Gotta respect a producer who "takes his ball and goes home" when a studio balks at his chosen subject matter. Frankly I think there's way too much compromise in the movie biz, especially when you consider that film is supposed to be a balance between commerce and art. Lately it seems like the commerce has taken over. Like cancer.

Anyway, I just fan-ranted for a minute, but that's what happens when the name David Fincher comes up. For a while now, the director of fine films like Seven, Fight Club, and Zodiac has been planning to produce a new adaptation of the famous Heavy Metal magazine. If you're even slightly familiar with the publication (or this 1981 movie, which is highly uneven but certainly worth seeing -- and hearing!) then you know that any sort of Heavy Metal movie would inevitably be rated R. Sex, violence, profanity, monsters, huge barrels of cleavage ... Heavy Metal trades in all that stuff big-time. (Plus it's the home of several fantastic artists.)

But according to Hollywood Insider, Paramount got a little skitchy about the project's subject matter. "Too risque for mainstream audiences" is how EW's Nicole Sperling describes it. Mr. Fincher and his collaborators (Kevin Eastman, Steve Niles, and several others) are now offering the project around Hollywood, and it shouldn't take too long for the guys to find a buyer: I can't imagine that an animated feature like this would cost all THAT much, plus it's probably good politics to be pals with David Fincher. Plus, and most important, this project would certainly make some sort of a profit. Obviously it's not a 4,000-screen mid-July tentpole release, but dang ... there's plenty of room at the multiplexes for something different.

Even if that something different is actually based on a 35-year-old magazine.

It is so hard to write about the latest graphic novels headed to the big screen. There are many I haven't read, and most of them sound really cool. I would be broke if I bought them all, and so I must ask you to forgive me if I can't write as authoritatively as I wish to on a book.

With that said, Variety announced that Holding Pictures has snagged the rights to Steve Niles' graphic novel Wake the Dead, a modern retelling of Frankenstein. Jay Russell is set to direct, and James V. Hart is writing the screenplay. The combination of Holding Pictures' head David Lyons, Russell, and Hart has recently been known for family fare like The Water Horse and Tuck Everlasting, so this hardly seems like a natural fit.

Now I understand why Thomas Jane didn't sign on for the Punisher sequel (no longer a sequel thanks to him). He's making history by making his feature directorial debut with a 3-D film titled The Dark Country. We already learned a month ago that the actor would be directing the film, for Sony's new Stage 6 label, but now Variety tells us the "noir thriller" will indeed be shot simultaneously in 3-D high definition and in 2-D high definition. The Dark Country isn't the first movie to be shot this way (though I'm unaware of the actual first), but the news nonetheless seems appropriate considering all the hype about this week's 3-D release of Beowulf. Since The Dark Country is currently shooting in New Mexico, it is likely to be released sometime next year, when it will still need to open on both 3-D and 2-D screens.

The movie, about a honeymoon turned nightmare, was written by Tab Murphy (Disney's Tarzan and Brother Bear) and it stars Jane, Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Chris Browning (3:10 to Yuma) and Lauren German (Hostel: Part II). The script had been reported as being adapted from a yet-to-be-published graphic novel by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), but as far as I can figure out, that information isn't true. Apparently there will be a graphic novel version, but it will be done by David Allcock, who also did the film's storyboards. For more information on the making of The Dark Country, you can turn to the production diary, which includes a whole ton of photos, some of which are rendered in 3-D.

Rogue

I don't care how many times they push it back, or how much potential for hackneyed disaster there is in a film about a killer crocodile -- I'm looking forward to Rogue, mostly because there was a lot that impressed me about Greg Mclean's debut film, 2005's Wolf Creek. For one thing, it was bold enough to defy several horror cliches, such as foreshadowing dread in the early scenes -- the first thirty minutes of Wolf Creek could be part of an Aussie road drip dramedy, with three aimless kids taking their rickety car way too far into unsafe areas of the Outback. It's also a film that's completely unrelenting in the psychic trauma it wants to inflict on the audience. By the time the slaughtering starts, we know these characters -- we care about them. Frankly, Mclean seems like he'd be completely bored with making a standard slasher/monster film with paper-thin characters. Therefore, I'm going to be first in line for his killer croc movie, and wait for my enthusiasm to blow up in my face.

Friday the 13th

I have no idea if this will get to theaters by late 2008, but I know that Platinum Dunes does have the gears grinding, so it's a possibility. In fact, a little birdie recently told me something hilarious -- Corey Feldman went in and pitched himself as the star of this thing. For those who don't remember, Feldman played Vorhees foe Tommy Jarvis in two installments of the original series, and he apparently had designs on making the Friday remake his newest comeback vehicle. There's really nothing you can do with Jason at this point other than remake him, but how? Word is that PD wants the remake to feature both Jason and his trademark mask -- two elements that didn't congeal until Part III of the original series, so I'm imagining a smelting together of the first three films, set in modern day and with a lot of in-jokes. I guess it will be a film about a little boy who drowns in a lake and immediately morphs into an overgrown, lumbering killer with a machete. Sounds intriguing.

Ever wondered what it would be like to see every vampire movie ever made, all rolled into one? If so, 30 Days of Night is for you -- it's got a little bit of everything. For Dracula-lovers, there's a hillbilly Renfield, played by everyone's new favorite actor, Ben Foster. His arrival in town at the outset, with a shambling gait and greasy-roadie haircut, foreshadows the arrival of some nameless master who he's bound to displease in some way. The vampires, when they arrive, turn out not to be Hungarian sophisticates, but feral beasts who look like a cross between a cougar and Marilyn Manson. They take their movement cues from The Lost Boys, attacking from out of frame and grabbing their prey up into space or yanking them into a dark corner. Instead of sucking blood, they tear their victims' limbs apart as easily as restaurant rolls. An apparent nod to the Blade series also creeps in, when the vamps begin speaking some erudite, subtitled language and spouting faux-profound aphorisms like "things which can be broken must be broken!"

On top of this heady mishmash of genre staples there's a nifty overarching conceit, taken from the comic on which 30 Days is based -- the location of the carnage is a remote town in Seward's Folly, where the sun doesn't shine for a full month. (Why did it take vampires so long to hear about this place? And mightn' it have been more interesting if all the world's vampires came gunning for this place, instead of a handful? But that's neither here nor there.) The vamps that do descend on the snowy Alaskan hamlet must go head to head with two pretty local cops, played by Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, and one of the best things about 30 Days is that it acknowledges straightaway that the humans are physically no match for the vampires. Those who survive the initial assault must scramble into hiding places to save their necks and what follows is a sort of 'Anne Frank vampire film', with Hartnett and George and a ragtag group holing up in an abandoned attic and waiting for the vamp patrols to move on.

That last R-rated clip from 30 Days of Night was pretty cool, but wait'll you get a load of this new one. It's definitely more my kind of thing, since I prefer zombies to vampires, and the clip makes the pic look more like a zombie movie. What could be better than Mark Boone Junior driving around in some kind of chainsaw-esque tractor, slicing through multiple baddies while simultaneously blowing away others with a shotgun? Exactly. Nothing could be better. In fact, I think I like this scene better than that sequence in Dawn of the Dead where they're driving the modified bus around. But that partially has to do with my appreciation for Mark Boone Junior. He just looks like the perfect guy to be in charge of a task like this. Anyway, once again you have to prove you're 18 (or otherwise get through the sign-in page) in order to watch the clip. Or you could just wait until Friday when the movie hits theaters.

Cinematical wimp pansy editor-in-chief, Erik Davis, saw the film and loved it, even though he's probably back to sleeping with a night light. He even claims it's the most beautiful horror film he's ever seen. For those still out of the loop, the movie is based on Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith's graphic novel about a small town far up north where the sun disappears for a whole month -- ripe time for a crop of vampires to go on a rampage. Directed by David Slade (Hard Candy), it stars Josh Hartnett, Ben Foster, Melissa George, my favorite supporting actor these days, Danny Huston, and, of course, Mark Boone Junior.

I'm not much of a horror buff myself, but if there is more stuff like this new clip, I'm pretty much sold on going to see it. And though I don't think I've ever needed a night light, I bet I'll have at least one nightmare as a result. It just looks like that kind of movie. At the very least, I'm sure I'd at least get freaked out the next time I'm walking around late at night in the snow. Between 30 Days of Night and the recently released The Last Winter, I'm pretty set never to go up to the arctic circle.

Graphic novelist and screenwriter Steve Niles called into Cinematical headquarters this weekend from the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors Convention in New Jersey. We talked all things 30, from the marketing push that will include a series of short films based on the comics, to the ComicCon plans for the film, to the rating -- it's going to be R, for sure -- to the massive sequel potential that exists, considering how much source material there is. (Niles is already thinking about a Dark Days sequel revolving around Melissa George's character, something even she wasn't thinking about when I spoke with her last November) If you're a movie person who isn't familiar with the 30 Days graphic novels or Niles' work in general, he's a major name in comics, having developed many well-known titles and collaborated with scores of other artists.

I was eager to get a sense from him of what kind of vampire effects we're in store for with the film, but he told me Weta is still keeping that information under strict lock and key. Oh well. In addition to 30 Days, he was also ready to talk up Bigfoot, a straight-up horror movie he's jointly developing with Rob Zombie -- a finished script is out to directors. For those who worry about seeing another Bigfoot story that tries to make the beast a sympathetic humanoid, you'll be glad to know that Niles is steering in exactly the opposite direction. Check out the full interview below.

RS: How goes the convention?

SN: So far, so good. It's really funny because I usually do these things on the West Coast, and I walked into this one and it's like, I pretty much ran into the same people, the same vendors, it's very funny. I got here and it was very familiar.

RS: I heard you're taking 30 Days to ComicCon; you're going to be there in person?

SN: Oh yeah, definitely. I'll be there in person, and I'll be doing stuff at IDW, doing some comic stuff, we've got some new 30 Days comics coming out. Sony's got a big thing -- they're going to have a booth there this year. We're gonna be doing a big panel and showing clips, and we might even be unveiling some 30 Days merchandise, some collectible figures or something like that. I'm still waiting to find out, but all day Saturday is going to be '30 Days crazy.'

RS: So have you seen a cut? Is it still in post?

SN: I saw ... I know there's been one test screening since the one I saw. But I hear that they are really close to locking it. Still waiting for word on if we're going to get any re-shoots or anything like that. But for the most part, what I've seen is the finished film.

RS: How much of your draft survived the Stu Beattie draft and the other one? How much of your scripting work is still in there?

SN: An amazing amount of it is. What I used, especially in my version, I used a lot of dialogue from the comic. And all of it's in there. So a lot of my dialogue, a few of my gags, a few things I came up with -- slaughtering the dogs and all of that stuff -- a few things that were just kind of expanding on the idea of the comic -- it all made it. It's really unbelievable. I'm really happy that the three of us are sharing credit because we all became friends and we all worked together, and we all had the same ... we all wanted to make it as close to the comic as possible.

I'll admit that there are a lot more graphic novels I want to read than there are graphic novels that I have read ... but one that I devoured and really enjoyed was Steve Niles' 30 Days of Night, which tells the story of a vampire invasion in a small arctic town ... a town that's presently stuck in (you guessed it) 30 days of night. (Such a simply cool concept if you ask me.)

Based on what I've been reading (for a while now), Sony seems intent on doing this adaptation right. They invited Niles to collaborate on the screenplay with Stuart Beattie, and then they hired Hard Candy helmer David Slade (who brought along screenwriter Brian Nelson and cinematographer Jo Willems). OK, so I'm not the biggest Josh Hartnett fan in the world, but you could do worse for an action/horror flick, I suppose. (The supporting cast includes Melissa George, Ben Foster and Danny Huston, so that's cool.) Plus this brand-new trailer is the kicker: I officially can't wait to see this particular flick.

If 30 Days of Night is even half as cool as I'm (obviously) hoping it will be, it'll mark the very first Ghost House production I can get behind. My apologies to fans of Boogeyman, The Grudge 2 and The Messengers, but I've come to expect better than that from a guy like Sam Raimi. (And don't even get me started on Rise: Blood Hunter.) 30 Days of Night opens on October 19.

Previous reports on this film can be found here, here and here.

It's a sad fact that there are just way more crappy vampire movies out there than good ones, but the source material for 30 Days of Night is a little above the quality of Dracula 2000, so we are already off to a good start. Cinema Blend has the first look at the teaser poster for the new vampire flick, from Sam Raimi's company. The film is based on the graphic novels of the same name by Steve Niles, and the story centers on a small Alaskan town that is overrun with vampires who have descended on the town to take advantage of the lack of sunlight -- a huge selling point that ensures 30 days of uninterrupted feeding. Leading the pack of humans trying to survive is Josh Hartnett as the local sheriff and Danny Huston (who provided a bit of a sneak-peek last February) as Marlow a.k.a. the bad guy. Melissa George also stars, and Ryan had a chance to discuss the film with her during an interview last fall -- you can read that here.

The film is directed by David Slade and Raimi's Ghost House Pictures is producing in partnership with Columbia Pictures. As for Raimi, he's not at a loss for work despite the big question mark still hanging over the Spiderman franchise. He has already picked up an as-yet-untitled fantasy project from the writers of Freddy vs. Jason, and he is also considering a prequel to 30 Days for his Ghost House web site. 30 Days of Night is set for release on October 19th, just in time for Halloween.

You know the old saying: "It's all over but the shouting?" Well, that almost applies in this case if you replace "shouting" with "shooting" and change the saying to something like: "Its all over but the post-production." However you say it, I've been cautiously optimistic about this film and am even more so now that principal photography (what they call it in the "biz") is over. To what potential horror-classic am I referring? 30 Days of Night, which stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, based on the Steve Niles graphic novel.

Over at Ghost House Pictures, one of the production companies for the film, they commemorate the completion of principal photography after seventy days and nights. They're so happy -- giddy, actually, that they've even included a video featuring the cast and crew's mix of emotions as filming concludes. Among those appearing in the video are producer Robert Tapert, who narrates, and a special appearance by one of the most important pieces of the filmmaking process -- the Champan hybrid dolly. Seeing the video and having been on a few sets in my time, I can understand exactly what the cast and crew are going through.

Sure, spending eighteen hours a day six or more days a week for 70 days and nights may sound like fun -- and many times it is. But when its all over, you're left with a mixture of elation at having finished shooting the movie (which in itself is a major accomplishment), sadness at having to say goodbye to the people who've been your de facto family for the last several months and the realization that you're unemployed again and need to start looking for your next gig. Among the range of emotions and feelings you can have when a show wraps, that last one almost always hurts the most. 30 Days of Night is set for release October 19th.