(For news that don't deserve their own threads:)

Gore Verbinski to direct 'Bioshock'

Variety wrote:

Universal and Gore Verbinski are going into "Bioshock." Studio has signed a deal to turn last year's hit videogame, which won numerous awards and sold more than 2 million units worldwide, into a film. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" helmer is attached to direct and produce. "Aviator" scribe John Logan is in talks to pen the screenplay.

Leonardo DiCaprio to play with 'Atari'

Variety wrote:

Paramount Pictures has snapped up a pitch titled “Atari,” with Leonardo DiCaprio attached to star. Written by Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman, project is a biopic about entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell, the creator of Atari and one of the founding fathers of the vidgame industry. Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari in 1972 and were instrumental in bringing arcade games, home vidgame consoles and home computers to the masses. Among the company’s contributions were Pong and the Atari 2600.

Rogen, Baruchel set for 'Apocalypse'

Variety wrote:

The end days are near for Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel. The pair will star in the action comedy "Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse" for Mandate Pictures. Film is based on a comedy short from "Superbad" scribes Rogen and Evan Goldberg, which in turn was based on a story by Goldberg and Jason Stone. Rogen and Goldberg will write and produce the feature. Several production companies vied for the rights to the comedy, which revolves, as the title implies, around two guys dealing with the apocalypse. Last summer, the project caused a stir in the blogosphere when a trailer for the short appeared on YouTube. Mandate is aiming to shoot the pic in 2009.

I just want to say how depressed I am about the industry...

Black Zarak wrote:

Yeah, Bioshock is awesome game, but I can't see them making a non-horrible movie out of it.

Exactly, it broke my mind knowing that a movie is getting rushed. I'm kinda in the boat that believes the game has to have a successful franchise first before making a movie of it... But Hollywood has screwed them all up so bad anything goes now. Gore was an odd choice for director. Did they say: Hey, he knows about water; he made three pirate movies and a movie about a well!

Edit: Bioshock the game is grotesquely awesome.

The Atari movie looks like a big budget version of Pirates of Silicon Valley. The truth is computer development isn't very interesting, no matter the backdoor politics.

lordsathien wrote:

Wasn't Bruce Willis mo-capped for a game on the PSX called Apocalypse?

The less said about that game the better...

Downey Saddling Up For COWBOYS AND ALIENS!

Twitch Film wrote:

You may have thought the space-western was dead after Joss Whedon’s Serenity failed to make its money back at the box office but, hey! It’s amazing what landing a hot star can do! Robert Downey Jr, fresh off the biggest hit of his career with Iron Man, has just signed up to star in Cowboys and Aliens. It’s the film adaptation of a graphic novel that has apparently been kicking around Hollywood for about a decade but Downey’s game, Downey’s hot and so the film is a go. Plot? Well, there are cowboys. And aliens. And they fight. What else do you need?

More on Cowboys & Aliens: The project has been in development at several studios during the past 10 years. Among the writers who have drafted versions of the adaptation are David Hayter ("X2: X-Men United"), Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer ("Sahara"), Jeffrey Boam ("Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"), Thompson Evans ("Wedlocked"), Chris Hauty ("Never Back Down") and Steve Oedekerk ("Evan Almighty").

That's a lot of failures.

Oh yeah, Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back) is going to write Robotech and Len Wiseman (Underworld/Die Hard 4) is going to direct Gears of War.

Not so nerdy news:

Spike Lee to make black time traveler movie

Quote:

Spike Lee will co-write and direct "Time Traveler," a feature adaptation of a memoir by Ronald Mallett, one of the nation's first African-Americans to earn a Ph.D in theoretical physics.

J.J. Abrams' company options a very J.J.-esque idea.

Quote:

The Times feature, which ran Thursday and was written by reporter Penelope Green, describes an Upper East Side luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue that the occupants had redesigned to include hidden compartments, messages, puzzles, poems, codes and games for their four preteen kids. The parents, Steven Klinsky and Maureen Sherry, are Wall Street financial experts and purchased the 4,200-square-foot, 1920s co-op with views of Central Park in 2003 for $8.5 million. Soon after, they hired young architectural designer Eric Clough, who devised an elaborately clever "scavenger hunt" built into the apartment that involved dozens of historical figures, a fictional book and a soundtrack. (Many of the secrets were included without the parents' knowledge, either.)

To this I said: Oh, fuck you.

Aaron Sorkin to write Facebook film
Aug 27, 2008, 08:43 PM ET

Aaron Sorkin is about to get a whole lot of friends on Facebook. Sorkin, one of the town's biggest writers and show creators, is in negotiations to write an untitled film project about the founders of the popular social networking site that Scott Rudin will produce for Columbia.

Sorkin broke the news on Facebook when he opened up his own account.

"I understand there are a few other people using Facebook pages under my name -- which I find more flattering than creepy -- but this is me. I don't know how I can prove that but feel free to test me," he wrote before going on to talk about the movie project.

"I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I've started this page. (Actually it was started by my researcher, Ian Reichbach, because my grandmother has more Internet savvy than I do and she's been dead for 33 years.)"

Sorkin also asked the Facebook public for any stories relating to the site.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg while studying at Harvard along with pals Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. At first, membership was restricted to Harvard students, then expanded to all Ivy League schools before going on to open up for all universities and high schools in Canada and the U.S. The site now has more than 100 million users worldwide.

Despite offers in the billions of dollars, Zuckerberg has steadfastly remained independent.

Endeavor-repped Sorkin last wrote "Charlie Wilson's War," while Rudin has "Revolutionary Road," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and the film adaptation of the Broadway play "Doubt" coming out this fall.

"I feel about this introduction the way I felt about 'Sophie's Choice': It could have been funnier," Sorkin finished.