Eventually every second-tier director will have his own film about Iraq. And yet I never thought someone as low on the tier as Simon West would actually get one so soon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the guy who made Con Air (it's so bad, but oh so good), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (its so bad, but -- no but) and the remake of When a Stranger Calls (no comment) will attempt an adaptation of Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Iraq, which was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Zucchino. West will produce and direct from a script penned by Zucchino himself. The book, which was written first-hand by the Los Angeles Times correspondent, follows the U.S. military entrance, or "thunder run", into Baghdad in April 2003 and subsequent battle for the capital city. West compared the feeling he got from reading Zucchino's book to reading Black Hawk Down, which he found and developed as an executive producer.

The important thing to remember, though, is that West didn't end up directing Black Hawk Down. The great Ridley Scott did, and it ended up a flawed but ultimately well-made film. Show me somebody in Hollywood who honestly thinks West is capable of the same work, and I'll eat this blog. And I mean this person would have to take a lie detector test and prove to me that he or she really, really thinks this is going to be good enough to garner West his own Oscar nomination (as Scott received for BHD) and not just an easy-money attempt at the current trend of Iraq War-based movies. The latter is more likely the case for the six producers besides West, which includes Randall Emmett and George Furla (both of the Wicker Man remake), and five executive producers, which includes BHD's writer Ken Nolan. There has yet to be a dramatic feature about the war that's as good as the many docs on the subject, and I can definitely promise this will not be the movie to achieve that status. At least it probably won't be as bad as West's proposed Dalí biopic would be.

Yes, horror fans, it's true. And don't go blaming Ghost House Productions, because it was us who made last January's really terrible Boogeyman a big enough hit to warrant a follow-up. (Yes, Boogeyman made almost $47 million in domestic box office, and to this day I still have no freaking idea how it happened.)

We don't have much info just yet on Boogeyman 2, but I think it's safe to assume that it'll probably be better than the Boogeyman 2 movie that Ulli Lommel churned out in 1983 (mainly because Lommel's sequel was constructed almost exclusively from clips cribbed from Boogeyman 1). According to the production company's blog (and from ), the director on B2 will be Jeff Betancourt, a veteran film editor who'll be making his helming debut here. (To be fair, the guy did cut The Grudge, When a Stranger Calls and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, so he does have some experience with the horror genre. Too bad he's never worked on a good one.)

According to the IMDb, Boogeyman 2 spawns from a screenplay by first-timer Brian Sieve, and the early (uncomfirmed) cast list includes names like Renee O'Connor, Johnny Simmons and Angela Sarafyan. No word yet on when the flick will go direct to video hit theaters.

[Thanks to Bloody-Disgusting.com for the tip.]

At SXSW 2005 I was invited to have dinner with a few new friends and filmmakers -- one of whom was the achingly adorable Laura Breckenridge, who was there to support her movie Southern Belles (which is now on DVD and quite charming). Since then the doe-eyed doll has played small parts in flicks like Havoc and Loving Annabelle, but it was her work on WB's TV series Related that (I thought) offered her the best chance at a wider audience. And then the show was cancelled.

But now Ms. Breckenridge has signed on to star in a horror movie, and that makes me very happy indeed. One of my favorite "up & coming" actresses working in my favorite genre: The spoooooky one! Yep, according to THR, Laura and a bunch of other attractive young people (Katheryn Winnick, Jessica Lucas, Keir O'Donnell and Tad Hilgenbrick) have signed up for Amusement, a horror movie penned by Jake Wade Wall (aka the guy who has the When a Stranger Calls remake to atone for -- and who also wrote the impending Hitcher remake) that focuses on three young women (and two boyfriends) who must contend with a serial killer from their childhood. The director of Amusement will be John Simpson, he of the under-the-radar (and underrated) thriller Freeze Frame.

According to the IMDb, it looks like the intimidating character actor Kevin Gage is also on board, and I can only assume he'll be playing the part of "serial killer." Production on Picturehouse's Amusement is about to get underway in Budapest.

In a legal move that just might start to curtail the non-stop Horror Remake Parade (yeah, right), filmmakers Fred Walton & Steve Feke (creators of the original When a Stranger Calls) have filed suit against producer Melvin Simon and Screen Gems/Sony, claiming that they're still owed some solid coin in regard to the lame-o remake that came out last year (and went on to gross about $60 million worldwide and that doesn't include DVD).

Apparently the conflict has a lot to do with a contract between producer Simon and the original Call creators. Walton (director, co-writer) and Feke (screenwriter) claim that they're owed a fair share of compensation -- plus they feel they should have been consulted before the property was handed over to Sony. According to Variety, the pair is asking for restitution in the form of "over a million dollars," which means this case will probably be settled quckly and quietly -- just in time for the inevitable direct-to-video sequel. (We are talking about Sony, don't forget.)

(While researching this news, I discovered that producer Melvin Simon, former Columbia exec and AVCO/Embassy head, was partially responsible for titles like The Manitou, Scavenger Hunt, The Stunt Man, My Bodyguard, Zorro the Gay Blade, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash, and the first two Porky's flicks. Just found it to be a fairly amusing filmography.)

• Doogal - A saccharine, cheap-looking CGI import from Britain about a lazy, cowardly, sugar-addicted pooch (with a mullet cut) who must find a way to save the world from an icy death is not the follow-up to Hoodwinked that Disney escapees Bob and Harvey Weinstein hoped for...or we asked for. At least they've got the swell Over The Hedge in theaters this week. Formerly titled The Magic Roundabout and re-dubbed (Doogal, that is. Not Over The Hedge.)

• Duma - With most arthouse films rated "R", it is always a pleasure when one comes along that culture mavens can take their kids to, and The Black Stallion director Carroll Ballard's latest nature trek -- a visually lovely adventure -- certainly does fit that bill. It is about a 12-year-old South African boy (Alexander Michaletos) who must return his pet cheetah to the wild, encountering and overcoming a number of obstacles along the way, the biggest one being our initial reluctance to accept its premise.
 

You wouldn't have expected the rather terrible remake When a Stranger Calls to kick-start too many careers, but don't mention that to screenwriter Jake Wade Wall, a youthful scribe whose current to-do list includes no less than three more remakes and/or sequels.

According to a conversation Mr. Wall had with Moviehole, he's already hard at work on A) a ninth sequel to Halloween, B) a remake of the classic Rutger Hauer flick The Hitcher, and C) a sequel to his Stranger remake. As far as something unique is concerned, Jake's pretty pumped about his Amusement project, which he deems "an original" ... right before it's described as "similar in set-up to Creepshow."

Frankly I'm always torn on the issue of Horror Remakes, because for every one that works (The Fly, Willard, The Thing, The Hills Have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), there are (House on Haunted Hill) plenty (Psycho) more (House of Wax) that (Village of the Damned) pretty (13 Ghosts) much (The Amityville Horror) stink (The Fog) on (The Haunting) ice. And yes, Simon West's When a Stranger Calls falls into the latter group, even if Jake Wade Wall nailed the original flick right on the head when he said "C’mon, It was really only the first ten minutes of the original, that was scary. The rest was terrible."

Here's hoping JWW finds enough success to escape from the remake/sequel basement. Heck, James Gunn followed up his Dawn of the Dead remake with Slither, so there's certainly hope for Jake, too. Meanwhile, the remake parade continues unabated: Keep your eyes peeled for new versions of The Omen, The Wicker Man, Black Christmas, and Piranha.

It seems a  fairly obvious observation, but horror flicks are pretty "hot" these days. The current cycle of scary flicks can be attributed to box office hits like Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, Marcus Nispel's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, James Wan's Saw, and probably a half-dozen others, but moreso than any other genre, the popularity of horror movies seems to arrive in "waves." Apparently we're knee-deep in one of those waves right now. And now with one quarter of 2006 behind us, it's time for the first of four "progress reports," in which you and I wade through all the horror flicks presented in January, February, and March, and then decide if the studios and the indies have been treating the Gorehounds kindly.

1/6/06 -- BloodRayne (Romar) -- Kristanna Loken, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez, and Michael Madsen humiliate themselves through the latest hilariously bad offering from the adorably inept filmmaker known as Uwe Boll. (It's a horror movie in that it features vampires -- and it's an absolute horror to sit through.) Jam-packed with laughable dialogue, dime-store costumes, non-sensical plot-churnings, and hyper-inept editing, BloodRayne is the kind of flick that should be required viewing for any and all film students. It's precisely the sort of movie that's so bad it's good -- although I suspect Boll is beginning to do "amazingly awful" on purpose, which sort of takes some of the fun out of it... Grade: D- (DVD release: 5-23)

As Karina reported last fall, Warner Brothers thinks it's a brilliant idea to have Roland Emmerich direct an epic about "three stages in the development of primitive man." Huh? Sorry, I dozed off for a second there. Entitled 10,000 B.C., the movie "centers on a young tribal mammoth hunter at the dawn of modern man as he embarks on an epic journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his dying tribe." Though Emmerich originally insisted that his cast was going to be filled with total unknowns via open calls, he's instead cast Camilla Belle and Steven Strait, a pair of kids who Warner's fervently hopes are about to explode into megastardom.

After playing small roles in about a billion things (including Poison Ivy II and an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger), Belle recently starred in the When a Stranger Calls remake. Strait, an ex-model (gee, that's a great start) who has made very few screen appearances, is currently filming Renny Harlin's The Covenant, in which he co-stars. Talented or not, rest assured that both of them will look damn good in torn animal skins. Really, isn't that all that matters?

Director Simon West, whose recent projects include The General's Daughter, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and remake of the moment, When a Stranger Calls, is hoping to go in a very different direction in the near future: he's planning a movie about surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. The film will have a rather massive scope, covering Dali's life from his teenage years to his death at the age of 84, and focusing on his "incredible and romantic life story." Though the movie is still in the talking stages (West describes it as "getting very close"), the director is already fantasizing about his cast, and he claims that "There are a couple of Spanish actors that are interested." While it's not clear that they're the ones with whom he has talked, West goes on to specifically mention Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem as possible stars.

Despite what seems like a small potential audience for such a film, West insists that it will in fact have broad appeal: "I believe in getting as many people to go and see rather than deliberately trying to make it for a small audience. Like Amadeus [meets] Moulin Rouge.” Whoa. So, melting clocks, but with songs?

[via Moviehole]

For the second Super Bowl weekend in a row, Sony/Screen Gems scored big with an anonymous horror remake. When a Stranger Calls was only "courtesy screened" for online critics – meaning most of us couldn't get a review up early enough to get any kind of negative meme going – and most print pundits were unimpressed; Frank Scheck at the Hollywood Reporter speaks for many when he says the film "[is] designed to capitalize on the title and premise of the original but offers little to those who fondly remember it." But take a look at the competition: shrugworthy holdovers from earlier weeks dominated the top five, with Big Momma's House 2 and Nanny McPhee landing at number two and three. The biggest box office news of the weekend comes, once again, from Brokeback Mountain. Focus took the Best Picture frontrunner up to 2,000 screens, allowing the cowboy romance to ride its eight Oscar nominations all the way up to fourth place. The film has made (and this is not a typo) almost $60 million thus far. Full top ten after the jump.