• Marit Allen (c.1941-2007) - Costume designer who worked often with Ang Lee (on Brokeback Mountain, Hulk and Ride with the Devil) and Nicholas Roeg (on The Witches, Eureka, Bad Timing and Don't Look Now). She also produced wardrobes for Eyes Wide Shut, Smilla's Sense of Snow, Dead Man, Mrs. Doubtfire, Mermaids, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and 2007's La Vie en Rose and Love in the Time of Cholera. She had recently been working on costumes for Justice League of America. She died of a brain aneurism November 26, in Sydney, Australia. (Variety)
• Jeanne Bates (1918-2007) - Actress who co-starred in the 1943 serial of The Phantom. Known for playing nurse characters in TV and film, she appears as such in Gus, The Strangler and Paula. She also appears in Eraserhead, Mulholland Dr., Die Hard 2 and Grand Canyon. She died November 28 in Woodland Hills, California. (FindaGrave.com)
• Fred Chichin (1954-2007) - French musician and songwriter who composed music for André Téchiné's latest, The Witnesses. He also appears as himself, with his band Les Rita Mitsouko, in Godard's Keep Your Right Up. He died of cancer November 28, in Paris. (France 24)
• Mali Finn (c.1938-2007) - Casting director who worked on many on many films by James Cameron, including Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Titanic and True Lies, and by Joel Schumacher, including Batman Forever, Batman & Robin and Tigerland. She also worked on The Untouchables, L.A. Confidential, The Matrix trilogy, Wonder Boys, All the Real Girls, Running with Scissors, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Shooter and the upcoming 10,000 B.C., among others. She died of melanoma November 28, in Sonoma, California. (Variety)
• James M. Hart (1943-2007) - Special effects coordinator who worked on Newsies, Apollo 13, The Vanishing and Witness. He died November 19. (IMDb)
• Evel Knievel (1938-2007) - Daredevil stunt motorcyclist who appears as himself in Viva Knievel! and Freebie and the Bean (as "motorcyclist"). He was portrayed by George Hamilton in 1971's Evel Knievel and by Sam Elliott and George Eads in separate TV movies of the same name. He died November 30 in Clearwater, Florida. (AP)
• Al Mancini (1932-2007) - Actor who plays a soldier "Tassos Bravos" in The Dirty Dozen. He also appears in Miller's Crossing, Falling Down, Big Business, Turk 182! and The Public Eye and voices a fish in Babe: Pig in the City. He died of Alzheimer's disease November 12, in London, Ohio. (FindaGrave.com)

As if he didn't have too many comic book adaptations to write, Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand) has been named as the new screenwriter of Joel Silver's remake of The Dirty Dozen, which we unfortunately heard about early last year. Originally it was reported that the movie was being scripted by three high-profile writers, André Nemec, Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg, but apparently their work isn't good enough and a rewrite is now necessary. Of course, one has to wonder why Silver needs to go through so many writers when there's already a perfectly good screenplay by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller. It isn't like too much needs to be updated; the movie is set in World War II. I'm not familiar with E.M. Nathanson's original novel, though, and I guess the first movie may have omitted some things that the new adaptation could include. Anyway, I guess it just isn't common practice to reuse an old script when remaking an old movie.

For those who haven't seen The Dirty Dozen, it's about a group of military criminals sent on a suicide mission to assassinate Nazi officers. It features an iconic ensemble of actors, most of whom were reunited to voice characters in Small Soldiers as a sort of homage. To the faithful, it will be very, very difficult to see a new version without Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, George Kennedy and the rest. I don't know what the time frame is for the production of the remake, but we may get to see it as early as next year. And if Silver can get the project going soon, maybe it can even go head to head with Penn's buddy Bryan Singer's Hitler assassination movie, Valkyrie. They might even make a good double feature -- or you can rent the original Dirty Dozen and then go see Valkyrie and more possibly experience a great double feature.