In an interview with Digital Spy, Hazeldine explains the movie's current progress, and it sounds like it's still in the development stages, but actually moving forward. Plus I like where their mind is comparing it to District 9 budget-wise — since that film proved you don't need $200 million today in order to make a film about aliens.

[Digital Spy via Quiet Earth]

Proyas told Digital Spy that the script for the first movie (adapting The White Mountains, the first novel in John Christopher's trilogy) is currently being written by himself and Knowing writer Stuart Hazeldine, both big fans of the books (and the 1980s BBC TV adaptation), but that they're not going to be 100% faithful to what's on the page:

There are some additions to the books that we've made. For example, there is a kind of religious cult that revolves around the Tripods. They have priests in every village and their place of worship is a church with a triangle on its peak, because that's the symbol of the Tripods. So there are a few surreal oddities at first, but until you see the first Tripod and the first capping - very much as it was in the TV series - you don't really know where you are. You're in some weird mythical place and then suddenly you realise you're in a science fiction hybrid and throughout he course of the story you realise it's set in the future and they took over the Earth at some point and subjugated humanity... [Also,] we've actually changed Beanpole [one of the novels' three male leads] to a girl. That was a pretty significant change, because I really just didn't get the notion that there'd be these three boys travelling around the countryside and they just really wanted to have a girl in the mix. Eloise is still there, the red tower is still there, all the beats from the book are still there, but I hope we've added a layer of character development that the books don't In all honesty, as big a fan as I am, the characters are pretty sketchy in the books. So we've tried to give them a level of depth that will hopefully sustain three movies.

According to the director, although he hopes to make adapt all three original novels, the first movie will be produced as a stand-alone story in case it's not successful enough for a sequel:

Well I can't promise to make all three because it's really about the first one! But 'The White Mountains' holds up really, really well as a single story and we've made the script obviously so that it works as a single story. But what I can guarantee is that if I get to make two, then I will absolutely make three. It's just getting to number two, because you just never know.

As someone who loved the TV series and was distraught when they cancelled it without any resolution, I'm keeping fingers crossed that this comes to pass.

The Tripods Are Back [Digital Spy]

At least that's the impression I came away with after watching this Nicolas Cage vehicle. The film, directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City, iRobot) tries hard to impress you with its deep themes about the meaning of our existence, but it's let down by a sledgehammery script, and one of Cage's worst performances on record. (And bear in mind, I liked Ghost Rider. Yeah, really.)

Oh, and there will be spoilers in this review. I'm predicting it, because I have a giant sheet of random numbers, and if you circle some of them randomly you get the words "SPOILERS AHEAD".

Nic Cage plays John Koestler, an MIT professor who's the worst astrophysicist in the universe. Early on, we get to watch him teaching a class, and it's like a bad freshman philosophy bull session, taught by a burned-out stoner. For some reason, instead of actually, you know, teaching some astrophysics, Koestler wants to ramble about predestination versus total randomness in the universe. "Tell me about the sun," Cage says, tossing a model of the sun at one of his students. "It's hot," the student says. Dude, no way. So, is it just random chance that we're exactly the right distance from the sun to allow complex life to develop? (This is what's known in the business as foreshadowing.)

Koestler is obsessed with questions of fate versus free will, because his wife died in a hotel fire, leaving him alone with his precocious son Caleb, who's got that form of aspergers that smart kids always have in the movies. The movie tries hard to give us a lot of character development by shorthand. Like, John and Caleb have a weird hand-jive thing they do while they chant "You and me, together forever." Except that John is never actually there for Caleb, because he's an alcoholic screw-up. One of John's colleagues wants to fix him up on a date with a female professor whom he calls "Miss Ph Double-Ds." Oh, and John is estranged from his own father, a pastor who talks with a fake Boston brahmin accent. "Oh, the son of a pastor, the son of a pastor," John chants at one point while pulling a face. John doesn't believe in God, because of that hotel fire thingy.

So yes, eventually the plot kicks into gear and we're all glad the painful character development is over. Caleb's school digs up a time capsule, which we saw being buried in 1959, and Caleb gets a sheet of numbers which a crazy Wednesday Addams girl scrawled 50 years earlier. Somehow, John figures out all those numbers predict every major disaster of the past 50 years, plus a few disasters yet to come. (You're not supposed to wonder how so many disasters could fit on one piece of paper.)

At this point, the film starts referencing 9/11 pretty heavily. Remember when it was considered a huge taboo for movies to touch on 9/11? Watching parts of this movie, I felt nostalgic for those days. The first disaster that Koestler identifies on the sheet of numbers is 9/11. And then he gets caught up in a plane crash that's somewhat reminiscent of UA 93. Then Koestler figures out that another disaster is due to take place in Manhattan, and meanwhile the terror rating has been raised. So John tries to notify Homeland Security about his prediction, to no avail. He goes to New York, and spots a shifty-looking Arab man, whom he chases through the subway. The Arab turns out to be a guy who stole some DVDs, and then the subway train crashes due to driver error. Cage and the other survivors climb out of the ruined subway, in a cloud of smoke and ash, and they're all covered with white ash, so that they look like postapocalyptic mimes. And then we see shots of heroic firefighters. Other movies I've seen recently which touched on 9/11 have felt interesting, or cathartic, or tasteful, but this just felt a bit gratuitous for some reason.

Actually, though, the movie really only comes to life when there's a disaster taking place. During a few great set pieces - the plane crash, the train crash and one or two others - the movie gains a sense of life and becomes fun to watch. We follow Cage as he runs through flames and rubble and screaming people, in long tracking shots that reminded me of the end of Children Of Men. The disaster sequences only account for about 15-20 minutes of the movie's two-hour running length, but they're almost worth the price of admission. Proyas obviously puts most of his heart into those moments.

Meanwhile, the other big strand in the movie is that spooky shit is going down. The creepy girl who wrote down those numbers heard scary cacophonous whispers in her ears, and John's son Caleb hears them too. So does the girl's granddaughter, whom John and Caleb meet up with at some point. (Oh, and Rose Byrne plays the 1959 girl's daughter, who's been tormented by her mother's weird Cassandra complex.) And there are weird goth albino dudes hanging around the kids, staring at them and trying to claim them or something. Also, there are weird pebbles. It all turns out to be something different than you expect, in a very woo-woo "spiritual" ending that reminded me of Mission To Mars or the Keanu version of Day The Earth Stood Still. There was one fantastic moment when the kids are each handed white rabbits - and I thought maybe bunnies would turn out to be the movie's secret villains. (What if Anya from Buffy was right? Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies! But sadly, no.)

One of the great pleasures of Knowing is picking apart all of the movie's weird plot holes and bits of unprocessed nonsense. For a film that insists, over and over, that everything makes sense and that you could predict the future if you only knew enough facts, the movie actually depends on the audience not thinking very hard about its premise, especially once the big twist in the premise is revealed.

But that's not the film's biggest problem - plenty of movies make no sense, and are still awesome to watch. (Like, say, Push, from the same distributor, which came out last month.) Rather, the biggest problem is that the film is such a genre smorgasbord, it sort of loses cohesion. It's a mystery thriller, where we have to figure out what these numbers mean. No, wait, it's a horror movie, with the staring albinos and their deranged whispering. Or, no, it's a disaster movie about planes trains and automobiles going FOOM. Or no, it's a spiritual growth movie, where we finally open up and discover the meaning behind everything. To be fair, some of my favorite movies are genre mashups, and I like a movie that changes gears in the middle. But it just doesn't quite work in this film, because the shifts are handled awkwardly, and none of these individual segments feels that original. It all felt like a mashup of several movies I'd seen before.

For all that, I didn't hate Knowing, or even dislike it that much. It had a certain energy, and Nic Cage's dopey facial expressions are always fun to watch, and the disaster segments really are first class. There are a couple of genuinely surprising twists here and there, and the part of the ending that's not "spiritual" is weirdly satisfying. Proyas keeps upping the ante, until the apocalyptic finish feels genuine apocalyptic and huge. Rose Byrne doesn't have much to do in the film, but she's engaging whenever she's on screen.

Plus, I suspect that if you really love random spooky shit, or apparently meaningless clues that turn out to be the key to everything, or spiritual endings, then you'll be more drawn into this movie than I was. You may even find that it explains everything - and find that its apparently random tonal and narrative shifts form a secret pattern, which you can use to predict everything in the universe. Or maybe not.

IGN interviewed Proyas, and also featured a new plot synopsis for the film:

In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one mysterious girl fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead. Fifty years later, a new generation of students examines the capsule's contents and the girl's cryptic message ends up in the hands of young Caleb Koestler. But it is Caleb's father, professor John Koestler (Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years.

As John further unravels the document's chilling secrets, he realizes the document foretells three additional events-the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve John and his son. When John's attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.

With the reluctant help of Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne) and Abby Wayland, the daughter and granddaughter of the now-deceased author of the prophecies, John's increasingly desperate efforts take him on a heart-pounding race against time until he finds himself facing the ultimate disaster-and the ultimate sacrifice.

I knew Rose Byrne was in this film as the daughter of the prophecies' author, but I didn't realize she had a daughter as well.

And apparently Nic Cage's character starts the movie believing the world is random, and then has a spiritual transformation when he realizes everything is pre-ordained. The "core relationship" of the film involves Cage and his son, but Cage also has a troubled relationship wth his own father, says director Alex Proyas.

And here are some new promo pics, from Celebutopia:

In an interview with Sci Fi Wire, Alex Proyas revealed a few juicy bits about his alien overlord movie.

We've done a draft; we're basically at the first-draft stage of Tripods, and we're about to go into our second draft... Pretty happy with the script; I think it's come a long way. ... We're only doing the first book, The White Mountains, and the notion is, obviously, that it will hopefully be a trilogy. But we'll probably just be shooting the first movie independently.

Let's hope that the first book is a success, so he can make the other two (The City of Gold And Lead and The Pool of Fire) along the way, and I can make a fortune marketing my silver-hats-of-Tripod-submission fashion line.

In the first scene, Cage's character John Koestler is sitting in a traffic jam in the pouring rain. Frustrated, he consults his GPS for an alternate route to his son's school. With a sigh, he calls his friend, Phil Bergman, and gets his voicemail. "I'm sorry I freaked out on you," he says. "I'm not ready to meet someone in a special way, but I'll take you up on your offer for dinner."

Suddenly, the coordinates on his GPS catch his eye. Frowning, he pulls out the sheet with all the numbers on it. He notices that one set of numbers exactly matches the coordinates on the GPS. "Some of the numbers are locations," he murmurs.

After eying the police barrier blocking off an accident ahead, he gets out his car, braving the rain. He approaches the barrier, asking what happened, were there any deaths? The officer assures him that there were only minor injuries. They are both suddenly distracted by a strange noise. The camera whips around a freaking plane bursts from the sky, crashing by the side of the rode, its wing bursting into flames as it grinds against the ground.

John runs frantically toward the plane, which has completely erupted in flames. Passengers have caught on fire and some run at him, their burning arms outstretched. He finds a blanket and pats down a man lying on the ground. Three passengers flee a chunk of the cabin, but something behind them explodes and they are completely consumed by a fireball. A woman runs up to him, screaming for help, but pulls away from him. Amid the screams, John spots a man who is still trapped inside a piece of the plane. He drags the man out as two emergency workers grab arrive, ask John if he's okay, then pull him off the passed out man.

In the second scene, John walks through a crowd of people on a sunny street, looking confused. He spots a policewoman and demands to know why this intersection hasn't been sealed off. As the woman tries to calm him, he spots a black van in the distance. After glancing at the van a few times, he decides to go down into a subway station instead.

When he gets down to the platform, John spots a man standing behind a column. The man glances about, as if he thinks he's being watched. When he realizes John can see the giant bulge beneath his sweatshirt, the guy bolts, sending John on a chase through the crowds. A subway cop sees them and signals for backup.

The guy with the bulge ducks into a subway car. As John races past the passengers, he pauses at the sight of a young woman with a baby. He yells at the woman, "Take the baby, get off the train." The subway cop catches up with them and points his gun at John. John points at the guy with the bulge, who is standing, wild-eyed at the back of the car. "It's not me. It's him."

Terrified, the guy with the bulge raises his arms in surrender...and a pack of DVDs fall from his sweatshirt. John realizes, to his horror, that this man does not cause the disaster predicted today.

We look outside the train and see that the subway has skidded off its tracks. As the cars begin to jostle, John tells everyone to get back. The train crashes into a subway stop, taking out the concrete columns. Broken glass, metal, and concrete rain everywhere, as John hugs the young woman and her baby protectively. Outside, we see the train mowing over scores of suit-wearing commuters in a horrifying, but oddly bloodless scene.

Knowing director Alex Proyas, told Shock Til You Drop that he's involved with two new projects. One being a retelling of Dracula which we're semi-stoked about, but the other, way more exciting, development is Tripods.

"I'm working on a bunch of different things and the two projects I'm excited about are an adaptation of John Christopher's The Tripod stories that I've co-written with Stuart Hazeldine, who is one of our writers on 'Knowing', and the Dracula project," the Australian filmmaker told Shock Til you Drop. "Both are very exciting projects but at this stage, we're still in the budgeting process for both, so I can't really tell you much more than that."

Hooray, who doesn't love a movie about an already dominated and docile human race that is being controlled by mind caps? Even though there was a Tripods series on the BBC the first book, at least, deserves its own special movie.

In Knowing, Nicolas Cage plays a professor whose son digs up a time capsule that was buried at his elementary school in 1959. The capsule contains a sheet of paper full of numbers, which appear to be purely random. But Cage deduces that each number refers to a major disaster, including the date and the number of people killed. And he begins to suspect that he and his son have an important role to play in the apocalypse, which is coming soon.

Knowing opens March 20, and a couple of the film's biggest disaster set-pieces will be shown off at New York Comic-Con.

We're attracted to stories where little details and clues turn out to be the key to everything, says Proyas. "The devil's in the details." He says he was intrigued by the film's basic premise, that someone could have buried information "like a message in a bottle," years and years ago, with a code that predicts disasters with total accuracy. "It feels like an urban myth," and has an immediate appeal, he says. "It touches on something in our psyche that resonates in some way. It feels true." And it feels instinctively creepy, even when you hear just the bare-bones summary. "That's certainly the way the film functions in the first third to a half," before it takes a sharp turn in another direction, says Proyas.

The movie's latest trailer hints at a much broader picture, with some spooky scenes of scary white men in the forest (referred to as the "whispering ones,") and some scary apocalyptic moments as well. Even though his film features Nic Cage unraveling clues and trying to figure out secrets from the past, Proyas said it's the "absolute polar opposite" of Cage's National Treasure movies. (He adds that he's enjoyed those films, but his couldn't be more different.)

According to Proyas, his film mixes huge wide-screen action sequences with quieter moments to create an unpredictable blend. He says he was originally attracted to this movie because

I could see a story taking shape... that would the audience on a very unexpected and emotionally resonant ride, and that's what got me. The hook of a story where I thought I could see where it was going, but then suddenly it's not going in that direction. It's going in a far more interesting direction.

The biggest challenge of creating Knowing was keeping all of those twists and turns, and the huge set-pieces, going while still preserving the core of the film.

Proyas has talked before about how he felt pressured to crank up the pace of his earlier film Dark City, and it wasn't until the recent release of the director's cut on DVD that he was able to restore some of the quieter moments that lent the film a lot of its depth.

In the case of Knowing, Proyas stuck to the idea that

the spine of this story is a very intimate personal drama, a story between a father and a son, and they are the vehicle that carries us through this escalating series of events that evolve into quite an epic scope by the end of the story. That is quite a challenge, but also why the film is so effective. It does give you a very solid grounding, a very solid path through this story. And so what was challenging was also ultimately the key to why I think the film will hold an audience. It gives us a human face to all this stuff.

Cage's character is trying to protect his son from the consequences of the knowledge inside the time capsule, but Proyas hinted that some of his efforts may end up backfiring.

There are tons of post-apocalyptic stories and movies coming out, but Knowing is part of a rising tide of pre-apocalyptic tales (similar to the original Terminator films) in which people know an apocalypse is coming. Proyas says the fear of a coming apocalypse seems to be part of the zeitgeist right now. "We're all concerned about where things are heading." Back in the 1950s, genre films tended to focus on the spectre of nuclear armageddon. But now, annihilation could come from so many different directions, it's hard to know which type of destruction to be scared of.

At the same time, the 1950s was a more optimistic time. Proyas' film includes some scenes from the 50s, when the fateful time capsule is being buried, and everyone is talking brightly about the promise of a shining future, with the proverbial flying cars and personal rocket ships.

The movie's biggest set piece is the giant sequence where a plane crashes into the highway, and Cage rushes to rescue survivors from the burning aircraft. Proyas filmed the whole thing as one continuous two-minute take, and it was the hardest part of the film to realize, he says:

I really wanted to put the audience in the scene. I think we're becoming so blase about slick visual effects. I'm trying to make them not seem like visual effects. The way we did that, in that instance, is [that] in one shot we create this entire scenario, where Nic sees a jet airliner crash into a field, and he runs into the maelstrom and tries to rescue people. It was a very challenging sequence to create, becuase it was this combination, on a major scale, of stunts, people on fire, exploding fuselages — real mechanical effects — and also CG augumentation to that. And I had my leading man running through this situation for this continuous amount of time. Oh, and it was raining, as well.

When you're editing a film in post-production, sometimes the studio will ask for "alternate coverage" of a scene for television broadcast. But in this case, there's no alternate, less gruesome version of the jet crash sequence, because it's literally one camera following Nicholas Cage through the carnage. And after all that, Proyas nearly didn't get the scene at all:

When you put all the stunt sequences, all the effort on the one lens running through the situation, and there is no backup plan, that is where all sorts of things can go wrong. We set it up for two days. We spent two days shooting it, even though it was one continous shot. I think we did three takes over the two days. After we blew everything up, we had to reset it, which would take half a day. On the first couple of takes, because it was raining, the lens fogged halfway through the shot — which was the most depressing, disappointing thing, because you couldn't see a thing. It was just fogged out. So we were literally on our last take with the sun going down. I knew I was only going to get one more shot at it. I was actually calling the studio from the set, saying we're not going to get this, we're going to need to come back the next day, which would have cost $300,000 or something. And I hung up. And I was told everything was ready. And I yelled action, and somehow miraculously we got it, just at the end of the day.

Before Proyas got involved with Knowing, writer/director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) was lined up to make the film. I asked Proyas if any of Kelly's vision of the film survived in the final version, and he said not at all.

Finally, I had to ask Proyas about comments he's made in interviews before about wanting to make a big space opera film. He was one of the people bidding to make a movie version of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and he lost out to Roland Emmerich. But he's also said several times that he'd like to make a film of Alfred Bester's Stars My Destination. I asked him if he might still make a big space opera film, and he replied:

I hope so. I keep trying. I like Stars My Destination, and and that may happen sometime in the future. Who knows?

In this Alex Proyas-directed movie, Cage plays a super-smart numbers guy, whose son unearths a student time capsule from 50 years ago. Inside, Cage's son finds a letter that's just a list of numbers, Cage realize it's actually a code to every bad thing that's ever happened, or will happen. And oh noes, the biggest crisis ever is headed our way. It's like National Treasure, except it's National Disaster instead.

Also, the new Knowing trailer reveals these scary albinos who know how to point creepily like the best of them. Oh, I do not have high hopes for this film — even with Proyas attached to it.

Knowing will be released in March of 2009.

[Apple]

Note: We didn't include any directors who haven't worked in the genre this decade. We also left out McG and Brett Ratner. If either of those guys is your favorite director, we're very sorry. Very, very sorry.

Proyas told fans at Comic-Con that his main reason for staying away from the Fantastic Four spin-off was who was making it, and he repeated that to MTV:

[I]t’s a Fox picture, [a]nd I’m determined never to work with them ever again because of my experience on ‘I,Robot.’

But that's not the only reason he's turning the project down, it seems. Another reason was the crappiness of the Surfer's first appearance, in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer:

It’s like the origin of Silver Surfer was in that movie, and I’m going, ‘This is such a f–king great story, why throw it away?’ ...I think they messed it up.

You and the rest of the cinema-going public, Alex. Would it really have killed them to give us a giant man with a huge purple helmet instead of the flashing storm thing? ...Wait. I should probably rephrase that.

Does this mean that Proyas is going to stay away from superhero movies from now on? Perhaps, he says:

You know, there aren’t that many left. Silver Surfer would have been something I would have loved to have done. He’s one of the last cool ones left, really.

Dude, you did The Crow; I think you've done enough. In more ways than one.

Alex Proyas Explains Chilly Fox Relationship Means He’ll Never Direct Silver Surfer Movie [Splash Page]

Since Proyas helmed I, Robot, which took a few slight liberties with the Isaac Asimov source material, you can expect a certain amount of creative license with Jonathan Hoag, which Heinlein wrote in 1942 under a pseudonym, John Riverside. But Proyas expresses reverence for the source material, in a Hollywood Reporter article:

"I read this story as a kid, and it really stayed with me," Proyas said. "It's part of my creative DNA."

Here's how someone on Amazon summarizes it:

Mr. Hoag has a problem: in the evenings he finds a curious reddish residue under his fingernails, and no memory of what he was doing during the day to get that residue. So he hires a husband-and-wife team of detectives to follow him around and find out what is really going on. The trail leads to non-existent 13th floors, some very shadowy characters who are part of the Order of the Bird, and a conclusion that reality really isn't what we think it is. Some good suspense, reasonable characterization, but the final answer that Heinlein presents may leave you feeling a little let down, and I had difficulty believing in the scenario.

The novella appears to be out of print, but copies of a collected edition are available on Amazon for as little as 14 cents, plus shipping. According to blogger Chris Perridas, Heinlein wrote the story in a hurry to raise money for his wife's gall bladder operation. [Hollywood Reporter]

In Knowing, Cage digs up a time capsule that contains uncanny predictions about the future, which start coming true — and they culminate in the end of the world! And I guess the predictions are in the form of a numerical code, and the numbers 9/11 turn out to be significant. Says USA Today:

Cage acknowledges that 9/11 remains a fresh wound for American moviegoers, and films that touch on the terrorist attacks have suffered their own curse. "I know that number jumps out at people," he says. "But that's just a beginning point for the movie. And that doesn't mean you can't mention it. It's time for a return to dark thrillers that are relevant. We're already living in a world where up is down."

Director Alex Proyas (I, Robot) says that although film should never lose its aim to entertain, "there's still a need to address what's going on in people's lives. Hopefully, we do it in a light that's a positive experience but still responsible."

Meanwhile, ComingSoon has a set report and pics from that big plane crash scene, which recalls the 9/11 atacks so vividly. In the scene being filmed, Cage's character causes a traffic jam, wearing a hoodie in the rain. The cops are trying to talk to Cage to find out what's wrong, but he's struggling with one of his uncanny pieces of knowledge of the future. Then Cage looks at the sky, and reacts to a jet crash — then the jet crashes on the ground nearby. Cage runs to the jet engine while it's still running on the ground, and a woman is crying for help from the plane's tail section as there are explosions all around. There are pics at the link. [Coming Soon and USA Today]

Our heroes on Lost break up into two opposing teams at the start of season four, led by Locke and Jack. Sawyer joins Team Locke, but reading between the lines, it sounds as though Kate joins Jack's squad, but Jin and Sun stay neutral. Meanwhile, Ben stays a step ahead of everybody else, including the crew of an incoming vessel. And the show is casting a group of "fluent Franco-Tunisian actors" for episode eight or nine.

Here are some pics from Lost season four, which don't seem to reveal much. And don't forget, season four will feature "flash forwards" instead of flashbacks. [E! Online]

Meanwhile, ABC is having a dispute with its affiliates over whether to air Lost at 9 (a better ratings slot) or 10 (when it can help local news broadcasts). And the show's producers want ABC to hold off on airing it at all, since they weren't able to finish the season. Apparently, the last script they have ends with a cliffhanger that would be fine for one week, but would drive the fans crazy if it lasted months. [SyFy Portal]

Nicholas Cage will star in the spooky-ass Knowing, about a teacher who unearths a prophetic time capsule at his son's elementary school. The capsule, buried long ago, predicts events that have already happened. And it says the world will end that week, and Cage and his son are somehow involved. Alex Proyas (i robot) will direct. In other words: save the kindergarten, save the world. [Variety]

The live-action Jetsons movie will be (maybe excessively) true to the TV show, with lots of cute little plots like George Jetson inventing a dog-walking helmet and Elroy getting space-bullied at school. And lots and lots of in-jokes involving futuristic micro-ipods and MySpace in virtual reality. The Jetsons is still stuck in development, with no director or stars yet. [IESB]

Finally, Batman seems to be overcompensating for his new brassiere by zooming around on a really small motorcycle. [Slashfilm]

Jeffrey Dean Morgan photo by INF/Goff.