Movie News Aggregator

Wow. I feel like I've been neglecting this here blog, if only because I have ideas for stories about my vacation that I want to sit down and write, but I've been putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. So, in the interest of writing a blog entry just for the sake of writing a blog entry, here's some movie news from the past week that's caught my eye.

Thor - Casting is going full-bore on this Marvel comics adaptation. Star of the canceled TV show Kyle XY and general hot chick Jamie Alexander has just joined the cast as Sif, Thor's Aasgardian main squeeze. Also joining the cast, veteran Canadian actor Colm Feore! The official announcement was mum on Feore's role, just that he'll be playing a "shadowy character." To re-cap, Chris Hemsworth, briefly seen as Captain Kirk's daddy in Star Trek, is playing Thor, British actor Tom Hiddleston is playing Loki, and Natalie Portman is playing Jane Foster, Dr. Donald Blake's nurse and Thor's sidekick back when the comic began. The director is British actor/director Kenneth Branagh. This is Branagh's first attempt at directing a major Hollywood blockbuster since 1994's Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

Barbie: The Movie - Thanks to Transformers and GI Joe, and toys becoming the hot new property in Hollywood, this really isn't much of a surprise. But yeah, Universal just signed a deal with Mattel to develop a movie about Barbie. Script, director, writer, star, release date, all TBA.

Ghost Rider 2 - Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Blade writer David S. Goyer just announced that he's in negotiations to write and direct the long-awaited Ghost Rider sequel. You may remember that Goyer was attached to write Ghost Rider about 10 years ago. The plan back then was to re-unite the writer and director of Blade, Goyer and Stephen Norrington. The first Ghost Rider was written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson, who wrote and directed Daredevil.

The Social Network - So, they're making a movie about the origins of Facebook, and how it became one of the fastest-growing dot-coms in the history of the Internet. It might sound kind of lame, but the behind-the-scenes talent really has me excited. The director, none other than Fight Club, Seven, Zodiac, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button director David Fincher! The writer, Aaron Sorkin, who was the writer and creator of The West Wing and SportsNight, two of the most brilliantly-written TV shows ever. They also announced the cast. Jessie Eisenberg will play Mark Zuckerberg, the programmer who created Facebook, and pop star Justin Timberlake will be playing Sean Parker, the founder of Napster who talked Zuckerberg into making him Facebook's founding president.

Sweet Valley High - Oscar winning writer Diablo Cody has revealed her next project. She's going to be adapting the long-running series of tween novels Sweet Valley High for the big screen. Cody was apparently a big fan of the series when she was a youngster, and says that the books were quite influential in her junior high years. No word yet on when it might be hitting the big screen.