It's hard to believe it was just last month that the film industry was trudging through hill, dale and snow to watch movies at the Sundance Film Festival, but in this fast-paced world, it does feel like a million years ago. One of the buzz titles at the fest was Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, a tale of two sisters that start a business tidying up crime scenes. Our own Kim Voynar felt it wasn't the best film she saw at Sundance, "but it certainly wasn't the worst. It does have its flaws, but overall it's a cute film that fans of [Amy] Adams and [Emily] Blunt will enjoy."

Indeed, with the very talented and attractive Adams (Junebug, Enchanted) and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada, The Wolf Man) in the lead roles and Alan Arkin providing support as their scheming father, how did this film fail to get picked up during Sundance? Anne Thompson of Variety notes that Sunshine Cleaning "entered the fest as one of several highly anticipated movies with stars attached that were expected to make a big sale. It didn't happen, though, partly because the filmmakers behind the film, Big Beach ... were hoping to make back their $7-million investment in a quick sale."

Ms. Thompson reports, however, that Overture Films has now acquired the film and plans to release it at the end of the year. The distributor may change the title, though, perhaps concerned that it might be considered too similar to 2006 indie smash hit Little Miss Sunshine, for which Arkin won an Academy Award.

There are casting announcements that make you howl with despair (I'm looking at you, Wolverine) and there are ones that restore your faith in the magic of movies. This is one of those.

Variety has announced that Hugo Weaving will be bringing his deep and scary voice to Universal's upcoming remake of The Wolfman, and taking on the role of Detective Aberline. (Cue all the Matrix, "Evening, Mr. Talbot" jokes as Aberline hunts Talbot across the moors.)

Weaving rounds out an already impressive cast of Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Anthony Hopkins. I know for many, the thought of touching those classic monster movies is complete sacrilege, but if you are going to do a remake, it doesn't get any better than this. Hopefully, Mark Romanek's departure is the only calamity to befall this production and it make a painless transformation (ha ha) to the big screen.

The only flaw remaining is that February release date. I'm glad studios are now realizing people like to see good films in all the months of the year, but The Wolfman really ought to command an October or November release. The atmosphere is just ripe for some Gothic horror. And some of us don't want to see the 25th Saw installment.

John Landis may or may not belong in "director jail," as Ryan Stewart wrote about yesterday, but he won't be directing the upcoming big-budget remake The Wolf Man. Instead, Variety is reporting that Joe Johnston has been signed by Universal Pictures to fill the director's chair recently vacated by Mark Romanek due to "creative differences."

Johnston's directorial career began nearly 20 years ago with the earnestly entertaining Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Rocketeer. He got bogged down with The Pagemaster and Jumanji before delivering the appealing drama October Sky, my fave of his films. He returned to big budget studio projects with Jurassic Park III and Hidalgo.

Is he the right director for The Wolf Man? Based on a script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven), the new film is set to star Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt. Reportedly, Romanek worked for about a year on the film, and del Toro has long been attached to star, but the two producers that Variety says were "integral in keeping the project on track" -- Scott Stuber and Mary Parent -- have a mixed record.

Emily Blunt has been all over the place in her short career, and recently has been reading lots of Jane Austen, and acting alongside greats like Tom Hanks and Alan Arkin. Now The Hollywood Reporter has announced that she is getting into some heavy drama with an upcoming feature called The Girl. HBO is currently circling the project that Gotham award winner David Riker wrote, and will direct --- one that probably won't head into production until the fall, after (hopefully) the writers strike is over.

Like Riker's La Ciudad, Girl is a story about immigration. It "focuses on a Texas woman (Blunt) who finds the daughter of an illegal immigrant who has become separated from her mother. Saddled with a child she doesn't wish to care for, the woman then searches for the child's mother, a quest that takes her south of the border." I guess that while she doesn't want to keep the child, she also doesn't want it to be handed over to the state. If that was the case, she could just go to New York City and get pneumonia. Still, I wonder how she just travels with a little Latin baby with no papers. I guess we'll find out soon enough!

It's not a bad idea for an indie film: Two sisters, still dealing as adults with the aftermath of their mother's suicide when they were children, are stuck in dead-end jobs. Then one of them gets the idea to stop cleaning rich people's houses for a living, and to start a business cleaning up crime scenes instead. That's the basic idea behind Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin.

Adams plays Rose, head cheerleader back in the glory days of high school, now stuck raising her son Oscar (Jason Spevack) alone. Rose cleans houses for a living, a job she's not crazy about, and she's having an affair with her high school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn), who likes Rose enough to have sex on the side, but not enough to leave his wife for her. Her sister Norah (Blunt) lives with their father Joe (Arkin), who's always got a scheme going for finally getting rich. When Oscar keeps getting in trouble in school, Rose decides she needs to make more money so she can put him in private school, and cleaning houses for a living isn't going to get her there.

One might not expect a sweet, funny and warm-hearted crowd-pleaser from the man who wrote movies like Sexual Roulette, Sonic Impact, and Venomous, but I guess filmmaker Sean McGinly has spent the last eleven years churning out schlock flicks just so he could get to something good. And I'm very pleased to report that his newest offering, a smoothly, strongly appealing comedy called The Great Buck Howard, is definitely the "big break" that McGinly's been working for. Backed by a fantastic performance by John Malkovich -- and some really fine work from young actors Colin Hanks and Emily Blunt -- The Great Buck Howard might be the most affectionate look back at old-school entertainment since Peter O'Toole boozed his way through My Favorite Year.

Hanks is a law student who despises law school, so (directly against his father's wishes) Troy Gable bails on higher education and lands a job as a road producer for a serious has-been of a magician. Formerly quite famous (he's been on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show over 60 times), Buck Howard is a relic of a more innocent time. Magician, mentalist, musician and comedian, Mr. Howard is "old-school entertainment" at its most sincere -- and sincerely forgotten. Troy and Buck strike up a professional friendship, although obviously their relationship is due for a few rocky moments.

Ever since her star-making role as Meryl Streep's proudly ambitious assistant in The Devil Wears Prada, Emily Blunt has been very much in demand for both big studio and smaller independent pictures. Currently she's a Sundance darling, showcasing her work in two films playing at the festival: Sunshine Cleaning, in which she's teamed with Amy Adams as sisters who become crime scene cleaners, and The Great Buck Howard, in which she plays "a fiery publicist hired to stage the comeback of a lifetime," according to the program notes.

Now it looks like she's set to play the gal pal of a rather hirsute fellow. Back in December, Scott Weinberg first passed on a report that Ms. Blunt had been (almost) hired to play Benicio del Toro's girlfriend in Mark Romanek's version of The Wolf Man, based on a script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven). MTV News spoke to her at Sundance, and she confirmed on Saturday that she has been cast and will begin filming in February.

I very much agree with Scott's description of Ms. Blunt as "mega-hot and seriously talented," and the romantic pairing of her with Mr. del Toro looks like a powder-keg of dynamite ready to explode. I look forward to witty banter being exchanged between the couple -- Emily with her pitch-perfect diction rolling bon mots off her tongue, as Benicio mumbles something incomprehensible in return. What a great contrast that will be when Benicio goes all lupine on her! Brilliant casting, I say. The only drag? We'll have to wait until February '09 to see the results.

I know I bitch and moan about horror remakes all the time, but every once in a while there comes a project that melts my cynicism and gets me all geeky. Universal's impending rendition of The Wolf Man is one such project, and I'm basing my early opinions on a few cool factors:

1. Benicio del Toro is going to star, and that's what I call good casting. OK, and this Anthony Hopkins guy is pretty solid, too.
2. Mark Romanek is directing, and if you've ever seen One Hour Photo (or, better yet, this DVD) then you know that's a good thing.
3. The screenplay comes from Andrew Kevin Walker, also known as the man who wrote the blisteringly awesome Seven and one very cool version of Sleepy Hollow.

And now, courtesy of CHUD.com, I have a fourth reason to get excited for this new version of The Wolf Man: The mega-hot and seriously talented Emily Blunt has been (almost) cast as the female lead. (Probably best known for a great supporting turn in The Devil Wear Prada, Ms. Blunt appeared in no less than four films this year: Wind Chill, The Jane Austen Book Club, Dan in Real Life and Charlie Wilson's War.) Plus, like I said, she's really pretty with a powerfully sexy accent.

Unfortunately the new Wolf Man isn't scheduled to make his big-screen appearance until February of '09 -- which will give us plenty of time to bring you all the newest developments.

As the end credits roll on Dan in Real Life, I imagine most people will have roughly the same reaction -- a smile and a shrug. You won't be angry at yourself for watching it, but you'll be hard pressed to remember the thing in two weeks. It's a relentlessly average movie, packed full of "nice" moments but lacking a single great one.

Steve Carell stars as Dan, a widowed advice columnist trying to be a good father to his three daughters, well played by Alison Pill, Marlene Lawston, and a very funny Brittany Robertson. A widowed man raising his three daughters is also the premise of the old sitcom Full House, and the comparison isn't far off. These daughters are fleshed out a bit more than the Olsen twins, but the relationship beats feel the same -- forced, cutesy, a little tired.

Dan and the girls go to visit their extended family in a lakeside Rhode Island cottage. Dan takes a trip to the local bookstore, and in a very Woody Allen-esque scene, he meets and develops a crush on a woman named Marie (Juliette Binoche). There's a "falling-for-each-other" montage that doesn't really convince, Dan gets her number, and heads home to brag about his new "hottie" and meet the girlfriend of his brother (Dane Cook). Surprise surprise -- his hottie and the girlfriend are one and the same -- Marie. Cue the laugh track.

In about five or ten years from now, these kids could be the next Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They're young, eager and starring in some of the highest grossing -- and in some cases, most critically-acclaimed -- films of the past few years. Who are they? What have they done? And where are they going from here? Moviefone has just launched their first annual list of 25 Under 25, showcasing the hottest up-and-coming actors under the age of -- you guessed it -- 25. While some of the names, including Shia Labeouf (age 21), Keira Knightley (age 22) and Emily Blunt (age 24) are well on their way to a long, successful career in front of the camera, can the same be said for the rest of them?

What about Daniel Radcliffe (age 18)? Sure, he's predominantly known as Harry Potter, but only for two more films. His other big-screen adventures haven't quite found a home yet (did anyone see December Boys?), and he'll have to segue from Potter to another big movie or franchise -- albeit one with more of an adult theme -- if he wants to prove he's more than a cute kid with glasses (or does he wear contacts now?). How about Megan Fox (age 21)? She's certainly got the sexy Angelina Jolie factor going on, but is she a good actress? Will she choose the right roles, or will she settle for stuff that puts her in tight clothing, and asks her to crawl around on the ground a lot? Michael Cera (age 19) is creating lots of buzz following Superbad and even more for the upcoming Juno -- but will his "Look, I stumble over my words a lot" shtick tire out in a year? Personally, the one person on this list who, guaranteed, will either be nominated or win an Oscar within the next couple of years is Ellen Page (age 20). She's more than impressed me with every role she's taken on, and is a fantastic actress with so much potential. I'd almost compare her to a young Jodie Foster, but I think she'll be better than Foster and cannot wait to see the stuff she takes on going forward.

So, head on over to Moviefone and check out their list. Are these really the hottest 25 Under 25? You be the judge.

They say life imitates art; what they never tell you is that you don't get to choose the art. So it is for a group of Sacramento residents in Robin Swicord's film The Jane Austen Book Club, adapted for the screen from Karen Joy Fowler's novel. The Jane Austen Book Club (both film and entity) begins as a group of friends try to distract themselves from various personal crises: Jocelyn (Maria Bello) is getting over the death of one of her prized show dogs; Sylvia (Amy Brenneman) has had her lengthy marriage implode on her unexpectedly. The older, oft-married Bernadette (Kathy Baker) comes up with the idea of a book club to get Jocelyn and Sylvia out of their funks. Sylvia's daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace) joins out of solidarity; Jocelyn recruits high-tech worker Grigg (Hugh Dancy) for the club in the hope that sparks will fly between him and Sylvia; Bernadette reaches out to the bookish, unhappy Prudie (Emily Blunt) as a fresh voice for the club's conversations.

At first, the club looks to Jane Austen because her bygone age of simplicity and civility seems like a nice break from the indignities of modern life; Swicord's title sequence shows nothing but traffic jams, mercurial vending machines, blaring stereos and more. But soon, the group finds that when you get past the petticoats and starched collars and period trappings, Austen's central concerns -- relations between men and women, within families, and within ourselves -- are all too relevant to their lives. Jocelyn, at one point realizing that the plot of the club's current novel might resonate too fiercely for the despondent Sylvia mutters offhand that "Reading Jane Austen is a freaking minefield. ..."

Our pals over at Sony Pictures Classics just sent us the first and only planned poster for The Jane Austen Book Club, a romantic dramedy hitting theaters on September 21. Based on the popular 2005 novel by Karen Joy Fowler, which the Washington Post described as something more than just "elegant chick-lit," the film revolves around a group of Californians who start what the title suggests -- a Jane Austen book club -- and then start to see parallels between the works of Austen and their own lives. The leads are Maria Bello as Jocelyn, rising star Emily Blunt as Prudie and Hugh Dancy as Grigg. There's also a supporting cast of well-known names, and the whole thing is being directed by Robin Swicord, who wrote the script for Memoirs of a Geisha and the Sandra Bullock romcom Practical Magic. Click on the image above to get the full-sized poster.

It was just announced by Variety that Aaron Sorkin has made a deal to write three films for DreamWorks. This would have filled me with excitement a couple years ago, but after watching an entire season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I don't know what to feel. I guess everyone should be allowed a misstep, but few shows have angered and frustrated me like Studio 60. Dreamworks CEO Stacey Snider remains confident, stating: "The quality of (Aaron's) work speaks to the kind of movies we want to make here at DreamWorks and we couldn't be happier to have him in our filmmaker family." Sorkin's three film scripts have all been pretty great -- A Few Good Men (an adaptation of his stage play), Malice, and The American President. This Christmas will mark his return to feature films with Charlie Wilson's War, which Mike Nichols is directing.

The first project Sorkin will write for DreamWorks is a drama called The Trial of the Chicago Seven. It "focuses on the trials of protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, where clashes between demonstrators and police made it one of the defining events of the '60s." OK, Sorkin and politics, I'm intrigued. And making the project all the more exciting is its potential director -- none other than Steven Spielberg. Apparently Spielberg has been developing the project with Sorkin for a while, and hopes to direct the film. Charlie Wilson's War, from Sorkin's first screenplay in over a decade, stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Emily Blunt, and Amy Adams. That film will be a drama about covert dealings in Afghanistan. Hey, you know what would work well in a serious drama about Afghanistan? A look behind the scenes of a late-night sketch comedy show! Sound ridiculous? Then why did you think it would work the other way, Sorkin? Why? I'm sorry, I'm still recovering.

Of the two main actresses in My Summer of Love, I was more impressed by Nathalie Press. But it was Emily Blunt who garnered more notice, and it was Blunt who co-starred in a major release like The Devil Wears Prada, and it is Blunt who is now the bigger star. The whole situation reminds me of Heavenly Creatures; the performance I favored in that film was Melanie Lynskey's, yet it was Kate Winslet who rose to stardom. Anyway, like Lynskey, Press has not gone away. Unlike Lynskey, though, Price is continuing to get significant roles in smaller films rather than small roles in more mainstream films. Her latest announced part is the lead in a psychological thriller titled Knife Edge.

Knife Edge was co-written and is being directed by Anthony Hickox, who last gave us the direct-to-video Steven Seagal vehicle Submerged. Considering that the average rating for his films on the IMDb is about 4.5, Knife Edge probably won't be very good. However, it does co-star Oscar nominee Joan Plowright and Hugh Bonneville, both of whom are a far cry from Hickox's usual actor type (Dolph Lundgren, Julian Sands, Armand Assante), and it is being produced by the makers of Mira Nair's Vanity Fair, so maybe this could be the first step in the right direction for the filmmaker.

The plot of Knife Edge is about a Wall Street trader (Press) who moves to the British countryside with her young son. While there, the woman experiences nightmarish visions and involvement with her family lawyer (Bonneville). Although this movie may not do much for Price's career, she should still be remembered well for My Summer of Love and last year's Red Road. She will also soon be appearing in Telepathy, alongside Cillian Murphy, Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, and in Peter Greenaway's Nightwatching. Unfortunately, she seems to have been dropped from the Brontë sisters movie and I highly, highly doubt -- much to the disappointment of one of our commenters -- that she would ever be cast in the Barbarella remake.

Is The Guardian upset that a Canadian is directing a film about Queen Victoria? I don't know, but I find it strange that Jean-Marc Vallée is not mentioned anywhere in Guardian Unlimited's new piece on The Young Victoria, the biopic of the 19th century Monarch being co-produced by Martin Scorsese (he's not British either, but he is named in the article). Anyway, I'm sure he was simply forgotten by accident, but it is important to realize how significant Victoria is to the Canadians (ever hear of Victoria Day?). The piece mostly spotlights screenwriter Julian Fellowes and titular star Emily Blunt. It also lists a cast member we haven't yet heard about: Miranda Richardson, who joins Blunt, Mark Strong and Rupert Friend, who we just recently learned is playing Prince Albert. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Richardson will be playing Victoria's mother, Princess Victoria.

From Fellowes we learn about the focus of the film, which begins shooting next month. And from the description, I'm imagining the mostly brilliant Marie Antoinette with less hair and more tea. Actually, The Young Victoria will begin with the future Queen's repressed childhood, as she is forbidden to do anything or spend time with anyone out of her mother's fears that Victoria might die before taking the crown. Once Victoria does become Queen, though, she kind of breaks loose. Certainly not Marie Antoinette loose, but definitely more free spirited than we typically think of Victoria to have been. Taking place from 1836 to 1840, the film likely climaxes with her marriage to her first cousin, Prince Albert. The article stresses that this wedding was not simply an arranged affair -- so expect plenty of romantic scenes. Just don't get carried away too much by the romance; I wouldn't want you to think about committing incest, too.