Mark Millar is a man of hope, a true optimist. Not only does Millar see the glass as half-full, he can’t conceive of the glass being empty. Ever. Read the full story

Literally within arms reach right now, I have The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford on Blu-ray and Red Dead Redemption for Xbox 360 (one of my favorite movies and my favorite video game). So when Showbiz Spy reported that Brad Pitt was interested in adapting the western shooting game into a movie, I got really excited. Read the full story

New York Film Festival committee member, ex-Variety employee and current Indiewire reviewer/blogger Todd McCarthy just published a post updating us in his adventures with the NYFF. One of the films that was rumored to be ready for the fest was the much-anticipated The Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick and starring Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. It missed the fest deadline and now we can only hope for a release date this year. McCarthy said that will not be the case. Check out his statement below. Read the full story

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The Playlist has debuted the first image (shown above, click for a larger view) of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Oakland A’s manager Art Howe in the upcoming film Moneyball. The stellar cast, of which Hoffman appears to be only a supporting part, also includes Brad Pitt as Billy Beane and Jonah Hill as Paul De Podesta.

One of the more interesting things about the film, as noted in the report, is that the filmmakers aren’t too worried about making the actors match the appearance of the real people they are portraying. The Hoffman role, for example, would require a taller, skinnier actor if faithful appearance was more of a concern for director Bennett Miller (Capote).

Moneyball began filming in mid-July and is still currently shooting in Los Angeles. Scheduled for a 2011 release, this adaptation of Michael Lewis‘ nonfiction book has gone through multiple rewrites and casting changes. Hopefully the finished product will be worth the struggle. I, for one, wasn’t a big fan of Capote, but needless to say, this is a completely different direction for Miller. And it’s tough not to get excited about the cast.

Do you think Moneyball will be a successful sophomore effort for Miller?

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Let the massive influx of Comic-Con news commence! Our writer Jack Giroux has just arrived and you can follow him on Twitter. As he finds his way through the Con, news is already breaking left and right. Read the full story

E-mail Jordan Raup here. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook for the latest TFS updates!

Continued signs of life for the next Terrence Malick project – this is a good thing. The Tree of Life, written and directed by Malick and starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, was given a PG-13 rating by the MPAA. This means there’s a finished product out there finished enough to rate. [/Film]

Despite Apparition’s current woes, The Tree of Life seems to be solid and still steady for a late 2010 Oscar-fueled release. And while there’s been no word as to which/if any film festival Malick’s fifth feature will premiere at, the more that’s written about it the better it’s chances seem to coming out with distribution and champions behind it.

After all, this is a Terrence Malick film. It wouldn’t be one if it wasn’t difficult to get into theaters.

Are you exited for The Tree of Life? Will it get released this year? Under Apparition’s name?

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Screenwriter Peter Morgan has enjoyed some great success over the past few years, earning Oscar nominations for The Queen and Frost/Nixon, as well as penning critically-acclaimed efforts such as The Last King of Scotland and The Damned United. He also wrote the script for Clint Eastwood‘s thriller Hereafter, which will be released in October of this year.

With all of those notable films under his belt, I am eager to hear about any project that has his name on it, and Pajiba is reporting that he was recently asked to perform an extensive re-write on a “whodunnit” titled Riptide, originally scribed by British writer Richard McBrien. Steve Tisch (Forrest Gump) and William Davies (How to Train Your Dragon) have signed on to produce.

Furthering the report is the recent development that Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf have been offered roles in the film. The report suggested that Pitt was offered the role of the investigator, while LaBeouf would play the young broker.  The brief synopsis reads as follows:

Riptide [is] a “whodunnit” set on board a ship called the Nautica. It’s about a handyman, a young stock broker, and the stock broker’s girlfriend. One of the men is found dead floating in the sea. The girlfriend is found at a nearby hotel. An investigator is called in to figure out what happened and why.

It sound simple enough, but I think we can bet that Morgan will be able to put his own original twist on things. I also have to think that Pitt and LaBeouf would be more-than-interested in working with a writer of such esteemed caliber. It should be interesting to see how the project develops.

What do you think of Morgan writing a whodunnit?

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Independent film’s most recent cautionary tale, Apparition, may still have a life to live – they’ll just half to kill off about half their ship to keep on keeping on. Ever since the surprise exit of Bob Berney, co-founder of the independent distribution company, the other half of that equation, Bill Pohlad, has been reeling to get Apparition back on its feet. In order to do this, Pohlad has let go 15 Apparition employees, or 60 percent of his workforce. [Deadline]

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By modern standards, Quentin Tarantino would be considered an auteur; a director whose films reflect that his personal creative vision. But what exactly is that vision, and how is it reflected in his work? One major observation that one can make about Tarantino’s films is that he often incorporates a number of references, many of which refer to cinema, specific films, or pop culture. His films are laced with this intertextuality were the relationship between texts (or films) is constantly being redefined. This method of pastiche is one way that he draws attention to the fact that his film is a constructed piece of fiction, or a “simulation.”

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Not that it’s not really really intriguing and something that’d be really interesting to see play out on the silver screen, but let’s remember this is pure speculation: SuperHeroHype is suggesting that Guy Ritchie is hoping to woo Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis to play uber-villain Professor Moriarty for the Sherlock Holmes sequel, which is on the fast track over at Warner Bros.

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