Rumors: Worthington as Flash Gordon, McAvoy as Ian Fleming

Source: Firstshowing

by Alex Billington

Some interesting casting rumors for you to chew on today. Our friends at Pajiba are reporting that James McAvoy has been cast as James Bond creator Ian Fleming in a biopic in development at Animus Films and Palmstar Entertainment. The film will supposedly focus on the (younger) years in Fleming's life (when he was in the British Navy) that gave him inspiration for the character of James Bond. Additionally, the not-as-trustworthy website HollyScoop is reporting that Sam Worthington is in the running for the role of Flash Gordon in Breck Eisner's remake of the 1980 sci-fi film. I actually like the sound of both rumors.

The biopic is tentatively titled Ian Fleming and is being independently financed with an early budget of $40 million. I'm not sure if this has any relation to the DiCaprio-produced Fleming biopic we first wrote about in 2008. That project is based on an original screenplay written by Damian Stevenson that sold to Warner Bros. This one with McAvoy attached is an adaptation of the book Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond by Andrew Lycett, with a script being written byMatt Brown (Ropewalk). I really like McAvoy and think he's a fantastic choice for this. As a huge Bond fan, I'm excited to see this project come together.

As for Worthington and Flash Gordon, they claim that "right now it's between Sam, Ryan Reynolds and one or two others for the lead role should the project actually get off the ground." According to IMDb, Flash Gordon is still scheduled for 2012, which doesn't mean anything. We know that director Breck Eisner, who's been attached to this since May of 2008, left the Creature from the Black Lagoon remake, but is supposed to be directing a remake of The Brood next. So there's a chance he could get to Flash following The Brood, but who knows? Either way, I do really think Worthington would be a good, solid choice for Flash Gordon.

My initial impressions about having McAvoy play Ian Fleming and Worthington play Flash Gordon are all positive. I'm not entirely sure why, but it just sounds like it could work well for both. What do you think?

Rumor: Black Cat as Spider-Man 4 Villain and a New Female Lead?

Source: Firstshowing

by Ethan Anderton

We're going to pump the brakes after that headline because there's a lot of rumor manure to sift through. Earlier today Mania reported a big rumor that Black Cat would be the new villain in Spider-Man 4, and that Rachel McAdams (of The Notebook and Wedding Crashers fame) was the frontrunner for the role. However, this seemed to be just another in a long line of ridiculous villain rumors, but then our friends at SlashFilm found a post in The Observer regarding actress/columnist Romola Garai, who revealed she had an audition for a role in Spider-Man 4. But is she auditioning for Black Cat or asupposed new female lead?

Let's answer that second question first before we dig into this villain debacle. SlashFilm's apparent certainty on Sam Raimi looking for "a new female lead" is quite misleading and because of this misrepresentation, highly inaccurate. A new female lead fully implies that the story would put Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane on the back-burner in favor of a new leading lady, but this is simply not the case. Dunst is still very much involved with the production and our sources say is being paid her full price for the project, so I doubt this new female role is that of a female lead, but rather a strong supporting role akin to Bryce Dallas Howard's work in Spider-Man 3 as Gwen Stacy. Now that we've cleared that up, onto the real story.

First let's just keep everyone on the ground and say that this should all be taken with a grain of salt. There seems to be a decent chance that Black Cat could be the villain if not at least one of the villains but at this point it's almost impossible to know. After Sam Raimi's talk about getting back to basics, it seemed like the two villain formula would be abandoned, but maybe he just wants to do it right this time. In fact, Black Cat's story (which includes a struggle with her unethical thieving ways and later a romance with Spider-Man) fits well with Raimi's Spider-Man formula, which always finds the villains troubling not only the costumed hero, but also becoming entangled in Peter Parker's personal life as well.

Black Cat's incarnation begins with her secret identity Felicia Hardy who was inspired to follow in her imprisoned father's footsteps as a cat burglar. But her new life was thrown into upheaval when she was date-raped by her boyfriend, Ryan. She turned her grief and shame into rage, channeling her feelings for revenge towards intensifying her training regime in martial arts and acrobatics. But when Ryan was killed by a drunk driver, depriving her of the satisfaction of revenge, Felicia set out stealing from others to compensate psychologically for what was stolen from her. It was her thievery and attempt to break her father out of prison that ultimately brought her into Spider-Man's life where she would find love and reform from her criminal lifestyle.

As I said, there's no way we can know this for certain just yet. There's still just as much of a chance that the other recent rumor of Dr. Kurt Connors finally stepping into the villainous role of The Lizard could happen as well. Anything could happen at this point! All I know is that what I'm hearing (but cannot divulge) are huge details along the lines of something from Mania's source that got buried in their story, and that's "[Sam Raimi and Co.] are

[also] casting for a male villain, but had few details." I'd keep my eyes peeled for that bit before obsessing about this Black Cat business.

And really, this story from Romola Garai probably has nothing to do with Black Cat, because if Rachel McAdams was really a frontrunner, that means they've got quite the list of actresses for this character and I seriously doubt they are still putting lesser known actresses "on tape" for it. Unless it is known there is a wide search for a role to be filled, roles like this usually don't have auditions especially with names like Rachel McAdams being thrown around. And narratively I just don't know if this is the right approach because not only is a lone female villain a hard sell (remember Catwoman had The Penguin with her in Batman Returns), but she just feels a little too similar to Black Widow from the upcomingIron Man 2.

Will Smith Interested in Picking Up Some Flowers for Algernon?

Source: Firstshowing

by Ethan Anderton

We've seen Will Smith fight aggressive aliens, infectious bloodthirsty humans, and self-righteous robots, but when all is said and done, it's really awe inspiring to see him put away the guns and "Aw, hellno!" attitude when he buckles down for a serious drama. So it pleases me to see that Pajiba has a scoop about Will Smith taking on the lead role (as well as producing) a contemporary adaptation of the Daniel Keyes' short story and subsequent novel Flowers for Algernon, the story of Charlie, a mentally challenged man, who is the first human test subject for an experimental surgery that artificially increases intelligence.

After a successful experiment on the titular lab mouse Algernon, the surgery is then applied to Charlie, raising his IQ from 68 to 185. But his newfound intelligence comes at the cost of his ability to socialize normally as he becomes alienated from those who are of inferior intelligence. All the more staggering are the results of the experimental treatment as time passes and Algernon's intelligence begins to deteriorate until his untimely death. The story itself is told in the form of Charlie's progress reports that he writes as part of monitoring the experiment, and in his writing we become aware of his increased cognitive skills.

The story has been adapted several times before including as Ralph Nelson’s Charly, which won Cliff Robertson an Academy Award in 1969, and most recently a made-fo-TV movie starring Matthew Modine in 2000. While this project seems right up Smith's alley after his award-winning performances in dramas like Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds, he's a busy guy with no less than some 25 projects in development that he's attached to including several recently announced sequels currently being written. It could be years before he gets to this project, and until we get any confirmation, we have no idea when this will get off the ground. We'll keep our eyes peeled for any further developments though. Sound good?