I Am Link

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--- AICN has pictures snapped from the NYC set of I Am Legend and the Austin set of Tarantino's Death Proof half of Grind House. Nothing too exciting in either except to see both films take on "the cool automobile". And, as can be expected, Tarantino's murder-mobile wins the Cool Prize over director Francis Lawrence (Constantine)'s car for Will Smith in Legend. I'm one of the few who really enjoyed Constantine, though, so no judgement there... just... going up against Tarantino in a cool-fight isn't exactly fair.

--- Also from AICN, an open letter to the dunderheads at FOX regarding their "release" of Mike Judge's Idiocracy, which I've already spewed bitterness about. Seriously, what's the effin' deal, FOX? This also reminded me how disappointed I was that one of the rules for making that 25 Favorite TV Characters list I made a couple of weeks ago was "no animation", because Bobby Hill from King of the Hill is so easily Top 10 material.

--- Via DH, we find this interview with producer John Harrison, who's working with George Romero on the newest Zombie chapter, Diary of the Dead.

But more interesting than the Dead stuff, to me at least, is what Harrison says about the projects he's working on that have to do with Clive Barker : namely that the film version of Abarat appears to be dead for now (Boo!), and that he's trying to get filmed versions of stories from Barker's anthology Books of Blood (which already brought us the terrific Candyman) made.

"Last year I did an adaptation for Disney of Clive’s “Abarat” novels. We took the first two books and created an epic screenplay story that was going to be live action and animation out of the Disney feature animation division, but that division closed down when Pixar came back into the picture. So that’s not happening, but in the meantime, Clive starting putting together a package of financing to do movies based on his “Books of Blood.” We had become friends through the “Abarat” process and he liked my DUNE mini-series a whole lot, so we started talking about why did I do one of these. So I have taken the first and the last short stories of the books of blood collection and I’ve turned them into one movie called CLIVE BARKER’S BOOKS OF BLOOD. The screenplay is finished, we’re putting the financing together, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be in production after I finish George’s movie."

I LOVE the Books of Blood, they're some of the best horror stories I've ever read, and damn there need to be films made of some of those. My favorite story, "In The Hills, The Cities", if done right would need an enormous budget though, so I'm not sure I see that one happening. But a movie of "The Midnight Meat Train" would be awesome!

--- How does one go about finding a replacement for a character personified by Mr. T?

--- Jinkies! The Fountain got booed at the Venice Film Festival?

--- Jared Leto has gout. In related news, Jessica Simpson has Scarlet Fever, and Lindsay Lohan has caught a mean case of the Plague. Forgotten illnesses - They're just like Us!
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