Movie & TV News: At the Mountains of Madness, Hack/Slash, Tomb Raider 3, Disney Returns To 2-D, I Know Who Killed Me, Eliot Rockett, Staircase, Mike Fright, Comic Prev

At the Mountains of Madness
Given his own choice Guillermo del Toro told SCI FI Wire what he'd like to direct would be a faithful film version of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness." He said: "The whole idea of Lovecraft's position towards the universe, he's very much like an Albert Camus position. He's an existentialist. He says the cosmos is indifferent to man. At the very best is indifferent. And [it] just [sees] us as fleas, or . . . [is] hostile to us. So this sea of almost . . . empty spaces is very hard to portray in film. It's very hard to portray the fact that you are . . . an ant in a picnic, and yet you have delusions of grandeur. That's what Lovecraft was saying. Our race as a whole are just arrogant little ants in a picnic. That's what Mountains of Madness are. Look, if I had my choice, I would choose that after Hellboy [2], I could do Montecristo or Mountains of Madness right away. Those are my two." del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" opens Dec. 29 in limited places with a wide release in January.

Hack/Slash
Dave Richards of Comic Book Resourses interviewed Todd Lincoln about the development of the Devil's Due property. Lincoln said: "We're not adapting any specific storylines from the 'Hack/Slash' comics, but we will touch on the origin story. That being said, this is not an origin story movie. It cuts to the chase and drops you in the s**t by minute one. The film will stay true to the style, heart and voice of the comics. Fans are absolutely going to get the Cassie and Vlad they know and love. Tonally, the movie is much more grounded and serious than the comic. There's a sprinkling of humor to balance the scares, but this will be a lean, vicious, blood-soaked, Hard R fright fest. The goal is to create the ultimate slasher film. Not just a love letter to slasher films, but a film that reconstructs, reinvigorates
and elevates the genre."

Tomb Raider 3

Eurogamer interviewed Ian Livingstone who said that there may, indeed, be a third Tomb Raider film. He said: "There's a possibility - we've been talking to Paramount, who've agreed to assign a scriptwriter. That's nowhere near the green-light process but it's a very healthy start to have a scriptwriter which they're going to pay serious amounts of money to write the first script."

Disney Returns To 2-D
Jim Hill reported on http://www.jimhillmedia.com/ that John Lasseter and Ed Catmull plan to return the Walt Disney Co.'s studios in Burbank to its roots as a "traditional" (hand-drawn) animation company exclusively, letting Pixar turn out the computer-animated (CG) features. In so doing, Lasseter, the chief creative officer for Disney Animation, and Catmull, the unit's president, will be reversing the past three years of trying to "retrain that studio's staff as well as to change Disney Feature Animation into a state-of-the-art CG operation."

I Know Who Killed Me
Julia Ormond joins Lindsay Lohan in Chris Sivertson's "I Know Who Killed Me." Ormond will play the mother of a businesswoman set on letting her daughter live an independent life, then she is horrified when her daughter is kidnapped. The tension peaks when her daughter is found alive but insists she is someone else. Production begins this month in Los Angeles and New York.

Eliot Rockett
Jimmy Fallon and Sharon Stone will star in "Eliot Rockett," based on short stories by Ethan Canin. Fallon plays a man devoted to his work but unable to commit to anything else in his personal life. After his estranged father suffers a stroke, he returns to his hometown. Stone plays his mother, a central figure in his dysfunctional past.

The Staircase
Treat Williams, Samaire Armstrong and Kevin Pollak will star in the Lifetime original movie "The Staircase, " based on Aphrodite Jones' book "A Perfect Husband." The book was based on the real-life murder case of novelist Michael Peterson, accused of killing his wife in their North Carolina home. Williams portrays Peterson, a loving father, aspiring politician and successful New York Times best-selling novelist who was the picture-perfect husband to his socialite wife, Kathleen. After the author calls 911 to report that Kathleen has accidentally fallen down the stairs, suspicious investigators don't believe him. Armstrong will portray Peterson's stepdaughter Caitlin, who also accuses him of murder, while Pollak will play his lawyer, David Rudolf, who also has some doubts. Production has begun in Louisiana, with the premiere scheduled for April.

Mike Fright: Stand Up!