The man who brought us the videos for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," and who was at one point turning Scarlett Johansson into a diamond thief, is getting ready for a different feature. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Sam Bayer is teaming up with Michael Bay for the action thriller called Fiasco Heights.

Said to have shades of film noir, the film focuses on a gunman who heads to the crime-filled city of Fiasco Heights. There, he "teams with a degenerate gambler/private eye on the run from a syndicate to look for a beautiful femme fatale and a mysterious briefcase." Oh, those pesky briefcases and sexy women. THR says that there has been a few drafts of the script, but the most recent was penned by Kyle Ward. This is actually his spec, that was picked up last year in April, so I guess he got to bring his pen back to it after some rewrites.

So far, the project is moving along slowly, and time will tell if this Bayer feature fares any better than Brilliance, the ScarJo piece, which seems to have faded into the oblivion.

If you came of age in the '80s then chances are you remember V. Back in April, news began to spread that a feature film version was in the works, and creator Kenneth Johnson later confirmed that he was eying a big-screen debut for the legendary sci-fi title. Now, Latino Review claims to have gotten an early look at the script -- but I warn you there are plenty of spoilers in the review, so tread lightly.

According to LR, the script is an update of the original miniseries that aired back in 1983. V: The Original Miniseries centered on the arrival of aliens (or as they're better known, Visitors) and when an uneasy truce is struck between humanity and the new arrivals, it begins to become clear that our alien friends are not what they seem -- and, as it turns out, the only place for humans to turn is to another alien race who can bail out the planet earth from the 'lizard' invasion.

The original story was seen as a commentary on the rise of Fascism in the U.S as well an allegory for the rise of Nazis. But it looks like the script will be modernizing the story with allusions to Iraq and the War on Terror. According to the early review, the flick is a hybrid of V for Vendetta and Independence Day. But more importantly (at least from the point of view of Hollywood studios), is that the script has set the story up for two more sequels.

It is always a dangerous proposition to try and update something so beloved by fans, but at least this time the original creator is going to have something to do with it. Sound off below and tell me whether or not you want to see V on the big screen?

If there's one movie descriptive that can actually get my jaded heart racing, it's "in the style of L.A. Confidential." Sure, it's glib, and probably sells the potential film and its source material short, but I can't help it, it's a magical phrase. And The Hollywood Reporter (by way of Lakeshore Entertainment) used it to describe Barry Levinson's latest movie.

Levinson is set to direct an adaptation of Peter Dexter's novel Train, a story set in 1950's Southern California. It centers around Miller Packard, a white sergeant in the San Diego Police Department, who has little time for the hypocrisy and racism of his age. An avid golfer, he befriends a troubled young African-American caddy named Lionel "Train" Walk, who harbors knowledge of an unreported murder that haunts his past. The city politics and racism of the 50's surround the murder investigation, and threaten their friendship.

Dexter's books have been popular in Hollywood recently -- he was the pen behind Mulholland Falls and The Paperboy is currently in production with Paul Verhoven and Jan de Bont. Unlike with Falls, he won't be penning the script this time around. That job falls to Allison Burnett, who's a pretty popular writer at Lakeshore, adapting Fame and penning Untraceable for them.

Hopefully, a Cinematical reader or two can chime in on the book. From its reviews, the source material sounds pretty enticing. Here's hoping this can not only be a comeback for Levinson, but a noir rival for L.A. Confidential.

The franchise reboots may never end. According to ComingSoon.net (who spotted it on TrackingB.com), Shane Black has written a spec script for Lethal Weapon 5 without really telling anyone but Joel Silver.

The story would center around Riggs' impending retirement (and his, undoubtedly, being too old for ... well, you know). But before he leaves the force, he has to tackle one last case, and as there are no other police officers in Los Angeles, he hauls Murtaugh out of retirement to help him. Allegedly, both Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are interested, though no deals have been signed.

Now, I name drop Lethal Weapon enough that you undoubtedly know that the series ranks much higher in my life than it probably should. Watching it in my pre-teens not only taught me a choice vocabulary, it rocked my world with glimpses at a naked Mel Gibson. My problems with men probably stem from the pedestal I have placed Martin Riggs upon.

But, that doesn't mean I want a fifth movie -- I already sat through the fourth installment, and it wasn't that good. Black has penned some fantastic scripts in his time -- and I firmly believe A Long Kiss Goodnight is insanely underrated -- and I'd love to see him churning out action-comedies again. But not ones with Riggs and Murtaugh. Let Lethal Weapon lie, and write a franchise that can give us a new badass or two. Check out the video below of Seth Rogen and James Franco discussing Shane Black's movies from Moviefone's latest Unscripted chat...

You know the old saying "You can't keep a good man down"? Well, it would appear that the same applies to big-budget video game flicks. Eurogamer recently spoke with id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead, and according to him the big-screen version of the popular first-person shooter Return to Castle Wolfenstein is still on and in development. It has been a year since Oscar winner Roger Avary was signed to write and direct, but in spite of the delays it looks like the project is back on the front burner.

Wolfenstein takes place in Nazi-occupied Europe and revolves around Army Ranger William "B.J." Blazkowicz. Along with another agent, Blazkowicz is sent to discover the truth about the SS Paranormal Division. Taking the role of Blazkowicz, the player must escape the Nazi stronghold while investigating the activities of the SS Paranormal Division, which include research on resurrecting corpses, and various secret weapons -- providing players with hours of gruesome fun.

A feature film version of the game has been a long time coming, with rumblings of a feature going back almost three years. According to Hollenshead, "With the writer's strike it took so long to get underway and Roger Avary, the writer, had a commitment that was in line before working the Wolfenstein stuff, but I've recently been in contact with Roger and he's actually working on the script right now." Avary hasn't had the best of luck lately, personal or professional, so for his sake I hope Wolfenstein manages to pull itself out of development limbo.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein is tentatively scheduled for release in 2010.

It's amazing what two goofy songs can do for one's career. Wayne McClammy was one of the names behind that Jimmy Kimmel song phenomenon earlier this year, when love was still in the air for Jimmy and Sarah and music could flow freely. In June, the songs helped McClammy score a movie deal, and now he's already got another one gearing up.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that McClammy is going to direct a new revenge comedy called Beat Kip. Just like Cool School, which will have some 30-something men going back to high school to regain their cool, this pic will have some guys being juvenile. Kip centers on three friends "who travel across the country to confront an Icy League nemesis who stole one of the guys' girlfriends," and was written by Todd Waldman and Rob Kerkovich.

This is one of those simple classic plots that could be an insanely huge comedy if done right, or one to scowl and run away from if done poorly. It's too soon to tell, but if he can do another awesome "We Are the World" spoof, I'm so there.

Just over a year ago, Christopher Campbell blogged about Flash of Genius heading towards production with Greg Kinnear. It's the story of Robert Kearns, the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper and had to battle automakers all the way to the Supreme Court to get payment for his patent. Campbell noted: "The problem with waiting so long to get the film into production is that now Kearns has passed away and won't get to see how well Kinnear portrays him."

But Kearns isn't the only one who's missing the chance to see the film come to fruition -- screenwriter Philip Railsback died a few years ago. But that's not stopping his unfinished work. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the late writer's brother, Steve Railsback, is planning to bring one of Philip's final scripts to the screen -- a dark comedy called Barstow. Starring Keith Carradine and Scott Wilson, the film focuses on "three desperate characters, one of whom finds hope in a small, depressed town." The screenwriter had penned the script a decade ago, "after living among poor residents of the eponymous California town."

These are just two of a handful of Railsback's scripts that are in development. It's too bad he can't see them come together.

I'm a sucker for slightly alternate realities. I'm not talking about strange lives on other planets, or sci-fi wackiness in space. Instead, I'm talking about the worlds where things are just like they are now, except, different. Think Mark Leyner's forays into tetherballs, gastroenterologists, and tattooed internal organs. While his work probably won't hit the screen for a while, if ever (thanks to War Inc.), we're getting another writer's stab at alternate realities.

Variety reports that Oren Segal (who has also nabbed Downers Grove) has picked up the rights to Lisa Lerner's first novel, Just Like Beauty, for Nick Pustay to adapt. If you thought Little Miss Sunshine was weird, you ain't seen nothing yet.

A dark comedy set in a dystopic near-future where things are just a wee bit different, the book focuses on a 14-year-old girl named Edie Stein, who is preparing for a beauty pageant to please her mother. But these aren't the pageants of yesterday -- "girls must not only display 'Better Person Skills' and their knowledge of chemical substances but also simulate sex with the Electric Polyrubber Man and sacrifice trained rabbits and sew them into muffs." In case that wasn't strange enough, she also faces a local gang called the Blow Torchers and "chemically amped-up grasshoppers." What more could you want?

Over the last few years, Aline Brosh McKenna has become the IT writer girl for rom-coms -- which is a large improvement on her cinematic start, Three to Tango. She's the pen behind the adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada. She just brought us 27 Dresses. She's got a bunch of future projects on her plate. And is now adding another one. The Hollywood Reporter posts that she's going to adapt Karen Quinn's The Ivy Chronicles.

This might sound familiar, because it's the Sarah Jessica Parker-headed project that Eugene blogged about in June. Said to be in the vein on The Devil Wears Prada (which makes Aline's inclusion pretty darned appropriate), the project focuses on a rich New Yorker who loses her job and starts a business helping other rich people get their kids into elite kindergartens. Oh, rich woes.

The material certainly isn't a stretch for the Sex and the City star, or McKenna, so we can imagine how it will turn out as SJP shows us yet another angle of her rich Manhattanite side.

Remember that preemptive purchase Paramount made last year for Christopher Reich's The Rules of Deception? Well, it seems that they were on the right track, because the book has now come out and seems to be doing quite well. And with that success, Variety reports that Adam Cozad has been hired to direct the screenplay. Cozad is just hitting the scene, having written the thriller Dubai, and currently penning an adaptation of The Brotherhood of the Rose, which he will finish before getting into Deception.

If you're not one of the readers grabbing the book off the shelves, the thriller centers on a doctor who loses his wife when she falls into a ravine in the Swiss Alps during a hike. While grieving over the loss, he gets a letter addressed to her, learning that "she wasn't who he thought she was and soon finds himself in the center of a mess that could result in nuclear war in the Middle East."

If this is your cup of tea, rejoice, because the studio and author want to make this a franchise -- Reich is currently penning the next installment.