer, which involves werewolf nazis. Zombie's Halloween is filming now and is currently scheduled to hit theaters August 31.

Report #1: Newcomer Daeg Faerch will be playing the young Michael Myers in Rob Zombie's Halloween remake.

Report #2: Longtime character actor Malcolm McDowell will be playing Mike's nemesis, Dr. Loomis, a role made famous by the adorably overacting Donald Pleasance.

Report #3: Hulking (and generally silent) actor Tyler Mane will be playing "The Shape" himself: The grown-up and perpetually P.O.'ed Michael Myers.

And yes, now comes Report #4, because Rob Zombie seems to think that if he doles out his casting tidbits one droplet at a time, it'll get the horror fans all extra-jazzed for this sadly inevitable remake. And here I am, playing along:

You guys know Dee Wallace-Stone? Heck. sure you do: She was in the original Hills Have Eyes and The Howling and Cujo -- OK fine, she was the mom from E.T. Toldja you know who she is! According to a report at MyZombieSpace, Dee has been signed to play Mrs. Strode, mother to main character Laurie Strode. (No, we don't yet know who'll be playing Laurie Strode. It's Bob Zombie's way of keeping his blog popular.)

We do have some additional cast members to share, though: Pat Skipper will be playing Laurie's dad, William Forsythe will be playing an abusive jerk and Sheri Moon Zombie will be playing Michael Myers' mom -- 'cuz it's good to be the director's hot wife.

A few days ago we learned that a creepy-looking unknown was hired to play the young version of Michael Myers in Rob Zombie's new Halloween flick, and now comes word that a very well-known actor has been cast to play Dr. Loomis -- the character made famous by the late, great Donald Pleasance.

Although schlock-hounds like myself know Malcolm McDowell from his countless roles in numerous B- and C-level genre flicks, the general movie populace would recognize the veteran actor from his work in A Clockwork Orange -- or maybe Blue Thunder. (My favorite McDowell performance came in Nicholas Meyer's really cool Time After Time, and you simply haven't lived until you've seen McDowell's work in Caligula.)

Not to be confused with Roddy McDowall (because good ol' Roddy passed on a few years back), Malcolm McDowell has spent the last several years providing rascally charm or nefarious sneers to movies like In Good Company, Evilenko, Hidalgo, I Spy, Gangster No. 1, Mr. Magoo and Star Trek: Generations. Plus he's freakin' hilarious on Entourage.

...and as skeptical as I've been regarding this new Halloween, I feel I must offer Rob Zombie some praise here. McDowell's a great choice for this type of character: old-school-respected enough to provide a strong screen presence, but shifty-eyed and funny enough to add some color to the flick.

[Thanks to Bloody-Disgusting.com for the tip.]