LEGO Extends "Star Wars" Deal To 2011 ...

SNEAK PEEK

The LEGO Group, leaders in the 'construction toy' business, have announced it has reached agreement with Lucasfilm Ltd. to extend its "Star Wars" franchise license to 2011.

Under the agreement, the LEGO Group will continue its construction toy rights to the entire "Star Wars" galaxy, including an all new "Star Wars" animated television series currently in development.

In 1999, "Star Wars" became the first licensed property in the LEGO Group's portfolio and it continues to be the one of the company's best-selling properties.

Since the LEGO Group translated "Star Wars" into the construction play pattern, the line has generated more than $1 billion in retail sales around the world.

"LEGO 'Star Wars' has been a blockbuster success for us year after year, so we are thrilled to solidify our partnership with Lucasfilm through 2011," said Jay Bruns, director of global licensing, LEGO Group.

"The evergreen appeal of 'Star Wars' and its strong following among children and adult collectors fits perfectly with the LEGO community of builders and collectors."

"Putting 'Star Wars' and LEGO together has proven to be one of the greatest examples of co-branding ever achieved," said Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing.

Since its launch in 1999, more than 125 different LEGO 'Star Wars' sets have been developed and sold, offering replicas of more than 60 vehicles and spacecraft and LEGO minifigure versions of nearly 80 characters and droids from all six episodes.

This year, seven new LEGO "Star Wars" sets join the LEGO portfolio, including 'V-wing Fighter', 'A-wing Fighter', 'TIE Interceptor', 'B-wing Fighter', 'Slave I', 'Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge' and 'Imperial Star Destroyer'.

Lego Group is a privately-held, family-owned company.

Gale Anne Hurd Has Faith In "The Magdalena" ...

SNEAK PEEK

Gale Anne Hurd, founder of Valhalla Motion Pictures continue to develop Top Cow's 'spiritually themed' comic book series "Magdalena" as a feature film.

Kevin Taft is writing the screenplay, focusing on a young woman named 'Patience' who discovers she is part of a lineage of female warriors descended from the biblical 'Mary Magdalene'.

The film's present-day action-adventure storyline is being compared to "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown.

"'Magdalena' is exactly the kind of project we love," said Hurd.

"A strong female lead character, a story with rich mythology, and compelling characters ... The religious overtone adds a new dimension to the adventure story ..."

"Magdalena" the comic book series has been translated into 26 languages for 55 countries.

Paramount Lends Marketing Muscle To Big Screen "Captain America" ...

SNEAK PEEK

"Without giving too much away, obviously there'll be a little bit of the origin and then we come into our real world," Marvel's Avi Arad recently said about the Marvel/Paramount big screen adaptation of Simon and Kirby's "Captain America".

"What makes 'Captain America' such a compelling character is that it allows you to judge history so you see where he came from and you see what he stood for."

Although the script is still in development, Arad doesn't anticipate the new "Captain America" movie to be ready for theatres until 2009.

"One of the things our movie is going to deal with is what happened in 60 years," says Arad.

"Which world was better? Sixty years ago or now? Within, obviously, a kick-ass plot and all the stuff that you've come to expect from a superhero movie."

December 7, 2005

Marvel Studios are in active development on the big screen feature "CAPTAIN AMERICA", based on the Marvel Comics' superhero character.

Brad "Fight Club" Pitt is interested in playing the lead role of 'Steve Rogers' aka 'Captain America'.

Created by writer Joe Simon, artist Jack "King" Kirby and publisher Martin Goodman, 'Captain America' debuted in Timely's "Captain America Comics" #1 (1941).

The premise focused on 'Steve Rogers', a frail child born during the Great Depression.

Attempting to enlist in the US Army during WW II, Rogers was rejected as being too sickly, but 'General Chester Phillips' offered him the opportunity to join the war effort via the 'Operation: Rebirth' program.

Rogers was taken to a secret lab in Washington, D.C. and introduced to 'Dr. Abraham Erskine' (aka 'Prof. Reinstein'), creator of an experimental 'super-soldier' formula.

Rogers is administered a serum, doused with a ray and pumped up into a perfect specimen. But an inflitrated saboteur kills Erskine who dies with the secret formula locked in his head.

Hustled into an intense physical training program, Rogers accepts his destiny and comes to grips with the fact that he is the only one of his kind.

Planted secretly as a potato-peeling private in the Army, Rogers first assignment is to stop the Axis agent "Red Skull". When company mascot 'Bucky Barnes' accidentally learns of Rogers alter ego, he joins 'Cap' on numerous missions behind enemy lines.

Towards the end of the war, Rogers tries to stop 'Baron Heinrich Zemo', from detonating a bomb-rigged drone, but the plane explodes, killing Bucky and throwing Cap into a cold ocean.

Cap's super metabolism freezes him into suspended animation, riveted into an ice-block, until he is revived, 20 years later by superhero team the "Avengers".

Cap's only weapon is his shield, a concave disk 2.5 feet in diameter, weighing 12 lbs and composed of a 'vibranium-adamantium' alloy, cast by metallurgist 'Dr. Myron MacLain'.

Studio Shooting For "The Red Star" ...

SNEAK PEEK

Universal Pictures have acquired film rights to Christian Gossett's award-winning graphic novel series "The Red Star".

Director Timur "Night Watch" Bekmambetov will develop the property, with a call out to screenwriters.

Debuting November 2000 via Image Comics, "The Red Star" was subsequently published in 2002 by CrossGen Comics through Gossett's self-imprint, Archangel Studios.

Premise of the stories, set in a reimagined Soviet Union, follows an epic battle in a world of militarized sorcery and monolithic technology, where the ghosts of old soldiers fight alongside the living.

Marc Platt will produce with Bekmambetov, Jim Lemley and Jason Netter.

Creator Gossett and Ken Levin will executive produce.

Singer Stepping Up "Logan's Run" ...

SNEAK PEEK

At this year's San Francisco WonderCon, director Bryan Singer said he is continuing to develop a remake of "Logan's Run" as his next picture, following "Superman Returns" currently in post-production.

Singer's "Usual Suspects" writer Chris McQuarrie, who did uncredited rewrites on the first "X-Men" feature is currently writing "Logan's Run".

To be distributed in 2007 by Warner Brothers, the Silver Pictures production of "Logan's Run" will be produced by Joel "The Matrix" Silver.

The novel "Logan's Run" by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson was originally published during the 1960's by Dial Press and Dell books.

From the back cover of a 1969 paperback version:

The Youth Rebellion Had Triumphed ...The young long since had taken over the Earth. Sex, drugs, kicks were unlimited. But the trip from grove to grave was quick. No one was allowed to live past 21. Logan was a Sandman, one of the elite police who hunted those who refused to accept their fate. Then Logan turned 21-and suddenly he was desperately running, searching, in a world of cities beneath the sea, frozen arctic prison colonies, great hollowed-out mountains, abandoned cities...through a labyrinth of terror that lay between him and safety . . . between him and ultimate triumph...

Premise of the story follows 'Logan' and 'Jessica', who escape their fate through an underground railroad of mazes and shady characters, in their quest for long life and 'Sanctuary'.

The second novel "Logan's World" was released in 1976, followed by "Logan's Search" in 1980.

In the early 1990's Dove released a cassette version of "Logan's Run", read by author Nolan.

In 2000 Nolan electronically published the first three novels and a novella called "Logan's Return", self-publishing it into manuscript form in 2001.

Nolan also wrote two "Sam Space" novels, but it is not known at this time if that property has been optioned for film.

Singer's take is to be a faithful re-make of the 1976 feature, produced by Saul David and directed by Michael Anderson, starring Michael York as 'Logan 5', Jenny Agutter as 'Jessica 6', Farrah Fawcett as 'Holly 13' and Peter Ustinov as 'The Old Man'.

The Latest "Casino Royale" News From The Prague Press Conference ...

SNEAK PEEK

Director Martin Campbell has announced that the central villain of the upcoming James Bond 21, "Casino Royale" is now officially cast, with the character of 'Le Chiffre' to be played by actor Mads Mikkelsen.

The 40 year-old Mikkelsen is noted for his role as 'Tristan' in "King Arthur" (2004).

Also at today's late afternoon press conference at the Czech Republic's Barrandov Studios,

Campbell said the new Bond girl casting is down to "two or three" and "you'll just have to wait to find out."

Actresses Eva Green and Olivia Wilde are considered finalists.

New Bond Daniel Craig assured reporters that although the $100 million-plus Sony feature is already shooting without a love interest, "We haven't got there so it's all fine."

Dame Judy Dench, who plays the charcter of 'M', said her work with Craig on the Prague shoot usually begins with a few jokes, "and that seems to be vital. I only started working with Daniel yesterday, but we found common ground."

Audiences will learn more about M's back story, with a scene set in her London apartment, constructed in modernist beige by Barrandov with Asian art and Tanqueray gin cocktail service.

Campbell said Bond will show his more 'sensitive' side and reveal "the Bond we all know and love."

Cast and crew will soon re-locate to the Bahamas to shoot a chase sequence at a seaside construction site, then back to Prague, Italy and UK's Pinewood Studios.

Produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli of Eon Productions and directed by Martin "GoldenEye" Campbell, "Casino Royale" is scheduled for release November 17, 2006.

Principal photography started January 30th 2006.

This will be actor Daniel "Road To Perdition" Craig’s first outing as James Bond, the sixth actor to play '007' in the Eon film franchise.