The legendary Liv Ullman has announced that she will be directing “The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,” a musical by horror writer Stephen King and country rocker John “Don’t Call Me Cougar Anymore” Mellencamp. As we reported last fall, the project was in its final stages of development and was originally going to debut during the 2008-2009 season at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, but was postponed. King’s website now mentions a September debut for the stage show but that has yet to be confirmed. In January, a musical release of the songs, featuring Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Costello, Roseanne Cash, Neko Case, Sheryl Crow among the guests and produced by T. Bone Burnett was announced as well, but no release date has yet been set.
Thomas Newman (“American Beauty,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Wall-E”) has been tapped to score the Matt Damon sci-fi romance film, “The Adjustment Bureau.” The directorial debut of “The Bourne Ultimatum” writer George Nolfi (or at least one of the several writers who worked on that film), is based on a Philip K. Dick short story and co-stars Emily Blunt (as the love interest), Anthony Mackie, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Daniel Dae Kim, Michael Kelly, John Slattery, and Anthony Ruivivar.
The soundtrack to the upcoming comic book film “Kick-Ass” has finally been confirmed for a U.S. release via DGC/Interscope. The disc will hit stores on March 30th and you can check out the tracklisting here. There’s no word if the dialogue snippets that appear on the U.K. version will be included in this release.
Hank Azaria (a regular ‘Simpson’s voice character) will voice the evil sorcerer Gargamel in “The Smurfs” movie, according to EW. Pop star Katy Perry is voicing Smurfette, while George Lopez and Alan Cumming are also part of the Smurf cast. The latest addition is also “Glee” TV star Jayma Mays who will play opposite Neil Patrick Harris as his pregnant wife.
Warner Bros. is turning their 1950s LA based cop drama “77 Sunset Strip” into a feature film. The film will be directed by Greg Berlanti (writer of “The Green Lantern”) and will retain its period setting.
Summit Entertainment has put up six figures for writer David Guggenheim’s “Puzzle Palace.” This is the second deal for the hot writer and one-time US magazine editor, who sold his first screenplay, “Safe House,” to Universal after a bidding war last month.
Luc Besson’s upcoming period fantasy film “The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sac” will make its world premiere at Brussels International Film Festival on April 9th. The film opens in France on April 14th with an international release scheduled to follow.