In disappointing news for all the Bioshock fans out there, it looks like the film adaptation of the popular video game series is once again on the shelf. The film has run into many difficulties since day one securing the desired budget and creative control that a project like this would need. Gore Verbinski was set to produce with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo set to direct, but it appears the helmer may no longer be on the project.

According to director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, he has completely left the Bioshock adaptation due to the drawn out process of getting this film off the ground

“To be honest, by now, I’m completely out of that, and developing other stuff,” Fresnadillo said. “Right now it’s on hold. The studio and the video game company, they have to reach some kind of agreement about the budget and the rating.”

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Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis have been offered the lead roles in the Lana and Andy Wachowki directed Jupiter Ascending. The Warner Bros project’s plot has been kept under tight wraps.

This is the first major science fiction film franchise that the Wachowkis have been involved in since The Matrix. Just like The Matrix trilogy, Jupiter Ascending is an original creation by the duo.

Channing Tatum is becoming a formidable leading man, particularly with his back-to-back box office successes The Vow and 21 Jump Street. Mila Kunis is also a strong draw as she is coming off of Black Swan and Friends With Benefits. She is also set to star in two much anticipated films in the Seth MacFarlane directed comedy Ted and  the Sam Raimi directed Oz: The Great And Powerful.

The Wachowskis have just finished production of the film Cloud Atlas. The Wachowskis hadn’t directed a film since the craptastic 2008 film Speed Racer. The duo were trying to find financiers for a different film script last spring. It was for a hard-R drama they wanted to direct about a gay relationship between a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi. Unfortunately for them, they had no luck finding the funding. There is speculation that the Wachowskis are doing this project for the purpose of funding this other project.

The Wachowskis are using the billions of dollars that the Matrix trilogy pulled in to get Warner Bros excited about this new project . The film is on track to start production later this year.

Netflix has its eye on ABC’s freshman drama The River, which is facing cancellation. Netflix is already in talks with 20th Century Fox TV about possibly picking up Terra Nova, which was recently cancelled by Fox, for a second season.

It’s being reported that the push for original content by the streaming giant is making them more willing to take risks on what they see as quality programming.  Netflix is currently negotiating with The River producer ABC Studios about the possibility of continuing the thriller/horror series.

It is being stressed that the talks are merely exploratory at this point and that the show has not officially been cancelled by ABC. Even though The River has not been officially canceled by ABC, it is widly considered a foregone conclusion.The talks are also part of a larger conversation between ABC Studios and Netflix for other undisclosed properties.

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Netflix has secured another original series with Hemlock Grove, a thrilling tale of murder and mystery adapted by Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever), is set to star Famke Janssen (X-Men, Nip/Tuck) and Bill Skarsgard (Anna Karenina, Simon and the Oaks). The series is set to be available for Netflix members to watch instantly, beginning early in 2013.

Set in a ravaged Pennsylvania steel town, Hemlock Grove starts with the body of a young girl, mangled and murdered in the shadow of the former Godfrey steel mill. There are a multitude of suspects from an escapee from the White Tower, a biotech facility owned by the former steel magnates, to a 17-year-old Gypsy kid named Peter from the wrong side of the tracks, who tells his classmates he’s a werewolf. 

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Good news for all you Ender’s Game fans out there as there is finally some forward motion on the film. Ender’s Game has had a long journey getting from a novel to the big screen and finally has a production blog. Even though there is only a single image posted so far, producer Roberto Orci promises to have exclusives from the film over the next year. This would include guest appearances by well known cast members.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Orson Scott Card book series, here is a synopsis. Set in Earth’s future, the plot presents an imperiled humankind who have barely survived two conflicts with the Formics, an insect like alien species that are usually called “Buggers”. These aliens act much like gigantic super smart Earth ants and are very protective of their queen. In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, an international fleet maintains a school to find and train future fleet commanders.

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Josh Trank, hot off the successful directorial turn in Chronicle, has been contracted by Warner Bros. to develop and direct the long awaited adaptation of comic book and video game The Red Star.

Trank has been in talks to work on a reboot of The Fantastic Four and a spin-off Venom movie, but decided to take on The Red Star. He may still work on these projects, as they aren’t moving forward as quickly as The Red Star.

Jason Rothenberg is currently writing the script for the project.  Rothenberg recently scripted the new Twilight Zone, which is in production with Matt Reeves at the helm.

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NBC’s The Munsters reboot Mockingbird Lane is looking to score Eddie Izzard (The Riches, Ocean’s Thirteen) as part of the cast. Eddie Izzard is in final negotiations to star in and produce the series.

Izzard will be the first actor cast in the pilot, which was written by Bryan Fuller and is set to be directed by Bryan Singer (Superman Returns, X2). Mockingbird Lane is described as a re-imagining of the 1960s sitcom about a family of monsters. We can expect that the show will have striking visuals in the vein of Fuller’s ABC dramedy Pushing Daisies and his FOX comedy Wonderfalls.

Izzard will play Grandpa, the Munster family patriarch. Unlike the 1960′s original, Izzard’s Grandpa will be a powerful, ancient vampire with a suave, sexy womanizer type of personality. On top of your standard vampire powers, he will be able to shape-shift into rats, wolves, and other creatures at will.

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The CW’s pilot Arrow, based on DC property The Green Arrow, just released the first image of star Stephen Amell (Private Practice) as the titular character. The suit was designed by three-time Oscar-winning costume designer and frequent Tim Burton collaborator who most recently worked on Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood.

The project centers on former billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Amell) who, after being marooned for five years on a remote island, returns with a mysterious agenda and a lethal set of new skills that he uses in a war on crime.

David Nutter, who headed up the pilot for the Superman-themed series Smallville, will also be directing Arrow. “When I directed the pilot for Smallville, I knew that making Clark Kent relate-able would be the key to audiences believing in him as a hero,” Nutter said. “Arrow is a different show — darker and harder-edged — but it’s the same core idea. We’re creating a real, believable world in which Oliver Queen can do incredible things. Colleen Atwood’s great work on the Arrow costume reflects that effort.”

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Benderspink is teaming up with Roddenberry Entertainment to co-develop television and film adaptations of Days Missing. This will mark the first Roddenberry property to find its way to the big screen since J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and the first TV show based on a Roddenberry property since Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda and Star Trek: Enterprise.

“We see this as such a strong concept that it could be done as a television show and feature trilogy at the same time,” says JC Spink, Co-Founder of Benderspink. “And, we’re extremely excited to work with Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth.”

Days Missing chronicles 24 hour periods of time that have changed the course of human evolution, but have been erased from human memory by a mystical and ancient being known as The Steward. These “days missing,” recorded in the annals of The Steward’s library, represent a lost human history that explains much more about who we are than we ever knew.

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It has been confirmed that Rodrigo Santoro will reprise his role as Xerxes in 300: Battle of Artemisia. Santoro will join Eva Green (Casino Royale) as Artemisia, Sullivan Stapleton (Darkness Falls) as Themistocles, and Jamie Blackley (Snow White and The Huntsman) as Calisto.

The story is rumored to be a sort-of-sequel which will follow Xerxes (Santoro) is pushed into the bloody battle with the Greeks by the gold-covered maven goddess Artemisia (Green). Artemisia utilizes her knowledge of how much Xerxes’ father King Darius’s death has affected him, persuades Xerxes to go into battle against those responsible. Artemisia also searches for  group of men to join Xerxes in the battle against the Greeks.

She manages to use her feminine wiles to convince Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) to side with her and Xerxes, even though the Persians took her family and he was firmly on the side of the Greeks. Ultimately, she convinces him that his life will be better off if he swaps sides. Themistocles’ skills as a fighter are only rivaled by his ability for deception and lies.

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Director Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York, The Departed) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island, The Aviator) have both committed to an adaptation of The Wolf of Wall Street. This film will be the fifth time the duo will be working together.

The film is based on the memoir of the same name by Jordan Belfort. It chronicles his rise and fall as a Wall Street stock broker in the 80′s and 90′s.  The script for the film is written by Terrence Winter, who is currently the executive producer of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

In the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance. Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits, just not for the clients.

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It looks like two horror icons will be working together on a television adaptation of The Knife Man. The exciting part is the harshly grim nature of the subject matter fits right into what David Cronenberg (Scanners, The Fly) and Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Drag Me To Hell) are both best known for.

The Knife Man follows John Hunter, a man from humble Scottish origins,  who rose to become the most famous anatomist and surgeon of the eighteenth century. In an age when operations were crude, extremely painful and often fatal, Hunter rejected medieval traditions based on ancient Greek Orthodoxy to forge a revolution in surgery founded on pioneering scientific experiments.

Hunter’s scientific genius led him to become a central figure of the Enlightenment, which led him to be revered by fellow scientists and to become friendly with high society. Unfortunately, Hunter’s experiments required human corpses, and most were not donated. His tireless quest for human corpses immersed him deep in the sinister world of body-snatching.

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