Acting couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly must have decided that life would be too calm after November 2008 -- so they have signed to play Charles and Emma Darwin in Creation. Yes, the Darwins. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be directed by Jon Amiel, from a script penned by John Collee, and based on Randal Keynes' book Annie's Box. (Keynes is Darwin's great-great grandson.) The film will portray Charles Darwin as a man torn between his love for his deeply religious wife, and his growing belief in a world where God has no place.

I hope that they explore Darwin's personal struggles and belief more deeply than the plot description suggests. To sell him as an athiest smacks of wanting to stir up controversy -- Darwin always called himself an agonostic, and his rejection of Christianity stemmed as much from the tragic death of his daughter, Annie, as his research. It's a complex and fascinating biography, one that, as a lover of science and the history of it, I would love to see done with real justice.

The cast is certainly more than capable -- Bettany and Connelly are both wonderful, and they'll be joined by Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Annie Darwin has yet to be cast. (I can't help but be amused by the fact that Bettany and Northam have played Darwin-inspired characters before, in Master and Commander and Possession, respectively. Pet interest, perhaps?)

I know the merest mention of Charles Darwin is enough to cause an epic flame war in the comments. If it's possible, try to keep discussion only to the film, the actors, the book, and Darwin's biography. That may be too much to hope for, but I beg you to remain respectful and tolerant of one another.

Oh yes, you heard that right -- and I almost slapped myself when, during a Toronto Fest meeting earlier today, I unfortunately had to inform our team that coverage of Paris, Not France was a top priority. Congrats Ms. Hilton, you've successfully found a way to turn all the attention toward your documentary by making it look like you want nothing to do with it. Of course, that's not the case at all -- heck, it's not like the chick ever pulled something like this before (cough ... sex tape ... cough). But let's back up for a minute ...

... there's a Paris Hilton documentary playing Toronto? Yup, it's called Paris, Not France, and it marks the first feature for music video and commercial director Adria Petty (daughter of Tom). What's it about? Apparently, the flick follows Paris around for a year and provides us with one of those intimate looks into the life of blah blah .... and then she says "That's hot" about a gazillion times ... the end. So why is everyone talking about it?

Well, because Paris (and her "people") somehow managed to get the festival to pull all but one screening of the doc for reasons they're not willing to disclose at this time. So what's up? Is Paris really that upset with the way she's portrayed in the film that she doesn't want it shown? Or, is this whole "pull the screenings, threaten lawsuits" thing just a ploy to get people (like us) talking and wanting and needing? I'd say it's certainly suspicious, especially since we're talking Paris Hilton here, who, whether you like it or not, is pretty smart when it comes to marketing herself as a larger-than-life personality.

What do you think? And does all this hoopla make you want to see the film even more?

[via Risky Biz Blog]

So if you aren't lucky enough to live in the wondrous nation known as Canada (can you guess where I live?), then look to your right, because this is going to be your one and only chance to see the first poster for Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Just when you thought Smith's troubles with the censors were over, the one-sheet for the 'adult' comedy has been given a thumbs down by the MPAA, and will not be displayed in the US. That's right, days before the film is set to premier at the Toronto Film Festival, it turns out the only people who will get to see this poster will be those north of the border.

Zack and Miri follows two childhood friends who are strapped for cash, and come up with the wild idea of making a porn to ease their financial woes. The film stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, but there are also plenty of familiar faces from Smith's usual stable (along with some of Judd Apatow's regulars).

It didn't come as a surprise when the film ran into trouble with the MPAA, and luckily Smith managed to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating. But in the age of successful 'R' rated comedy, you would have thought the ratings board would move a little more with the times -- for goodness sake, Good Luck Chuck one-sheets made it stateside. Smith told EW, "When you've got the word 'porno' in the title, naturally, the marketing materials are gonna be scrutinized more closely by the MPAA, I understand they've got a job to do, but c'mon...this image isn't that dirty; they're both fully clad." So even though I am on Smith's side in the argument, you have to love his qualifier of 'that dirty'.

Zack and Miri will premier at TIFF on September 7th, and will arrive in theaters on October 31st.

The date has been set for Warner Bros and Fox to go head to head -- and it should soothe the fearful. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studios will be going before the judge on January 6th. There's plenty of time, even at a snail's pace, for the issue to be resolved before the March 6th opening. (It's like the court is going along with the movie marketing -- we'll get a video journal the same day. There really is no such thing as bad publicity in Tinseltown!)

Furthermore, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Allan Feess says that Fox shouldn't attempt to file a preliminary injunction against Warners to stop the release of the film because the issues surrounding the case were too complex to be solved in an interim basis. Instead, both studios are being ordered to put their cases together, and start expedited discovery and depositions. This thing could get quite big -- as the New York Times pointed out, Paramount, Legendary Pictures, and even Universal could get hauled into it, alongside Lawrence Gordon, who's really the man in question in all this.

And remember, this is if it actually makes it to court. This could easily be settled before Christmas, with Warners handing over a nice chunk of The Dark Knight change just to be done with it. (How appropriate that Bruce Wayne help out other costumed vigilantes.) It depends how fierce the studio is feeling, and how certain they are of their case -- but all signs point to you keeping your March 6th moviegoing plans.

You really have to feel bad for the cast and crew on this one, though. All that happy buzz of ComicCon panels and promo posters squashed under a heap of legalese. Oh well, at least Fox can't take away what we've already been given. Check out our Watchmen gallery below.

Frakking lawsuits.

Last month, Elisabeth alerted you to the legal turmoil bubbling around Watchmen. Basically, 20th Century Fox used to have the rights, and claim they still have them, so they're trying to prevent Warner Brothers from releasing the eagerly awaited film. Warner Brothers, meanwhile, claims that Fox has sat silently until the film was set to go, knowing full well what was happening.

Now The New York Times says that Warner is pushing for a trial date of April, with Fox pushing for June. Assuming that the film can't be released until this is cleared up, we might not only not get Watchmen in March, but also not in the summer of 2009. Will we have to wait until 2010? I don't want to think about it. There's a whole swarm of moviegoers peeved about the Harry Potter delay. I can't imagine what a year-long delay would do to Watchmen fiends. Where's Doctor Manhattan when you need him? Or a jail-storming Nite Owl and Silk Spectre?

This is treading into gossip territory, but since it's straight from the source, from one of the stars of this summer's big (open for discussion) films, and I just saw a screening of Choke, I have to share.

People Magazine reports that David Duchovny, our Fox Mulder, has entered a rehabilitation center for sex addiction. This is coming straight from his lawyer, and a press release which states: "I have voluntarily entered a facility for the treatment of sex addiction. I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family."

Wow. It makes me wonder if this all came about due to his time as a lots-of-sex-having man in Californication, and I wonder if I can see the show the same now. Heck, will he even continue it? I couldn't see that being a good environment for a sex addict. Well, good luck, David!

You have to feel bad for the Silver Surfer. Everyone else is getting their own spin-off and franchise, and he can't even get the green-light. J. Michael Straczynski already said that his script was dead, but rumors continued to swirl that Alex Proyas was attached to direct.

But as reported by Slashfilm, Proyas shot that down at ComicCon. He didn't even know where the rumor originated. And while he's very fond of the character, he told MTV this week that he will never even consider directing a Silver Surfer movie. Why? "Because it's a Fox picture. And I'm determined never to work with them ever again because of my experience on I,Robot." Nor is he happy with the way the character was handled in Fantastic Four 2: 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 ... Silver Surfer would have been something I would have loved to have done. He's one of the last cool ones left, really."

Who knows -- maybe Fox will relinquish the rights to the Fantastic Four characters (it's not like they're using them), and Proyas will not only get to direct a comic book movie, but fans will get a Silver Surfer movie from someone who really gets the character. But with all the studios jealously guarding their franchises, we'll probably see a Fantastic Four reboot before we see the Silver Surfer in the hands of someone that cares.

As Eric wrote yesterday, the upcoming dark comedy Towelhead is facing a protest from an Islamic group because of its title, which is perceived as derogatory and a racial slur. Not only is the film's distributor, Warner Independent, sticking by the title, but they have issued a press release containing lengthy, candid, and sometimes even moving responses to the controversy from: 1) Alicia Erian, the author of the original novel; 2) Alan Ball, the director of the film; 3) Warner Independent itself; and 4) a group of theologians.

Erian makes pretty much the same argument as Eric did in yesterday's post: that the title serves to highlight the racism its protagonist must contend with. She notes that her novel has been in print for three years and this is the first protest she has received. She also makes the excellent point that "[r]ealistically speaking . . . [people who are likely to use terms like "towelhead" to refer to Muslims] are neither the audience for my book, nor for the film. They will continue to use whatever language they wish whether or not a movie called Towelhead is released." Yes.

Ball refers to his own experience facing discrimination as a gay man, and argues that forbidding hateful words only increases their power. The distributor offers an apology but claims to stand by Ball and Erian in the name of free expression of ideas. The scholars note that this is one of the few films to show Islam in a positive light, and call the title "a thought-provoking and difficult term that needs to be deconstructed." You can read the whole thing over at David Poland's blog.

So there you go. I agree with the responses on the merits, but I really like the public relations tack Warner Independent has taken here. Honest discussion and argument are so much better than mindless PR spin -- and better PR, too.

It seems the entire comic book and film world "misread" Warner Bros' announcement that they were angling to make Superman's reboot a gloomier one. No one seems to have read the original article slowly enough -- not even MTV, Kevin Smith, Christopher Golden, Jeph Loeb, Steven T. Seagle, or Mark Waid.

The wonderful geeks over on MTV's Splash Page chased down all the above, and asked them what they thought about the studio's latest plans for the Man of Steel. The funniest and most extreme reaction isn't Smith's, it's Golden's! "How stupid is that? That announcement made my head spin . . . Making a dark and gritty Superman movie because Dark Knight made a ton of money is incredibly stupid." Oddly, Smith is actually more tempered in his comments, and that he was all for a reboot. "You always have to always keep Superman very distinct from Batman ... Superman is about the hope in people, the good in people, whereas Batman is about the more driven, hungry for justice angry side of us. [So] I don't know if doing a dark Superman is the approach."

The lone dissenting voice is Seagle, not surprising from the man who penned It's a Bird ... and feels that Superman has always been a dark character. "Heroic struggles are basically all dark in tone. The idea of 'villains' implies something bad happening to good people most of the time, and that's dark. Heroes look brighter emerging from dire consequence successfully." Ultimately, I think Waid's the man who speaks for the majority of us in arguing that you can make Superman's world darker, but not the character, who's "a creature of hope." If Warner Bros goes in that direction, I can get behind it. A bright and shining Superman against a depraved and unjust world might be just what the reboot ordered.

It really seemed like we were finally going to get Garth Ennis' Preacher this time -- the dark, funny, and controversial comic book series seemed perfect for HBO. Isn't that what they do, after all?

Apparently not. Mark Steven Johnson told Comics Continuum that they've passed on the series. "We were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going. But the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point! It was a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word. They offered me the chance to redevelop it but I refused. I've learned my lesson on that front and I won't do it again. So I'm afraid it's dead at HBO."

But, Johnson says that he's heard that someone is trying to obtain the rights for a big screen adaptation, and that he hopes it happens -- and that whoever nabs it can do the stories justice in a series of films. "Someone" doesn't narrow it down much, but shall we let our imaginations run wild? Frankly, in this world where the legendarily un-filmable (Lord of the Rings, Watchmen) is being made every day, I can't believe Preacher remains untouched. Isn't every studio dying for its own mature comic franchise? Isn't there a daring young filmmaker who's just dying to be boycotted, picketed, and harassed? Aren't we constantly hearing that all publicity, no matter how bad and hysterical, is desirable? Let's put it to the test. Whoever that "someone" is that's angling for the rights, may they succeed, and get Preacher on the big screen.