After the first teaser trailer showed up recently for The Princess and the Frog, Disney's return to traditional hand-drawn-style animation, a lot of the blogosphere was labeling the film potentially racist. Hopefully the political correctness circles have died down a bit, though (or are at least concentrating too hard on Tropic Thunder), and we can appreciate some beautiful new artwork from the film without wondering how it might be reflective of stereotypes and whatnot. Over at DisneyAnimation.com, there is a gallery of "visual development" images that give us more of the background depicting 1920s New Orleans and its vicinity. For someone like me, who just recently revisited the Big Easy, the artwork is enough to get me excited about the movie, which unfortunately I must wait for until Christmas 2009.

The Princess and the Frog is a jazzy musical fairy tale based on the classic story "The Frog Princess" and features the first ever African American Disney princess (voiced by Anika Noni Rose). Other characters include a trumpet-playing alligator and a love-sick Cajun firefly. And clearly, from what these new images show us, it's set in New Orleans' French Quarter, as well as the Garden District (or maybe the mansion in this image is further outside the city) and on the bayou, where apparently someone lives in a shipwrecked boat, Swiss Family Robison style. Hopefully, since the story takes place during Prohibition, we'll get to see some swamp-set bootlegging going on.

Be sure to also visit the other project pages on DisneyAnimation.com, for minor info on 2010's Rapunzel and the Phillip K. Dick adaptation King of the Elves, set for a 2012 release. I'm sure there will be more artwork added for those titles in the future, so keep the site bookmarked.

Really, it was inevitable that Ubik would get picked for feature treatment -- being listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 greatest English-language novels since 1923 and all. Plus, as I alerted you back in October, The Halcyon Company picked up a first-look deal with Electric Shepherd Productions for all of Philip K. Dick's writing. However, this latest bit of movie news has nothing to do with Halcyon. Variety reports that Celluloid Dreams have optioned the 1969 novel.

Ubik is set in an alternate version of 1992 where people can travel to the moon and parapsychology is accepted as real. Since telepaths can walk around reading people's minds and learning secrets, there's a company run by Glen Runciter that helps fix this by employing folks who can block telepaths. Along with protag Joe Chip, they head to the moon for a client, but things, well, they blow up.

Dick Hackett says: "Our dad very much wanted this novel to be reimagined in this way and we are happy to be partnering with Celluloid Dreams, whose overall vision and appreciation of the material is consistent with our own." So, there's the golden seal of familial approval, but what about you Dick fans out there. Are you ready for Ubik to hit the big screen? And, do you have any thoughts on who should adapt it?

With the writer's strike in full swing, I thought I'd pay tribute to a few of the writers who currently have films in theaters. Quite frankly, you really have to admire some of them. Take Allison Burnett, who adapted Feast of Love (2 screens) as well as this year's earlier Resurrecting the Champ. Burnett received very little love for either movie, but consider how hard it must have been to cut down a novel and expand a newspaper article at the same time? It makes my head spin. It's also quite impressive that Burnett was able to work again after his earlier script was turned into the universally panned film Autumn in New York (2000). But the thing that impressed me most of all about Burnett is his first produced script, Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight (1992), a vehicle for "Z" level action star Don 'The Dragon' Wilson. This is from a guy who studied playwriting and has published a novel. I can only imagine what it must be like to sit down and actually write something like that. Do you tape the paycheck on the wall next to your desk and keep staring at it? Good for Burnett that he made it out of that hole.

Then there's The Simpsons Movie (96 screens), which has at least eleven credited writers, and possibly more who added material without credit. Among them we have David Mirkin, who directed one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures, Heartbreakers (2001), and James L. Brooks, who won an armload of Oscars for Terms of Endearment (1983). Most of the others are from TV, and I'd like to think they wrote this movie the way they might have written a half-hour episode: by sitting around a big table and throwing out ideas and laughing a lot. Those writer rooms are usually decorated with stuffed animals and novelty items, as well as plates of donuts and other snacks -- perhaps some kind of air freshener as well. It makes me all warm just thinking about it.

Surprise, surprise! We will be getting to choose what sort of semi-true Philip K. Dick production we want to check out. As I told you earlier this month, Taryn Manning and Bill Pullman have already shot Your Name Here, a part biography/part creative embellishment about the author. Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, we've got another one gearing up -- the adaptation of Dick's semi-autobiographical novel, Radio Free Albernuth, which began filming this month. The pic will be the feature directorial debut for The Getaway producer John Alan Simon, who also wrote the screenplay.

The Ironic lady herself, Alanis Morissette has signed on to co-star with Jonathan Scarfe (The Poet), Shea Whigham (All the Real Girls), Katheryn Winnick (Failure to Launch), and Hanna Hall (Halloween). Alanis is playing Sylvia, "a woman who shows up in the vision of a record label executive named Nick (Scarfe) as a glamorous singer." But there's a twist -- she's actually "an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma who, after appearing in Nick's visions, gets a job as his secretary." Through shared visions and spirituality, they become soul mates. Basically, the typical, funky Alanis fare. I mean, she has been the top holy dog, after all. Morissette says: "I am a big fan of Philip K. Dick's poetic and expansively imaginative books. I feel blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film."

It'll definitely be an interesting addition to her repertoire. She got famous getting slimed on You Can't Do That on Television, then uber-famous for her music (the second round, not the super pop stuff), from there, Kevin Smith made her God, she smooched Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City, did a few more movie and TV stints, and most recently, appears in Jeff Goldblum's mockumentary, Pittsburgh. Maybe one of these days she'll combine the music and spirituality and play some sort of traveling Christian musician. But for now, she's just going to have visions.

Oh, Taryn Manning. Sure, she occasionally tackles a different role here and there, but for the most part, she's made her career on a mixture of cinematic drugs, sex, and hooking over and over again. It's gotten to the point where you kind of wonder if that's what her career will amount to. But maybe it'll change now that's she trading in the needles for some flashy robotics. She is co-starring with Bill Pullman in the recently-wrapped Your Name Here, which Cinematical first told you about last year. (Note: The Matthew Wilder who wrote and directed this film is not the music guy.)

It's sort of a biography of Philip K. Dick, but it's being done sort of like Fur -- using his writing and fake world rather than being a straight-out biopic. (Pullman's name in the movie is William J. Frick.) MTV recently talked with the actress and got the scoop on the movie, which is currently being submitted for next year's Sundance. She plays Nikki, who is based on Victoria Principal (the woman Dick wanted to play the lead in Blade Runner).

As Manning describes it, Frick is "infatuated with my character... she starred in that movie Earthquake, and he is obsessed with her even though he has a wife. All around his office you see pictures of me. One day, he does a huge line, and the next thing you know he's in the back of a limo, and there I am!" Well, there she is as a robot. Manning says Frick "can't tell if it's a dream or I'm really there, and the next thing you know, I'm taking him into my world. [He thinks] we're going to live happily ever after." It's zany enough that it could actually be entertaining, and if Taryn is believed, it will be: "It's deep; the writer is great; and it's kooky. I think it'll be another cool cult movie."

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick has always been a vault for great sci-fi movies. What's impressive is that most have been pretty darned successful. Sure, there's flicks like Impostor and Paycheck, but there's also the first to hit the screen -- Blade Runner -- as well as Total Recall, Minority Report, and my personal favorite, A Scanner Darkly. The thing is, this is only the tip of the Dick iceberg -- he's written over a hundred short stories and 45 novels. In a fairly excessive deal, Variety reports that The Halcyon Company has signed a 3-year, first-look deal with Electric Shepherd Productions (run by Dick's daughters) for all of his writing. That's right -- all of it.

With this renewable deal, they can pretty much pick and choose between Dick's other stories and novels (those that haven't been adapted), and bring them to the big screen, home video, and even other media. For the writer's fans, this can be either wonderful news or a possible kiss of death. Will the company just motor through a bunch of ideas to make money, rather than stay true to his work? Or, will they pick and choose carefully? Luckily, the deal also states that they must be made in conjunction with ESP, so that should help with quality control. With the floodgates open, which Dick novel or story would you like to see on-screen?

Get your ass to Mars ... again. According to Moviehole, there's a new Total Recall movie in the works, but it is hard to really tell if it's to be a sequel or a remake. Apparently The Weinsteins have owned the rights to the original TR for years and they had plans to do a follow up. Then Spielberg's Minority Report happened. Huh? Aside from also being adapted from a Philip K. Dick story, MR has nothing to do with TR. Except that it was originally scripted by Ronald Schusett and Gary Goldman as Total Recall 2. Of course, the end result bears no resemblance to that draft, in which Tom Cruise's character was actually Arnold Schwarzenegger's Doug Quaid, the Precogs were mutated humans (from the Martian atmosphere) and all the action took place on Mars. Still, Moviehole claims Minority Report beat The Weinsteins to the punch and so this new Total Recall project will in fact be a remake.

Personally, I don't see how Minority Report keeps The Weinsteins from doing a sequel. Dick's story had no relation to his "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", which was the inspiration for Total Recall, and really the movie makes no reference. Sure, Schusett and Goldman's idea for a sequel is no longer possible, but there is certainly other ways to do one. However, the fact that Schwarzenegger isn't exactly an actor these days also contributes to the problems with producing a sequel. Doing a follow up without him, though, would not be that surprising. In fact, it is particularly common with Paul Verhoeven movies to do a sequel without the stars of the first film (Hollow Man II; Robocop 3; Starship Troopers 2). At least Sharon Stone is interested in a Total Recall sequel. Certainly it would be more ridiculous to go the remake route, considering how popular Verhoeven's original was -- and still is.

Odds and ends from Thursday:

• Okay, so now that we know there are two Philip K. Dick biopics in the works, the question becomes: Which one will garner more heat? So far, according to reports, one (Panasonic) has Bill Pullman in the lead role and the other (The Owl in Daylight) has Paul Giamatti. The screenplay for Panasonic is already complete, though Daylight's script still needs to be written. However, while Panasonic has a very random director in Matthew Wilder attached, word* has it Terry Gilliam has come on to direct Owl in Daylight. Hmm, knowing Gilliam and Giamatti are involved now forces me to heavily favor The Owl in Daylight. Then again, I'm just pumped up about two Philip Dick biopics -- I think the guy is warped.
• The always lovable Jason Biggs has joined Eva Longoria and Paul Rudd in How I Met My New Boyfriend's Dead Fiancée (or How I Just Typed That Title Five Times and Still Screwed it Up). As previously announced, pic will tell of a "female psychic who falls in love with a skeptic while the ghost of his dead fiancée ... tries to keep them apart." Right now, it's being described as "Ghost, except really, really funny." Wait, so Ghost wasn't supposed to be funny?
• After beginning negotiations to helm the next James Bond film (currently titled Bond 22), Roger Michell (Notting Hill) has, apparently, dropped off the project due to "creative differences." With Michell gone, producers will now have to scramble and find a replacement, seeing as they've already scheduled Bond 22 to be released on May 2, 2008. Whether or not this setback will actually affect the film's release is yet to be seen.

*And by "word", we mean "totally unsubstantiated rumor." Make of it what you will.

In the 45th case this year of (at least) two competing movies about the same historical figure being made at the same time, another biopic of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick has been announced, just weeks after news of a similar film surfaced. The first Dick biopic (That just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?) was written and will be directed by 1980s one-hit wonder Matthew Wilder, and stars boring Bill Pullman as Dick. Wilder's film, entitled Panasonic, will reportedly be a comedy in which "The lines between reality and perfection blur ... Paranoid conspiracy theories of the highest order, drug-fueled interdimensional shifts, and 1970s pop-culture combine for the mind-bending adventure of the century." Got that?

The new Dick project, on the other hand, is fully authorized by Dick's estate, and is being co-produced by the estate's Electric Shepherd Prods. Currently untitled, the film is described as a "nontraditional biopic [which] will interweave the prolific author's life with his fiction and incorporate elements of his last unfinished novel, The Owl in Daylight", and will be written by Tony Grisoni (who, having also helped write Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, seems the perfect choice). The increasingly prolific Paul Giamatti, already on board as a producer, is currently in negotiations to star in the film.

There's no word yet on a start date for either project, but since the screenplay for Panasonic is already done, that one would seem to have a head start.

Remember that awesome 1980s song about the guy who "sailed away to China/in a little rowboat to findya" (possibly the greatest slant-rhyme in the history of slant-rhymes), only to find that his girl had to get her laundry cleaned? Yeah, it was a fantastic song. For those of you who, like me, can't remember, it was by a guy named Matthew Wilder. Rather than disappearing off the face of the earth, it turns out that what Wilder has been doing all this time is ... putting together a comedic film about Philip K. Dick. Well of course he has!

According to Saturday's Production Weekly, the film is entitled Panasonic, and will star Bill Pullman as Dick. Panasonic is described as a "comedic journey" into the author's mind, and Wilder is dreaming big. Get this: "The lines between reality and perfection blur ... Paranoid conspiracy theories of the highest order, drug-fueled interdimensional shifts, and 1970s pop-culture combine for the mind-bending adventure of the century." [Emphasis added.] Whoa. Man, I don't care if Chris De Burgh is directing -- I am totally sold on this one.

The movie is due to begin shooting next month.