Ghost in the Shell to be adapted as a 3D live-action film

By Tatiani Siegel – Variety.com

DreamWorks has tapped scribe Laeta Kalogridis to adapt  the Japanese manga property “Ghost in the Shell.”

DreamWorks is making the futuristic police thriller as a 3D live-action film.

Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Steven Paul of Seaside Entertainment are attached to produce and originally brought the project to DreamWorks.

Created by Masamune Shirow, “Ghost in the Shell” was first published in 1989. It went on to generate two more manga editions, three anime film adaptations and an anime TV series. The second anime film, “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence,” was released in the U.S. by DreamWorks in 2004.

Jamie Moss was the original writer hired when DreamWorks bought the property last year.

Kalogridis wrote and exec produced Martin Scorsese’s upcoming thriller “Shutter Island,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Bruce Campbell: Next Spidey Shooting in January, Bigger Part For Him

Bruce Campbell

by Brendon Connelly – SlashFilm.com

The world’s most A-grade B-actor, Bruce Campbell, was stopped at the red carpet premiere of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and pressed for details on the upcoming Spider-Man 4. Seeing as he’s had a role in each of the three Sam Raimi Spidey pictures so far it wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume he’d be on the call sheet for the next go around too. Not only did he confirm that, he also claimed a January start date for the project. But what could he reveal about his appearance in the film?

According to the info garnered by Access Hollywood, Campbell is expecting his role in the next film to be “a major part.” Of course, they translated this in their headline to there being a “villainous role in the works” for the actor, despite the absolute lack of evidence to support this supposition.

It’s just about possible that Campbell has been playing the same character in each of the films so far, one guy who just doesn’t seem able to hold down a job. Explicitly revealing that could be a fun quirk. Or maybe they could hold that off until the fifth installment, already rumored to be at the basic planning stages.

Campbell’s little roles in the series have turned out to be rather important to the overall narrative – from giving Spider-Man his “mask name” to creating serious tension in the Peter-MJ romance or, last time around, facilitating Peter’s wedding proposal, if in a slightly embarrassing manner. Perhaps this kind of significance is all Campbell meant by major, and he knew he could pull a few legs and start a wave of speculation with his use of the term yet still justify it later? I wouldn’t be surprised. But then, I wouldn’t be surprised if his comment was based on nothing at all. What would surprise me, if pleasantly, would Bruce Campbell actually taking one of the lead roles in the film.

A whole host of talented writers have taken a pass at the Spider-Man 4 screenplay and Raimi swears that the lessons of part 3 have been learned (hopefully this means that Avi Arad has been chained up in the dungeon with Sean McNamara and their Robosapien) so I guess I’m back to full on optimism

‘Spider-Man 5′ and ’6′ Bring Back Screenwriter James Vanderbilt

from AceShowBiz.com

The fourth “Spider-Man” film is yet to kick off its production, but Sony Pictures Entertainment has moved on with “Spider-Man 5″ and “Spider-Man 6″ by hiring screenwriter James Vanderbilt. According to Variety, the studio “has quietly engaged” the writer for the original “Spider-Man 4″ screenplay to start work on the next two films for the web-slinging superhero.

Screenwriter James Vanderbilt

Words are, Vanderbilt is being brought back because the executives at Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios like his ideas. The scribe for “Zodiac” is expected to pen an interconnected storyline that will extend from the fifth movie into the sixth with a possibility of back-to-back shooting, like what had been planned for the fourth and fifth films before the idea was scrapped.

The writer of the upcoming “The Losers” was originally hired by Sony to write the screenplay for the fourth film. However, when the first three “Spider-Man” director Sam Raimi came into the fourth project and allegedly didn’t embrace all of Vanderbilt’s ideas, “Rabbit Hole” playwright David Lindsay-Abaire was brought in to re-write Vanderbilt’s script.

It is still unclear whether Raimi and lead actor Tobey Maguire will be involved in the fifth and sixth films once again. There is speculation that if the key people of the “Spider-Man” franchise do not return, Vanderbilt’s script would be the blueprint for a franchise reboot.

As for “Spider-Man 4″, it is being prepped to begin production early 2010. While this fourth installment of the series has secured Raimi and Maguire, the questions circulating the potential villains are yet to meet a satisfying answer. Lindsay-Abaire’s script is being re-written by Gary Ross. Produced by Avi Arad, Grant Curtis and Laura Ziskin, the superhero movie will be opened in U.S. theaters on May 6, 2011.

Writer tapped for ‘Spider-Man 4′

By Borys Kit – Hollywood Reporter

Gary Ross has been brought on board to do a rewrite on Columbia’s “Spider-Man 4.”
Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire are back as director and star, respectively, as are series producers Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad.
Ross now joins James Vanderbilt (“Zodiac”) and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire on the list of high-profile writers who have been working on the project.
The move also puts Ross back to work with Maguire, with whom he worked on his directorial vehicles “Pleasantville” and “Seabiscuit.” The two were also working on “Tokyo Suckerpunch,” a drama set up at Columbia; that project is now on hold as Ross tackles another writing project, Columbia’s Lance Armstrong biopic.

Release Date – May 6, 2011 

Trivia

- Director Sam Raimi stated in a interview with MTV he would like to have The Sinister Six in Spider-Man 4.

- David Koepp turned down the chance to write the script.

- The film’s working title is “The Wedding,” in honour of the “The Amazing Spider-Man” comic Annual #21: The Wedding!” which was published in 1987.

Series

Title                  Year     Budget     US Gross   Worldwide

Spider-Man       2002   $139M     $404M     $807M

Spider-Man 2    2004   $200M     $373M     $784M

Spider-Man 3    2007   $258M    $337M    $885M

Spider-Man 4    2011