The Morning Roundup: Pacino is Lear, Mass Effect 2 is 2010, Vanity Fair Award Pix
Written by: Mike Leader, Special to CC2K
This morning we've got news about Al Pacino 'doing Lear', new game releases from EA, details about Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim movie, and the usual mish-mash of adaptations and production tidbits.
– Al Pacino is going to star in a new film adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear. Arguably the Bard's greatest play, the title role has become one of the iconic characters for actors to play over the years. Pacino will be joining the ranks of similarly advanced-aged actors who have 'done Lear', such as Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Paul Scofield. The adaptation will be directed by Michael Radford (Il Postino, 1984, The Merchant of Venice).
– Jeff Bridges is getting a CGI facelift for certain scenes in Tron 2.0, in order to look a bit younger.
– The Weinstein Company are optioning a Judy Garland biopic.
– Charles Roven, producer of The Dark Knight, is going to be working on an adaptation of the Robert Stone novel Damascus Gate.
– We've got a bunch of news from gaming behemoth EA, who announced this week that the sequel to 2007's blockbuster space opera Mass Effect will be released in 2010. There will also be a Wii port of last year's sci-fi horror game Dead Space. On the negative side, they also announced delays for Sims 3 and Godfather II.
– The sequel/spin-off to 2001 cult sleeper hit Donnie Darko, called S. Darko and focusing on Donnie's sister, will be going straight to DVD.
– I'm seriously getting tired of comic book adaptations now, but there is one project that is breaking my cynicism and piquing my interest: Edgar Wright's (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) adaptation of the popular Scott Pilgrim series, called Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The series tells the story of Scott (to be played by Michael Cera), a slacker bass guitarist from Toronto who battles his girlfriend's evil exes for her love. Making things more interesting is the recent announcement that the film will feature a mixture of live-action and hand-drawn animation. Sounds cool! –
– Over at Ain't It Cool , they've got two exclusive images from the upcoming Astro Boy CGI movie.
– To finish up with, here's a selection of pics from Vanity Fair's 'Something Just Clicked' photoshoot, by Annie Leibovitz, a wonderful set of portraits of individuals and duos who have made an impact on the last year in cinema. Check out the full set here.
