David Fincher options Panic Attack

David Fincher's (The Social Network, Zodiac, Fight Club) newly formed production company Panic Pictures has optioned its first property, an adaptation of the macabre crime novel panic attack. Jason Starr’s 2009 story is a dark thriller about a New York psychiatrist who shoots and kills a home intruder and then has to face a media frenzy and the victim’s accomplice who is seeking revenge.

Screenwriter Ted Griffin (Ocean’s Eleven, Tower Heist) will write the script for the movie adaptation. Novelist Starr’s tenth book The Pack is released next week and four of his previous novels are already in development in Hollywood.

No word yet on whether David Fincher will be directing Panic Attack himself or passing it on to another director. He is currently finishing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (released in cinemas in the UK on December 26th) and may make the next in the trilogy. He is also due to make Cleopatra with Angelina Jolie and has other projects in pre-production.

Emma Hutchings

Neill Blomkamp casts his villain for new sci-fi Elysium

Little is known about Neill Blomkamp’s much-anticipated follow-up to his successful first feature District 9. The sci-fi film Elysium is set on another planet in the future and will feature Matt Damon as an ex-con, as well as Sharlto Copley (who played the lead in District 9) and Jodie Foster. Now, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura has joined the cast as the antagonist.

Moura received praise for his role as Captain Nascimento in the Brazilian action crime films Elite Squad and its sequel, for which he’s most recognisable. Directed by José Padilha, the first film won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2008 and Elite Squad 2 holds the record box office gross in Brazil. This new opportunity, which will mark Wagner Moura’s Hollywood debut, is likely to increase his following and launch him into the mainstream. His character in Elysium is said to be powerful, with a crazy sense of humour.

Elysium starts shooting this July in Vancouver and is currently set for release on the much-too-distant date of March 8th 2013.

Nicholas Hoult lands the lead in zombie romance Warm Bodies

Nicholas Hoult, one of Britain’s best young talents in Hollywood at the moment, has signed on to yet another project. Last month it was announced that the star had been chosen as the lead in Bryan Singer’s take on the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, Jack the Giant Killer.

Now, it has been announced that he has the role of the protagonist in Summit Entertainment’s adaptation of Isaac Marion’s forthcoming novel, Warm Bodies. A script has been written by Jonathan Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, The Wackness) who will also direct.

Warm Bodies tells the story of a zombie known as R, who starts to fall for the girlfriend of one of his victims and stops himself and his undead brethren from attacking her. This zombie apocalypse love story could be an interesting, darkly comic, existential film with hints of Edward Scissorhands, or it could turn out to be Twilight with zombies.

Since starring in About a Boy alongside Hugh Grant, Hoult has appeared in the UK TV series Skins, Tom Ford’s film A Single Man with Colin Firth, and last year’s Clash of the Titans. As well as Jack the Giant Killer, he is due to star in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road and can next be seen in this summer’s hotly anticipated X-Men prequel X-Men: First Class as a young Hank McCoy/Beast, which opens in the UK on June 2nd.

Will Smith to star in biblical tale Joe

Movie star Will Smith hasn’t starred in a film since his 2008 offerings Hancock and Seven Pounds but he seems set to make a comeback. Currently filming Men in Black III, he is now attached to the forthcoming project Joe.

The film is an updated version of the biblical story of Job, written by screenwriting duo Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (The Fighter) who have sold the script to Sony Pictures and Will Smith’s production company Overbrook Entertainment. The writers are said to be keen to sign David O. Russell as director (who received an Oscar nomination for The Fighter) and Smith is to star as the protagonist.

The Book of Job in the bible tells of Satan being granted God’s permission to test Job’s faith and loyalty. Job loses his family, wealth and health but remains devoted to God even though others insist his suffering is punishment for his sins. Job questions God and learns valuable lessons before his health, happiness and prosperity are restored.

Despite his three year break from starring in films, Will Smith has been keeping busy. He has produced films like The Karate Kid for his son Jaden and has been looking into opportunities for his daughter Willow, including the proposed remake of the musical Annie. This year we will see him return to our screens, reprising his popular role as Agent J in the third Men in Black film, which is due for release on May 23rd here in the UK.

Louis Leterrier to direct new sci-fi film G

The man who brought us the remake of Clash of the Titans has signed on to a secretive movie project with Universal called G.

A sci-fi disaster film with elements similar to both The Day After Tomorrow and Taken, its ‘man on a mission’ story follows a father searching for his lost child on an Earth that has stopped spinning and is losing its gravity. Still in the early stages of development, a screenwriter is now being sought to develop this interesting concept.

It seems the largely negative reviews of Clash of the Titans haven’t dented the director’s career, as he has another project on the cards in the meantime. Leterrier will be directing Now You See Me, a heist movie produced by in-demand screenwriting partners Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek, Transformers). This film involves a cat and mouse game between the FBI and a team of illusionists who carry out bank heists during their performances.

Louis Leterrier’s other screen credits include The Transporter, Unleashed, Transporter 2 and The Incredible Hulk.

Michel Gondry to adapt and direct Philip K. Dick’s Ubik

Michel Gondry has revealed that he will be filming a big-screen adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s acclaimed 1966 science fiction novel Ubik.

As with Dick’s other stories, expect lots of mind-bending, twists and intrigue. It should be familiar territory for Michel Gondry, who directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep before the recently disappointing Green Hornet movie.

Ubik is one of Philip K. Dick’s most popular tales, voted by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels. The story involves an anti-psy security agency (whose operatives are hired out to protect people from telepathic attacks), fragments of reality slipping into the past, and a mysterious spray called Ubik.

A number of Dick’s other works have been turned into movies, including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which became Blade Runner), We Can Remember it For You Wholesale (Total Recall), Minority Report, Paycheck and A Scanner Darkly. Another adaptation, The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, will be released in cinemas on March 4th and a remake of Total Recall with Colin Farrell is also in the works.

Martin Scorsese back with Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street

Although last year Ridley Scott was attached to direct the adaptation of Jordan Belfort’s memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, the project now seems to be returning to Martin Scorsese, who was originally interested four years ago before the film stalled.

With a script written by Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire collaborator Terry Winter, Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star as Belfort, which would make it his fifth film as Scorsese’s leading man (following Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and Shutter Island).

The Wolf of Wall Street follows the story of a Long Island stockbroker who made millions and spent it on a lavish lifestyle of drugs, alcohol and sex. He became an infamous name in American finance, before being sent to jail as a result of a large security fraud case, investigating corruption on Wall Street and the rest of the banking world, including the mob.

Belfort commented, "After almost four years in development, I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am to finally be working with Leo and Marty on this. They're the ultimate dream team, and it was definitely worth the wait."

Scorsese is currently finishing post-production on Hugo Cabret, a film about an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station in Paris, with a cast that includes Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes), Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass), Christopher Lee (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), Ray Winstone (Beowulf) and Ben Kingsley (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time).