It has been deathly quiet on the Fanboys front, which suggests that no one would see this movie if the Weinstein Co. paid them to. Well, that's probably an overstatement, but it certainly is a dead horse.

Then again, there might be a flutter of life. According to the New York Times, the Weinstein Co. have brought original director Kyle Newman back to create a final cut of the film. "I have been brought back into the editing room to work on a final version," Newman told the Times. "All the key people are back. That's all good."

Of course, there is still no news on a release date, nor whether it will ever be put into theatres or merely relegated to direct-to-DVD. (We also don't know which storyline will be kept in; the cancer one, or the non-cancer one.) It's rather interesting that the Weinstein Co. conceded to the fan backlash -- the backlash they said didn't really exist. If they can appease those petition signers and protest stagers, could they actually turn a profit on this film?

Or did it? It seems it depends on who you ask. The Hollywood Reporter has a long story recounting the Fanboys supporters' attempt to picket Superhero Movie. The protest actually grabbed a few headlines, which would suggest there were numerous stormtroopers out there sticking it to the man -- claims denied by AMC theatre reps and by the Weinstein Co.

The 501st (who are now denying any official stance or organized protest) says that at least 14 members showed up at a New York AMC, but when confronted by security guards, chose to buy a ticket to see 21 instead. They also claim that 20 stormtroopers showed up at Century City, but were asked to leave the mall by security guards. AMC denies both incidents occurred, and that the only protester in Century City was a lone Darth Vader.

A source close to the film says that it was eight protesters in Century City, and that they were taken out for pizza by a producer. That's certainly confirmed by a quote from producer Matthew Perniciaro: "We've been working on this movie for many years, and if someone is going to take time out of their personal life and support our film, whatever that support might be, at the very least what we can do is say thank you and buy them a couple of slices of pizza for caring abut this project as much as we do."

Variety reports that the desperate-for-a-hit Weinstein Company is close to signing Forest Whitaker to star in Patriots, a drama to be directed by Tim Story (Barbershop, The Fantastic Four). Whitaker will play "Al Collins, basketball coach for John Ehret High in Marrero, Louisiana, who led his Patriots to the state championship a year after Katrina ravaged the school and displaced many of its students." Collins' team was made up of ten players who had attended five different schools prior to Katrina. I smell Oscars, baby! This is the first film to set a start date as a result of the WGA's deal with The Weinstein Company. Robert Eisele (writer of The Great Debaters, which also starred Whitaker) wrote the script for Patriots.

Says Story, "I've gotten caught up with the Fantastic Four films but wanted to find a smaller film with heart, that brought me back to Barbershop, and this has come together with one of the best actors out there. What Coach Collins did to give back the lives of his players is so inspiring." It does sound like an inspiring story, and with its post-Katrina setting, it's bound to be moving. But Hollywood, you listen to me and you listen good. I need you to take a year off from the inspirational sports movies set against a backdrop of racism, adversity, etc. Just one year, that's all I ask. I can't take it anymore. I like these movies. The formula works. I love Forest Whitaker. But this is enough. They're all basically the same. And Great Debaters? You count too. Simply substituting debate for basketball or football doesn't disguise you. You're one of them, too. And this is enough.

Looks like the Weinsteins are big Joy Division fans. First they picked up Control, a biopic about the band's lead singer, at Cannes in May. And now The Weinstein Company has acquired the documentary on the band, simply called Joy Division, after its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Hollywood Reporter says the movie's price was "in the low- to mid-six figures" -- typical for a documentary, a genre that usually doesn't make more than a few hundred thousand dollars at the box office or on DVD. The Weinsteins added it to their Toronto shopping cart, which already included Boy A, Diary of the Dead, and the Spanish thriller King of the Hill. (Our report on the Boy A deal is here; on Diary, here.)

Cinematical's James Rocchi saw Control at Cannes and proclaimed it very good. He saw Joy Division at Toronto and lo, he declared it also very good. (Specifically: "A dense, rich and exciting look at a band who helped make modern pop music become truly modern.") The Rocc interviewed the doc's director, Grant Gee, too. James is now our resident expert on all things Joy Division and the movies pertaining to them.

It's a good thing that I don't have mafia connections, or I'd be too inclined to start requesting hits on certain Hollywood companies. In February, I was ruing over Universal's decision to remake the great, recent French comedy, Mon Meilleur Ami. Now, the news gets even worse. Just reading the title sent bile shooting into my mouth -- the brothers Weinstein have renewed a first-look deal with Mirage, which will give them the rights to remake the recent Oscar-winner, The Lives of Others.

According to Sydney Pollack, who is part of Mirage: "We would just desperately love for that film to be something that reaches more people... We haven't gotten locked into making it yet, but we're working hard at trying to get it going." The director of Tootsie is trying to reduce cinema down to its story. Sure, it would be great to get the film to reach more people, but it can't if you're going to remake it! I'm surprised that a filmmaker would use such reductive reasoning. If a film's power is all in its screenplay, then screenwriters would have a lot more power in Hollywood.

We're also talking about a story concerning the German Stasi! It's not like this is a story about people and some life struggles they are faced with. (Unless they plan to make this a Patriot Act re-visioning, which might be even worse.) Besides, will that many more people see the movie if they don't have to read subtitles? It's not some huge thriller or crazy action piece. The film is only getting a limited run, so from the get-go the audience would be bigger on a remake because there is a larger opportunity. Perhaps the efforts and money should be put into letting Lives reach a wider audience. According to Variety, after three weeks in a limited run, the feature has grossed $1.3 million.

Back when the Weinstein brothers were still the "Kings" of Miramax, they garnered the reputation of being able to pick some of the most successful foreign films for North American distribution. As a result, they managed to subsequently release some of the most successful foreign films of the last decade, including Life is Beautiful and Princess Mononoke. They might not be making deals for Miramax anymore, but The Weinstein Co. is sticking to the tradition of bringing international films to domestic audiences.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that TWC have bought the Japanese thriller Nightmare Detective for US and UK distribution. Nightmare Detective was written and directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, and stars Ryuhei Matsuda and Japanese Pop singer hitomi. The story centers on a female detective investigating two seemingly unrelated suicides. The spooky factor kicks in when there is one strange detail both deaths have in common -- and that's that the victims each dialed 0 on their cell phones moments before their death.

A deal was struck between Easternlight Films and TWC (who have had a long-standing relationship with each other), and negotiations started not long after the film screened at the Rome film festival. The film hasn't even opened in Japan yet, but is slated for a January release. No word yet on when the US release date will be, but I doubt TWC will waste much time.

[via ComingSoon.net]

Man, I am so confused. Doing a search for "Outlander" returns a slew of results about a time-travel/romance series (and, based on this article about them at Salon by "a brainy guy ... [who] wound up reading historical romance novels and loving them," I'm perilously close to buying the things), which I don't think has anything to do with the Weinstein Company's movie of the same name. The latter seems to focus primarily on an alien, first of all, and you'd think that if there were aliens in the books, someone would have mentioned that in one of the reviews at Amazon. Right? It's just that whole both-about-sci-fi thing that's throwing me off. I will, however, move forward on the assumption that, apart from their title, the two things are totally unrelated. (Though I have to admit I sort of hope I'm wrong, because a time traveling, alien romance would be awesome, if only in a car-wreck sort of way.)

The non-romance Outlander, which has been in pre-production for what feels like several lifetimes, is described as a sci-fi epic about "a human-like alien [who] crashes on Earth in 509 AD [and] inadvertently releases a horrible monster that he must destroy with the help of a barbaric Viking tribe." Dude. That sounds simultaneously awful and totally fantastic -- and apparently the idea sprung entirely from the heads of screenwriters Howard McCain and Dirk Blackman, who just might be completely insane (one hopes so, anyway).

McCain will direct, and the film is scheduled to begin shooting in October; Karl Urban is in talks to star, and Patrick Tatopoulos (Silent Hill, I, Robot, Independence Day) has been tasked with creating the monster.

Man, all this stuff about more Mulan movies is confusing the hell out of me. It seems pretty solid that the Weinsteins are at least considering making a live-action film (listed in the IMDbPro as a 2008 release) about the Chinese folk hero (already brought to screen by Disney, albeit in animated form), and there's been talk that they've got Zhang Ziyi in mind to play the title role. In addition, though, there's also a China-based production in the works, that one under the direction of Stanley Tong. Where it all gets a bit muddled is in the reports about Zhang being asked to star in Tong's version, as well. So, is this a case of Tong trying to steal some Weinstein thunder, or of people in the media getting confused and assuming the films are one and the same? Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

That said, however, it now sounds as if the whole thing might be moot, because there are now other names in the mix for the starring role in the Tong film. Get this: First, it was reported that Li Yuchun, the wildly popular winner of a recent, girls-only American Idol-type show in China, would play Mulan. But now the speculation about Li has fallen quiet, and her name has been replaced by that of ... Katie Leung. That's right, the girl of Harry Potter's dreams -- the Scottish one -- is going to play Mulan. According to the Chinese press, anyway.

Don't like the news? Not to worry -- at this rate a new name will be connected to the part by Monday.

[via Twitch]

According to reports from China that are now making their ways to the US, The Weinstein Company is planning a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Because, you know, it REALLY needs improvement -- what is with that black and white crap, anyway? And who wants to read subtitles? Sigh. A loose-lipped representative of Mandarin Films claims that Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen met with Harvey Weinstein at Cannes about starring in the film, and that both Zhang Ziyi and well-known Asian actor George Clooney have been approached as well. Who on earth would Clooney play? A white-guy farmer who moved to the village after the original movie was over, or something?

According to Monkey Peaches, the movie will be "slightly updated," and will feature lots of fun, "CGI-enhanced fight scenes." Though wire reports indicate the film's budget is unknown, the Asian press is throwing around a cost of about $100 million. Of course, how true any of this is remains very much up in the air -- personally, I expect a strongly worded denial for TWC any minute now.

• The Call Of Cthulhu - The H.P. Lovecraft Preservation Society, a group of dauntless fans that created the brilliant, Cthulhu-themed musical, A Shoggoth On The Roof, have created the ultimate fan film, an incredible tribute to the writer whose work seeded modern horror favorites like Re-Animator and From Beyond. Shot like a 1920's era silent film, the 47-minute feature is technically amazing, shot (in black-and-white), lit and performed like an authentic film of the period would have been (although it would have horrified people of the time right into Arkham Sanitarium.) Considered Lovecraft's most famous story, the story of a man who inherits a collection of documents detailing the ghastly Cthulhu Cult, it is very faithfully adapted, not to mention super-efficient. The title cards are in the viewer's choice of an astonishing 24 different languages, and the lush, symphonic score can be played in hi-fi and the kitschy-fun, lo-fi "Mythoscope". A skillful build and an extremely satisfying payoff (think creature design King Kong '33 style) add up to one of the smartest horror films of recent memory.