If I were going to pitch Susan Cooper's kid-lit fantasy series, The Dark is Rising, to a room full of studio execs, I'd proceed as follows: "Listen, guys. I'm not gonna lie. This is gonna be a real challenge. These books are not only noticeably dated from a sci-fi/fantasy fan's perspective, but also remarkably insular and plotty, and not even the good kind of plotty. They aren't 'every chapter is a new adventure' plotty, but more like a catalog of meaningless busywork-tasks the hero has to perform. The books remind me of a third-rate Atari 2600 game, in which the hero has some Arthurian pedigree that's spelled out in the booklet, but on-screen he's just a bland avatar who has to collect six out of nine sacred talismans and place them in the right spots on the map, in order to thwart the 'forces of darkness.' That's all this series amounts to, but I wouldn't be pitching this to you if I didn't see some ways we can get around that stuff. So allow me to proceed.

We're going to adapt the second book in the series, for two reasons: first, because it's called The Dark is Rising, which will make a cool title, but also because it contains an intriguing substrata. The main character, Will Stanton, is a 14 year-old wizard who is struggling with puberty just as he's discovering his wizarding ways. The bad guys know this, so they send a witch to tempt him, in the form of a hot, older girl. In the book, this is hardly more than a footnote and most of the plot is given over to the young wizard learning his craft from an old wizard, but that's just bo-ring. We're going to downsize that angle considerably and make the witch subplot the A-story. I'm envisioning a tragic first-love saga between this kid who doesn't know any better, and this more experienced girl who is allied with the forces of evil, but isn't totally evil to the core. There's a sort of Anakin Skywalker quality to her, which a good script will heighten. With me so far? Good.

Last week, director Yam Laranas announced on his blog that Amelia Warner would star in his next film, The Echo, alongside Jesse Bradford. Then, he inexplicably yanked the post down from the page and has yet to offer an explanation or a further update. The blog post was live long enough for several outlets to pick it up. In any case, the casting makes sense in light of what Amelia told me when I spoke to her last week. She said she was in talks for a small film and that if she came on board, her work would begin in September -- The Echo is a low-budget film that begins production in New York City in September. So I contacted Amelia's reps over the weekend and told them I was running with this casting by a certain time unless they told me it was bogus. They haven't replied yet, so I'm going with this. If it turns out that some snafu caused her to pull out of the project, then we'll report that too.

Bradford's casting was announced by Hollywood Reporter on June 12, and he'll be playing the part of an ex-con who moves into an apartment building and finds out that his neighbor is a crazy policeman who likes to beat up his wife and daughter. Some kind of curse is placed on his character when he gets involved in their business. If that sounds familiar, it's because this is a remake of the Filipino thriller Sigaw, which was also directed by Laranas. It's unclear who Amelia will be playing in the film, but I assume it's the daughter role and love-interest of Bradford's character. We'll keep you posted with additional details on this project.

One of the most highly anticipated films of the fall is Fox Walden's adaptation of The Dark is Rising, the popular young adult fantasy adventure first published in 1973. The second installment in a five-book series by author Susan Cooper, the book follows a young hero named Will Stanton, who wakes up on his 11th birthday to find that he has traveled many years back in time. This is his introduction to an ancient, ongoing war between the forces of The Light and The Dark -- a war in which he's been fated by birth to be a central figure. The story is drenched in Old English/Arthurian influences -- there are Grail cups, talismans and magical swords galore -- and there's more than enough action to make for a rousing, special-effects heavy big-screen adventure, which seems to be what we're in store for.

One of the more memorable characters introduced in the book is Maggie Barnes, a seemingly sweet young farmgirl who the heroes quickly discover is actually something quite different. Playing Maggie in the movie version is Amelia Warner, an up and coming 25-year old British actress who you may remember as Una Flux in the 2005 Charlize Theron movie Aeon Flux. The early word on The Dark is Rising is that Amelia's performance is going to be one of the major selling points, although exactly how much her character has been altered from page to screen is being kept top secret. The picture you see above, which was released to Cinematical two days ago, is one of the very first of her character. I recently called up Amelia in Los Angeles to talk to her about the project, who she thinks will enjoy it, and where she goes from here in her career.

Have you seen a cut of the movie yet? And what's your sense of the overall vibe, in terms of how it's been put together? Sort of a Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter?

AW: I haven't seen it. We only finished about two weeks ago, and yeah, I guess you could kind of make comparisons to stuff like Lord of the Rings and stuff like The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, because it has those fantasy elements to it, and it's an adventure and there's quite a lot of action. It's kind of following a boy who discovers that he has what's almost like a quest that he has to complete. It's about him and him being tested along the way. All of those kinds of films or books, there's always that kind of struggle between good and bad and the light and the dark. Good and evil. This film is definitely ... that's what it's about. It's been going on for ages and ages and across time. There's been this struggle between good and bad. When the film starts, the dark is rising and Will Stanton, who is the chosen boy, can help the light fight them.

I read the books a long, long time ago, and I remember your character, Maggie Barnes being something of a minor character -- are they taking the female role and beefing it up?

AW: I don't know, I haven't read the books! I started to read the book and to be honest, the script is so different -- there's been a lot of changes -- that I almost found it confusing. I'm going to read it after I finish. I haven't done it yet, but I'm planning on doing it.

Well, in the book she's something other than a traditional romantic interest -- what can you tell me about how she's portrayed?

AW: I'm not really allowed to say very much about her -- she's kind of like a mystery. You don't really know what side she falls on, and in the story, she appears to be a new girl at the school. The character of Will sees her in the village and kind of develops a crush on her, and she's just kind of lingering around. But she's there to look after Will and to make sure that nothing bad happens to him, and she's going to protect him.

• Date Movie - Nowhere in the formula "Comedy = Tragedy + Time" does "Cruelty" figure in, something that this caca-palooza -- "from 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie" -- sets out to correct from the very first scene. When they introduce us to morbidly obese Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), it is with ridicule as they paint her as a hideous beast that makes men vomit and turn gay. Of course, when we remember that 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie were Wayans Brothers, whose stock in trade is that kind of cruelty, it makes sense (even if these are another two writers.)

A parody of romantic comedies like Bridget Jones's Diary, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Hitch, this lame spoof goes for the easy laugh almost every time, beating to death with a golf club every gag with the subtlety of, well ... someone who beats someone else to death with a golf club. The "13" in the movie's "PG-13" rating would seem to be either a limit for either I.Q. or emotional age, as the movie's show pieces are either juvenile blue bits or have something to do with either poop, pee, puke or pus (the dreaded "4 P's"). Putting gifted comic actors like Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge in this stinky mess makes them both stinky by association, though as time goes by, the whole lot of them will only be guilty of contributing to a vast background of white noise that we will have learned to filter out when we grow up. Presently #64 on the IMDB's Bottom 100 of all time.