Effie, a film based on the relationship between Victorian poet and artist, John Ruskin and his unfortunate wife Effie Gray will go into production next month. The film is written by Emma Thompson who will also play Lady Eastlake, and the Oscar-nominated Carey Mulligan will be in the starring role of Gray. Read the full story

After wrapping his Facebook founding drama, The Social Network, David Fincher is looking for his next project. The first is the chess drama Pawn Sacrifice (via Variety). We reported that the film is being produced by Tobey Maguire, who is also looking at the lead role. Fincher is attached to the Colombia Pictures’ film that tells the “life story the life story of American chess icon Bobby Fischer leading up to his historic world championship match against Boris Spassky.” Read the full story

What do you think of Mel Gibson as a director?

All in all, the man’s been pretty successful, with four well-made films to his name: The Man Without a Face, Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto.

2010, though poised to be a year of career rebirth for Gibson after half a decade of PR recovery, got off to a shaky start with the lukewarm action-thriller Edge of Darkness. Yet despite Darkness’s poor box office performance, Gibson’s got plenty of opportunities/months to make up for it.

Later this year, he’s starring in Jodie Foster The Beaver, adapted from Kyle Killen’s Blacklisted screenplay, along with being announced to star in two separate, high-profile films (Shane Black’s Cold Warrior and Adrian Grunberg’s How I Spent My Summer Vacation) as well as direct an epic Viking drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio, written by William Monahan. [The Playlist]

Here’s what Gibson had to say about the Viking project (via L.A. Times):

“We’re going hammer and tongs on the script right now,” Gibson said. “When I was 16, learning about the history of the English language I became fascinated with Vikings. And I imagined what they would sound like, how would they talk and that’s what I will be going for in this film. It’s a challenge though. There’s never been a good Viking film, not that I’ve seen. I think I have found the right way to get into it, though, but I don’t want to say too much. The real problem is making those guys sympathetic. They were monsters.”

Here’s what producer Graham King had to say:

Read the full story

After taking home the Best Director Oscar with Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle’s next film is 127 Hours, the story of Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who had to amputate his own arm with a dull knife after a 2003 hiking accident. The film will employ some interesting techniques, such as having two cinematographers and almost an hour of no dialogue. Joining James Franco, Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn is Cloverfield and Party Down star Lizzy Caplan. Movieweb reports that Caplan will be playing Ralston’s sister and the film will start shooting in Utah this April. Read the full story

With Angelina Jolie recently dropping Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, Deadline reports Robert Downey, Jr. has signed on to play “the leader of a team posted at a remote space station.” The script was written by Cuarón, along with his son Jonas and it tells the story of Downey’s character and a female colleague (previously Jolie) who are “traveling outside the space station and the other team members are decimated by debris from an exploded satellite.” Downey will likely have a smaller part as much of the film is devoted to the female characters struggle to “get back to Earth and her daughter.” Read the full story

In spite praising reviews, Green Zone failed to usurp Alice In Wonderland at the box office this weekend. Tim Burton managed to cover the $200 million budget in only the second weekend, as his movie grossed another $62 million, bringing the total to $208.6 million. Recall the slew of opening weekend records it garnered last weekend.

Paul Greengrass’s Green Zone was the weekend’s runner-up bringing in only $14.5 million, as most of the weekend cash-flow went to Alice. It lead a list of sub-par debuts, ahead of She’s Out Of My League and Remember Me.

Fox Searchlight’s Our Family Wedding also debuted this weekend in sixth position.

Avatar remained in the top 10, bringing in an additional $6.6 million in its 13th week, despite a poor showing at the Oscars last Sunday. This brings the total to $730 million.

Check out the top 10: (movie- weekend; total)

1. Alice In Wonderland- $62,000,000; $208,625,000

2. Green Zone- $14,535,000; $14,535,000 (debut)

3. She’s Out Of My League- $9,600,000; $9,600,000 (debut)

4. Remember Me- $8,300,000; $8,300,000 (debut)

5. Shutter Island- $8,140,000; $108,008,000

6. Our Family Wedding- $7,600,000; $7,600,000 (debut)

7. Avatar- $6,600,000; $$730,344,000

8. Brooklyn’s Finest- $4,290,000; $21,351,000

9. Cop Out- $4,230,000; $39,442,000

10. The Crazies- $3,650,000; $33,358,000

What is your favorite movie on the list? Have you seen Alice In Wonderland?

Coming Soon reports that James Cameron is most definitely planning a release of his Oscar-winning Titanic in 3D. Here’s what Cameron had to say about the release date:

We’re targeting spring of 2012 for the release (of a 3D version of ‘Titanic’), which is the 100 year anniversary of the sailing of the ship.

Cameron was also asked about the possibility of an Avatar re-release in 3D this upcoming fall:

We’re not officially announcing it right now but I’m hoping for fall. The wildcard is that we might be re-releasing the movie this fall. It’s kind of gotten stomped out (in theaters) because of ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ The word we’re getting back from exhibitors is we probably left a couple of hundred million dollars on the table as a result. The question is the appetite still going to be there after the summer glut of movies. We’re going to assess that. We’re talking about maybe adding in additional footage and doing something creative.”

Avatar has recently passed the $2.6 billion mark in theaters worldwide, and looks poised to earn even more. To read the entire interview with James Cameron, head over to USA Today.

Which re-release are you looking forward to the most? Avatar or Titanic?

20th Century Fox has released a behind-the-scenes video online after debuting footage at this year’s SXSW festival earlier this week. Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) is producing the film with Nimród Antal (Armored) directing with Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishburn taking on the lead roles. Rodriguez states in the footage that he wants film to function as an introduction to the series and not like a 5th sequel or remake. We’ll have to see how successful he is at pulling that off. This will be the first Predator film outside of the two Alien Vs. Predator films since Predator 2 back in 1990. Will audiences respond to a solo Predator? Read the full story

Is Joaquin Phoenix poised to come out of retirement for an Edgar Allen Poe biopic? Of all sources, Oscar winning sound engineer Resul Pookutty (Slumdog Millionaire) has told India’s Mumbai Mirror that Phoenix will be taking on the role of the iconic poet for a film based on The Beautiful Cigar Girl by Daniel Stashower. Pookutty will be handling the sound effects for the forthcoming film. Although it would be great to see Phoenix back on screen, and in such a meaty role, there has been no confirmation from the actor that he plans to take on this role. Curiously, Pookutty fails to mention which director is on board to make this film.

Would you be excited to see Phoenix play Poe? Do you think he is really coming out of retirement?

I talked to The Crazies director Breck Eisner about two weeks ago and where  he confirmed Flash Gordon would be 3D.  I recently got to talk to Eisner again about his latest film and now having more time with him, I got a few new updates on his planned space adventure. We already knew this wasn’t going to be a lovably bad piece of camp like the 1980’s Flash Gordon, that Eisner was going back to the original comic book strips, and that this isn’t a remake. While Flash is still a little way off, Eisner says we may see it in either 2012 or 2013, he’s even already thinking a bit about the video game (it’s Sony), and he also talks a bit about whether or not he would incorporate the Queen song Flash. Here’s what he had to say. Read the full story