Disney and Shankman Tackle Another Tired Idea
      Thanks to the success of The Pacifier, Disney has hired Adam Shankman to direct another of their unimaginative scripts, this one by Bill Kelly (Blast from the Past) who seems to have ignored the Shaquille O'Neal vehicle Kazaam by pitching the project as a modern day Aladdin. 

Comic Book Adaptation: 300 – It would be interesting, though highly redundant, for Zack Snyder to direct Frank Miller’s graphic novel about Spartan warriors as Robert Rodriguez did with Sin City and make it look like the comic. Actually, a lot of the fast-motion, blood-splattering cinematography of his Dawn of the Dead remake sometimes looked like violent splash pages. There needs to be something done to make this from being another disappointing historical epic. (Variety)

Novel Adaptation: A Fine Dark Line – Did you ever wish that the dead kid at the end of Stand By Me would begin haunting the four main characters? Well, producer/director Adam Friedman describes the Joe R. Lansdale book he’s acquired the rights to as like the 1986 Rob Reiner film combined with a ghost story. Hey, as long as he also combines the adaptation with those Playboy videos he used to shoot, he’s got my ticket already bought.
(The Hollywood Reporter)

Sequel: Kung Fu Hustle 2 – Not surprising is the announcement of a sequel to this year’s kung fu cult-hit. If we thought it was newsworthy to report on every time a martial arts film is franchised, our fingers would be bleeding from all that typing. Jackie Chan, for example, has appeared in more sequels than grains of rice in China.

Casting: X-Men 3 – Bill Duke and his giant bottom lip has been added to the third X-Men film as a politician when he should be running for governor somewhere to continue my dream of having everyone from Predator get their turn ruling over a state. I’d even let Carl Weathers go all the way to the White House. (IGN FilmForce)

Remake: Pathfinder – Marcus Nispel has been assigned this Viking picture based on Nils Gaup’s Oscar-nominated Swedish film from 1987. Despite being a remake, the plot is being altered by Alexander screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis, which is almost good news since now you can still enjoy the original. And Odin knows that we Viking fans are always desperate for enjoyable epics about the horn-helmeted heroes of Scandinavia. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Remake: The Yakuza – Hollywood doesn’t understand that Robert Mitchum can never be replaced (and no matter what you say DeNiro wasn’t even close), but that isn’t stopping them from a redo of Sydney Pollack’s 1975 film The Yakuza. Billy Gruber, who loves a good retread (Get Carter, The In-Laws, The Dukes of Hazzard), is producing in the hopes of riding the ends of the Kill Bill coattails. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Remake:  Rififi - Since Hollywood loves slow-moving heist films with little dialouge and they're running out of Melville films to buy the rights to, Stone Village Pictures has decided to remake the Jules Dassin classic Rififi, which has been a major influence on all crime capers since its release in 1954.  The million-dollar question is whether or not Al Pacino, who has been cast in the Jean Servais role, can keep quiet for that famous 28-minute heist sequence. 

Death:   Tonino Delli Colli (1923-2005)
       Prolific cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli shot over 100 films for a number of Italian directors including Fellini, Leone, Benigni and Pasolini, with whom he was most abundantly employed.

Death:   Joe Ranft (1960-2005)
       You've gotta love the penguins.  This year's surprise hit March of the Penguins is nothing new; the cute flightless birds have been used as an endearing part of family entertainment for a long time.  Even when mischievous, as they are in Batman Returns, The Wrong Trousers, and the recent Madagascar, penguins are lovable.  None are quite as adorable, however, as Wheezy, the broken squeeze toy in Toy Story 2.  Sadly the man responsible for giving us that character, in design and in voice, has been killed.
        Story man Joe Ranft, who worked on ideas and storyboards for Walt Disney and Pixar, died in a car crash Tuesday afternoon. In addition to the creative designs he provided for films including Beauty and the Beast and Toy Story (for which he earned an Oscar nomination), he was known best as the voice of Heimlich in A Bug's Life and more recently as Jacques in Finding Nemo. 
        I feel a little connection to Ranft, who followed the career path that I had once planned.  A fellow Piscean and Kurt Vonnegut fan, he spent his childhood practicing magic before attending CalArts in the late '70s.  This was the same time that the school, famous for its cultivation of animators, was fostering the talents of Tim Burton, John Lassiter, Brad Bird, Gary Trousdale and Henry Selick.  After two years there, Ranft was recruited by Disney.  He also studied with the legendary comedy group The Groundlings, which featured Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz and Bob Saget.  He credited that improvisational education as a major asset in his development as a storyboard artist.  Eventually he became, as director Peter Docter (Monsters, Inc.) calls him, "the undisputed storyboard master at Pixar". 
        Joe Ranft was a terrific example of the uncelebrated pieces that form a great film.  He was praised enough in his field to able those unfamiliar with his contributions to discover that he concocted the realtionship between Lumiere the candlestick and Cogsworth the clock in Beauty and the Beast and actualized the entire army men sequence for Toy Story.  He never aspired to be more than a great story-boarder, and in his career as one of the best, he gave the position a significant respect.  Now that he's gone, we can hope that his success inspires other collaborators to remain as humble and to aid in the construction of more great films. 
     LA Times Obituary    Salon.com Interview

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