Having been one of the ten people on earth who hasn't read The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, it's no surprise that I'm not terribly amped for the follow-up flick from Ron Howard. But, I know I am in the minority here, so feast your eyes on a new batch of photos (courtesy of Trovacinema) of Tom Hanks and company hard at work on the big-screen Angels and Demons. Most of the cast is pictured in the photos, and by the looks of it, everyone seems to be having a grand old time on location in Rome.

Demons will center on Robert Langdon (Hanks), who's smack dab in the middle of a fight between The Vatican and The Illuminati. Once again, the Harvard professor will have to take down an ancient conspiracy, but this time they have an eye on assassinating high-ranking members of the church. Casting finally finished back in April with the addition of Ewan McGregor (which is a good thing for me, because if anyone can make me sit through a film I normally wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, it's McGregor), and Ayelet Zurer as the daughter of a CERN physicist looking to solve her father's murder.

Shooting on the picture just began last week, and Howard will finish up location shots in the next three weeks. Then the production will move back to the states where they can complete interior shoots on the Sony lot. So as long as a SAG strike can be avoided, Howard should be able to get the production in on time.

Angels and Demons is scheduled for release on May 15th, 2009.

This is one movie I keep forgetting is actually being made. Ron Howard's adaptation of Angels and Demons has been simmering away, sending out casting calls, not quite reaching any level of heady anticipation. Maybe this news will do it.

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer has landed the part of Vittoria Vetra, the daughter of a CERN physicist who is embarked on a journey to uncover the truth behind her father's murder. Of course, Robert Langdon (still played by Tom Hanks) accompanies her, and they must foil a terrorist plot in the process.

The studio has yet to confirm. Naomi Watts was reportedly the last to be in talks for the role. No other parts have been cast.

I'm not an avid reader of Dan Brown, so I must ask: is the plot of Angels and Demons really that similar to The DaVinci Code? Is it really that a pretty foreign girl loses a member of her paterfamilias, and Robert Langdon must help her? Is it via the works of coded works of Michaelangelo? Is the Catholic Church evilly involved? I am guessing it is, since one of the characters in need of an actor is an aide to the Pope. Fill me in, because I will never read the book.

Angels and Demons is still set for release May 15th, 2009.

A dedicated contributor to the Ain't it Cool News machine got the chance to catch what they claimed was the final cut of Ron Howard's political drama, Frost/Nixon, and the good news is that it earned a resounding thumbs up (if you make it through the entire review, there is also a little surprise regarding the Arrested Development feature). Frost/Nixon is based on the famous stage play by Peter Morgan, which premiered in 2007 and earned Frank Langella a Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.

In 1977, Frost, as the host of a popular news show titled Frost on America, conducted a series of hard-hitting interviews with Richard Nixon. Nixon had been interviewed countless times before, but Frost was perhaps the only journalist to ever get him to admit his culpability in the Watergate break-in. Morgan adapted his own play for the screen, and it centers on Frost's team as well as re-enactments of the interviews.

Reprising their roles are Frank Langella as the disgraced former President Nixon, and Michael Sheen as British journalist, David Frost. Joining Langella and Sheen are Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, and Sam Rockwell as James Reston Jr. Judging by AICN's tipster, it looks like most of the praise will be directed at Langella's stellar performance as the former president. So for those of you who like to get an early jump on your Oscar pool, you might want to keep Langella in mind. Frost/Nixon goes into limited release on December 5th.

Well, since Angels & Demons still has that big question mark hanging over the production, I guess Ron Howard wants to keep busy. Sci-Fi Wire reports that Howard's Imagine Entertainment and Paramount Pictures are in negotiations for the film rights to E.E "Doc" Smith's classic pulp sci-fi series, Lensman. Smith's grandson told Sci-Fi Wire that Imagine and Universal are negotiating for an 18-month renewable option for the film. He also went on to say, in what looks to be a carefully crafted response, "This is being negotiated now. One can only assume at that point if they believe it will be a profitable venture they would move ahead with at least one film."

The series first appeared in the '30s in Amazing Stories and at the insistence of friend and publisher Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Smith later went back and re-wrote the story to work in the new stuff he was writing. The story focused on the struggle between two alien races: the Arisians and the Eddorians. The Arisians were in the role of the 'good' guys and the Eddorians are a power hungry race bent on war and destruction. The Lensmen are the result of selective breeding by the extinct Arisians to protect future generations from the Eddorians -- and armed with the 'Lens' which is way too complicated to explain but it appears to have something to do with telepathy and a pretty gaudy looking bracelet. Howard still has his political drama Frost/Nixon and the film version of Claire Messud's 2006 novel, The Emperor's Children, so I wouldn't start looking for Lensman any time soon.

[via ComingSoon.net]

There are only a handful of examples out there of a director who has chosen to remake their own movie. But I guess if Alfred Hitchcock can do it, why not someone else? MSN is now hosting the trailer for Michael Haneke's remake of his own film, Funny Games. Starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, the update follows the same story as the original; a family vacationing at a remote country home is terrorized by a psychotic duo -- this time around it's Michael Pitt (Last Days) and Brady Corbet. Judging from the trailer, it's going to be a tough sell to North American audiences. Mainly because you can't tell whether the film is going for pitch black comedy, or a straight thriller. Not to mention (Warning, spoiler ahead), the ending might be a little hard for US audiences to take. Unless, of course, Haneke had some major changes up his sleeve.

This is just the first remake of a Haneke film slated this year. Rumors of Ron Howard taking on Haneke's thriller Cache with long-time production partner Brian Grazer surfaced back in February, although there has yet to be official confirmation. Haneke is also slated to start production on The White Tape or the Teacher's Tale, a period piece set in a German village pre-WW1. Since I haven't seen the original Funny Games, I can't say whether or not the remake is a good idea or not; although experience has taught me that most remakes can never live up to the original -- even if they are made by the same person.

Opie Taylor, director, is quite busy these days. He's into pre-production on Frost/Nixon, and as Variety reports, there's also Colossus: The Forbin Project, a remake of the French thriller Cache and Angels and Demons -- a prequel to The Da Vinci Code. Ron Howard is now adding another to the mix -- an adaptation of Claire Messud's 2006 novel, The Emperor's Children. Erik Davis first told you about the project in January, before Howard officially signed on. As Erik noted, it's about those on the Upper West Side of NYC -- slightly older Cruel Intentions sort of people, or as The New Yorker calls them "New York's chattering classes." Basically, it seems like Whit Stillman territory if his protagonists hit 30.

So now Howard is definitely directing, and a script has been written by none other than Noah Baumbach. Most recently, he penned The Squid and the Whale, which he also directed, but he's also the words behind one of my favorite quirk fests -- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Obviously, with Howard blanketed by projects up to his ears, there's no word when this project will get off the ground, so I wouldn't be surprised if it is at least a year before he gets Children into production. I'm curious to see what he'd do with this. If we were talking Stillman, the chatter would flow and the pretension would be entertaining. But I can't imagine what Opie will make of this world.

This Frost/Nixon is turning into the "character actor" event of 2008. All they need is Steve Buscemi! The cast includes Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones, Matthew Macfadyen, and now the great Oliver Platt is on board as Bob Zelnick. Zelnick was the executive editor of the Frost/Nixon interviews. Ron Howard is directing the film, Peter Morgan (writer of Oscar bait The Queen and The Last King of Scotland) is adapting his Broadway play, which is a dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate interviews between British talk show host David Frost (played by Sheen) and former President Richard Nixon (played by Langella). Sheen and Langella will reprise their stage roles, Langella just won a Tony award for his performance.

I'm a big Oliver Platt fan, he's a welcome addition to just about any movie. I remained supportive even through the 1999-2000 "dark period" when he appeared in pretty much every bad film released, including the jaw-droppingly terrible trifecta of Bicentennial Man, Gun Shy, and Ready to Rumble. Today brings two bits of Platt casting news -- you television fans will be pleased to learn that he has also just been cast in a recurring role on the FX drama Nip/Tuck (Apparently he's only appearing in works with slashes in the title these days). Platt will appear in five episodes as "Freddy Prune, the producer of a TV show on which Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) serve as consultants," Remember, the boys are in Hollywood this season. Nip/Tuck (a guilty pleasure if ever there was one) is a favorite of mine, and I'm very interested in the Frost/Nixon subject matter, so this is a good time to be an Oliver Platt enthusiast.

That upcoming Ron Howard-directed Richard Nixon movie called Frost/Nixon has just added the epic Kevin Bacon to its cast. The adapted stage play already has Frank Langella reprising his role as Nixon and Michael Sheen reprising his role as Frost, as well as Sam Rockwell as James Reston Jr., Frost's head researcher. Now Bacon has slid onto the roster to play Nixon's chief of staff, Jack Brennan. The film and play are based on the televised interviews between Frost and Nixon in 1977, where the former got the ex-president to admit his guilt in the whole Watergate scandal. Of course, as with any adaptation, there are some liberties. According to this write-up, one of the most interesting involves Bacon's Brennan. During one interrogation, Brennan held up a placard for Frost to see that said "Let him talk." The interviewer mis-read it as "Let us talk" and halted the interview for a bit. In the theatrical version, Brennan storms on-stage and demands a break. Ah, the liberties of cinematic storytelling!

I'm sure the Bacon will be a natural in the role -- he has done well with period pieces and true stories in the past (Apollo 13, Where the Truth Lies). But what I want to know is when will Kevin Bacon dance again? The guy has spent the last decade or so acting mainly in creepy thrillers and super-serious dramas, mixed in with a family film here or there for good measure -- and Beauty Shop, the one really strange blip on his recent resume. While there can sadly be no reunion with Chris Penn, I'm sure there's some sort of rebellious dance he can partake in. That is, unless he's going the Christopher Walken route and won't dance again until some great music video director casts him in an epic, short role. But by then, he won't be able to do all the moves of his past and that will just be a bummer.

Despite the seemingly never-ending delay of The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford, there is still plenty of news for fans of Sam Rockwell. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Rockwell, along with Toby Jones and Matthew Macfadyen have signed on for the film version of the Peter Morgan play Frost/Nixon. The play is based on a series of television interviews between disgraced president Richard Nixon and David Frost that took place in 1977, in which Frost managed to get Nixon to admit to his role in the Watergate break-in. Last year, Christopher reported that Ron Howard was set to direct, and the script was adapted by Morgan himself. Also returning to the project from the stage version are Frank Langella (Nixon) and Michael Sheen (Frost). Rockwell will be playing James Reston Jr., Frost's head researcher.

This latest announcement came just a few weeks after Monika reported that Rockwell had signed on to star in the Chuck Palahniuk adaptation Choke. Frost/Nixon is set to start production this summer, which might cause a bit of a tight schedule for Rockwell since Choke was reportedly set to start later this month. Rockwell also has the upcoming thriller Joshua set for release this July, and Snow Angels with Kate Beckinsale later this year. So even though Jesse James might still be in limbo, it doesn't look like Rockwell is having any trouble finding work.

I don't know about you, but I just couldn't see Warren Beatty playing Richard Nixon. Fortunately he won't be, but for some reason he was almost cast as the former U.S. President in Ron Howard's next project, Frost/Nixon. If you think it would have been a good idea, then maybe you should write up a script about the Nixon and Kennedy debates -- and if you get Beatty to play Tricky Dick, then maybe you can get Leonardo DiCaprio to play JFK.

Apparently now that Beatty is no longer in talks for Howard's film, which you may recall is based on the play by Peter Morgan, a more proper choice for the role is being considered. Frank Langella, who played the part on stage, is in negotiations to reprise his performance for the screen. The casting of Langella will certainly make more sense than the casting of Beatty, because the play's other star, Michael Sheen, has also been in talks to reprise his own role, as television interviewer David Frost.

Langella should have been considered from the beginning, but obviously he isn't a big enough star for Hollywood to think of right away, despite all the acclaim he received for his work in the play. So as payback, I hope the actor, who long, long ago was nominated for a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer (he lost to James Earl Jones), not only gets the part, but also wins some awards for playing it. I'm surprised that Hollywood still continues to pass over great stage actors for more well-known names when a play is turned into a film. They should have learned 40 years ago with the whole Julie Andrews-My Fair Lady thing.