The Shadow reboot is just about as difficult to pin-down as the pulp novel character himself. It’s certainly been a while since any new details on the franchise remake have emerged.

Now, Latino Review is reporting that the Sam Raimi produced The Shadow movie has moved from Sony Pictures and is headed for 20th Century Fox – and that Emma Watts, President of Production at Fox, may have paid a million dollars to make it happen.

At one point, Raimi had also been expected to direct the project but with the rumor of a new studio also comes the possibility of David Slade taking the film’s director chair. Slade, who worked with Raimi on 30 Days of Night, recently finished up Twilight: Eclipse in 3D, and is also responsible for the 2005 thriller Hard Candy.

With so many high-profile superhero movies spilling out of Hollywood, a The Shadow reboot still seems like bizarre investment. Sure the Russell Malcahy treatment in 1994 made a good amount of money, but the film appeared prior to the massive surge of mainstream superhero stories that have been in development throughout the last decade.

There’s no doubt the character’s pulp-novel background provides plenty of material for a series of feature-length films. However, even with Raimi’s creative eye on the project, it’s still difficult to imagine audiences lining up outside their local theater for a character with less notoriety, set in a time-period with fewer opportunities for the large-scale action set-pieces moviegoers have come to expect from their hero films.

A superhero movie is a smart next step for Slade; though, The Shadow will definitely require a bit more nuancing than other, more straight-forward, and ultimately more recognizable, superhero stories. The success of The Shadow reboot will depend more heavily on the filmmaker’s vision than other more mainstream characters would.

Personally, I’d be more likely to see The Shadow reboot if they brought Alec Baldwin back in the lead role – retrofitting The Shadow as the alter-ego to Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock. Otherwise, Raimi and Slade would have to put together something pretty special to compete with franchises like Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

Are you ready for The Shadow to reboot? What if Slade were directing?

No release information for The Shadow is available at this time.But we’ll keep you posted as soon as anything official is announced.

Source: Latino Review

Last year we reported that Sam Raimi was itching to direct a film version of pulp crime fighter The Shadow. However, it appeared that Raimi was too busy with the Spider-Man movies to give the film any serious thought.

Now that the Spider-Man franchise has swung over to new hands for a reboot it looks like Sam Raimi isn’t going to waste his crime fighting credentials. The good folks over at IESB have the news (including a script review) that Raimi is apparently set to make The Shadow his next film.

For those don’t know, The Shadow is a crime fighter who first cropped up on radio in 1930. He’s a dark and … er… shadowy individual who could turn invisible and cloud the minds of men. The character was partly an inspiration to Bob Kane when he created Batman in 1939, and the character got his own modern big screen adaptation in 1994 with Alec Baldwin in the lead role.

When we reported last year that Batman producer Michael Ulsan was working on the film, he said that the film might take some time, but Raimi apparently “flipped” over the new draft by screenwriter Siavash Farahani and he’s eager to get back to wielding a megaphone after Spider-Man fell apart.

According to IESB, The Shadow is an R-rated adventure filled with violence and nudity – something which might affect the film’s box office chances. Raimi is a huge fan of the character, which has graced radio, comics and the screen and he tried to attain the rights to the film in the 1980’s. He failed, but similarly to George Lucas and his failed attempt to make Flash Gordon, Raimi created his own version – Darkman which starred Liam Neeson.

IESB gave the script the thumps up saying:

“I think the general public seeing The Shadow on screen for the first time would be akin to the first time they laid eyes on Blade or Nolan’s Batman in “Batman Begins”. You get that sense of wonder just from reading Farahanl’s descriptions of the character and that world of mystery never fails you as you reach the end of the journey.”

While the character isn’t a household name in the 21st century, there is plenty of scope to make the character palatable to modern audiences. The main problem might be that there’s a certain amount of crime fighting fatigue setting in. The project sounds like a mixture of Watchmen, The Punisher and The Spirit, something which may hurt its appeal to moviegoers.

Another issue could be that The Shadow is set up at Columbia, the Sony studio behind the Spider-Man franchise. Raimi had many problems with the studio over the direction of his planned fourth installment in the web-slinging franchise – is there a chance that the wounds haven’t healed?

I’m sure that we’ll find out soon enough, and when we do, you’ll be the first to know.

Source: IESB

This week:

We look at the weekend box office; Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley move to London Boulevard; Michael Uslan talks The Shadow; Spider-Man knows Good People; George Clooney returns to TV and Charlie’s Angels 3 appears to be heading this way!

Box Office

Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans are fighting it out for the top spot. Both Sony films should make about $21 million over the weekend showing that all America wants is women in skin tight PVC and fat men in cop uniforms. There’s a movie pitch in there somewhere.

Brendan Fraser’s lucky streak at the box office ran out with Inkheart bagging just $2 million on Friday. A weekend of maybe $6.5 million should mean that Fraser will be knocking at Universal’s door come Monday looking for a fourth Mummy movie.

Clint Eastwood kicked all new comers off his lawn this weekend with a $14 million gross for Gran Torino. Who says that you need Oscar nominations for box office?

Speaking of Oscars - Slumdog Millionaire leads the pack with a predicted weekend gross of $9 million. Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet’s Revolutionary Road should manage about $5 million by Monday, which is far from Titanic numbers.

Meanwhile on the opposite end of the prestige picture scale My Bloody Valentine should murder another $9 million while that other horror movie Bride Wars should scare up another $5 million bringing its total just short of $50 million. 

Movie News

1. Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley will team up for London Boulevard. The thriller marks the directorial debut of The Departed screenwriter William Monaghan. The thriller which is based on the novel by Ken Bruen is inspired by the classic film Sunset Boulevard. Farrell will play a recently released convict who befriends a reclusive actress (Knightley).

London Boulevard will start shooting in London (obviously) this summer.

Source: The Daily Mail

2. Comic book adaptations keep coming. The Shadow is on his way and Batman producer Michael Uslan has given some details on the film.

Uslan told MTV:

“I think the one thing going in is we all see The Shadow as more of a force of nature than a specific person in a secret identity. The Shadow may actually be many people. We’ve gone back to the pulp roots, the comic book roots of The Shadow, with a dash of the radio roots, but we’ve deeply ensconced ourselves in the world of pulps and comics.”

I wouldn’t hold your breath for this one though. When asked about when we might see the film he replied:

“Sam (Raimi) and Josh Donen are my partners and we have it set up Sony, and a wonderful writer named Siavash Farahani who has worked for me before is writing the screenplay. It’s coming along great, we’re very excited about it. You know, it takes time to nurture these things. You probably know all the stories. The first Batman film took me 10 years to get made.”

The Shadow was originally made into a film in 1994 starring Alec Baldwin. It wasn’t very good.

Source: MTV

3. Spider-Man himself – Tobey Maguire is developing a film called Good People based on a novel by Marcus Sakey.

According to Variety:

“Good People concerns a couple in debt from several rounds of futile fertility treatments who think their problems are solved when they stumble upon money found in their deceased tenant’s apartment.”

Sounds like Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave.

Maguire is producing and is mulling over starring in the film that will be scripted by Kelly Masterson.

Source: Variety

4. George Clooney is set to return to the role of Doug Ross in E.R . Clooney left the medical drama ten years ago to have a successful film career, but now that the show is wrapping up after 15 years they’ve lured him back with a final guest-starring role.

Ladies you can check out a more mature  Doug Ross below.

He scrubs up well. Get it?

Scource: Extra TV

5. Be afraid – be very afraid.

It looks like Charlie’s Angels 3 might be on its way. Producer and star Drew Barrymore seems keen on returning to the franchise. Whilst promoting He’s Just Not That Into You Barrymore said:

“I’m so into it-’Charlie’s Angels 3!’”

Barrymore’s producing partner Nancy Juvonen remarked:

“It’s percolating up. It’s rising to the surface.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say if this does go ahead don’t expect McG to be at the helm. He appears to be trying to distance himself from the Angels movies and with Terminator: Salvation on the horizon he wouldn’t want to open old wounds.

The original films (based on the television series) co-starred Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu.

Source: Coming Soon

That’s it for now. See You at the movies