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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Some days you just have to stand back and shake your head. The internet is a powder keg of misunderstanding and preconception. When a polarizing figure like Michael Bay makes an off hand comment about a beloved franchise that doesn’t meet perfect fan criteria, the whole things explodes in so much whiny status updates and forum threads.

Recently Bay, who’s Platinum Dunes is setting up a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reboot, made a comment about the Turtles being of alien origin. He made the comments during the Nickelodeon up-fronts last week, and the internet has been all pissy about it since then.

Keen to clarify his original statement, Bay remarked on his official message boards about the subject:

Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.

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Robocop is finally getting an upgrade. After months of rumors,  it looks like MGM has finally found their leading man for the upcoming Robocop remake. With potential stars ranging from Michael Fassbender to Russell Crowe, they finally decided on Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman to play the cyborg police officer.

According to Deadline.com, MGM has made an official offer to Kinnaman, who is best known for his roles in AMC’s The Killing and in the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds thriller Safe House.

In the ultra-violent 1987 original, Peter Weller played officer Alex J. Murphy, who is brutally gunned down in the line of duty. In this futuristic version of Detroit, crime has gotten out of control and the normal police can’t stop the criminals. After the privatized police department resurrects him as a half-man, half-machine cop, Murphy is haunted by his human memories while facing both a sadistic criminal syndicate, as well as a corrupt corporate board.

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The casting has not come particularly quick or easy for the Spike Lee directed remake of the Korean thriller Oldboy.

Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men, Men In Black III) locked in as the lead character quite early in the process but the quest for a villain so far has involved names ranging from Christian Bale to  Clive Owen, with even Colin Firth being in the mix. All have passed for various reasons and the search continues.

Filling the role of Brolin’s love interest, Marie, has been an equally difficult task. Both Rooney Mara and Mia Wasikowska have been offered and rejected the part of the female lead role. It is now being reported that the role of Marie has been offered to Elizabeth Olsen.

The film follows an average man who is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, he soon finds out that his kidnapper has a greater plan for him and is set onto a path of pain and suffering in an attempt to uncover the motive of his mysterious tormentor.

The lesser known Olsen sister, Elizabeth seemingly sprang out of nowhere at Sundance 2011 to become one of America’s most sought after young actresses thanks to parts in the soon to be released Silent House and the under the radar film Martha Marcy May Marlene. With three other projects listed to start in 2013, she’s not going away anytime soon. She’s also got a sizable gap in her schedule before those projects are due to start, which makes this a very plausible option.

Dan Aykroyd has been trying to get Ghostbusters 3 off the ground for a long time now, but it seems he has hit a speed bump. After generating interest from the original crew, including Harold Ramis and director Ivan Reitman, the studio, and fans all around the world, but he can’t seem to get his good friend Bill Murray on board.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Aykroyd said that the film is currently in “suspended animation”. At this rate he doesn’t believe the film will ever get made.

“The studio, the director Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis feel there must be a way to do it, but Bill Murray will not do the movie. He doesn’t want to be involved. He’s got six kids, houses all over America. He golfs in these tournaments where they pay him to turn up and have a laugh. He’s into this life and living it,” said Aykroyd.”I know we’d have a lot of fun [but] I can’t be mad at him. He’s a friend first, a colleague second. We have a deep personal relationship that transcends business and he doesn’t want to know.”

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In what is probably the least surprising news ever, Men in Black III was all Will Smith’s idea. Men in Black III director Barry Sonnenfeld was recently interviewed by UK entertainment magazine Contactmusic, in which he confirmed that the story and plot of Men in Black III was completely thought up by Will Smith.

”Will calls me Baz.  When we were shooting ‘Men In Black II’ [in 2002], one night he said ‘Hey Baz, I think I have an idea for number three’. The basic idea was that Will’s character, Agent J, would have to go back into the past to save his partner,” said Sonnenfeld.”It allowed the movie to take place in another era, and us to learn more about Tommy Lee Jones’ character. But it turned out to be a very long process of development, mainly because of the knotting issues of time travel, the time travel thing was really hard”

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The original Vacation movie is a bona fide classic. The film was made during the primes of Chevy Chase, John Hughes and Harold Ramis, three of the most prolific names in 80s pop culture. It spawned a hit and miss franchise that most people remember fondly to this day. So this news was inevitable.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that the guys who wrote Horrible Bosses, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstien, have turned in a script for a new Vacation movie and New Line is keen to give the duo the chance to direct too.

Daley and Goldstein’s Vacation script, first set up in 2009, plays like both a sequel and a reboot of the franchise that began with the 1983 Harold Ramis-directed comedy National Lampoon’s Vacationand continued with European Vacation, Christmas Vacation and Vegas Vacation.

A now grown-up Rusty Griswold, the son of the Chevy Chase character in the original series, experiences a misadventure with his own family.

It seems the popularity of vampires would be winding down with the over-saturation of the market, but Hollywood is moving away from your modern vampire, as seen in Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries, and seems to be looking toward the past to keep the craze going. There has been a sudden explosion of projects based on the classic vampire, Dracula. Names ranging from Adam Sandler to Park Chan-Wook are involved in some kind of story about the classical bloodsucker.

According to Deadline, Sony has purchased a pitch from writer Jason Keller that will tell Dracula’s origin story, with Joe Roth and Palak Patel set to produce. Sony would only admit that they intend to start a period franchise, and with Keller credited for the upcoming Snow White re-imagining Mirror Mirror, that might put two franchises on his plate.

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2012 is going to be a big year for stop-motion animation, with three high profile stop-motion animated features invading cinema’s throughout the year. The most notable of this bunch is Tim Burton’s next feature, Frankenweenie, which is a feature length, animated adaptation of Burton’s own 1982 short film.

Frankenweenie tells the tale of young Victor, a boy who loses his beloved dog Sparky and reanimates him with the power of electricity. If it was not obvious up to this point, the film is an homage to the Frankenstein movies and novel.

One thing that the poster clearly presents, but is still probably lost on most people, is that the film is shot in black and white. This is a bold creative decision for any film, and one Burton used to great success once before in Ed Wood.

However, it is still a tremendous risk for a stop-motion animated film, a genre that is usually noted for it’s ability to present vibrant and extraordinary visuals. Even Burton’s own Corpse Bride used color to great effect in illustrating the differences between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

The film is set for an early October release, just in time for Halloween! You can see the full poster after the jump.

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In an interview with E! Online, Transformers star Josh Duhamel revealed that he hasn’t been contacted about the fourth film of the Transformers series. According to the recent interview, none of the original series cast has been asked to return for the fourth film.

“I don’t think anybody’s doing it,” Duhamel told the site. “I know Shia [LaBoeuf]‘s not doing it. I don’t think Tyrese or Rosie [Huntington-Whiteley] or anybody else is doing it.”

He’s not surprised about the silence, though. “Whenever these movies make that much money they’re going to make as many as they can,” he said. “[But] I haven’t heard anything about it. They haven’t called me.”

The plan now is to reboot the series, which means they can dump all those now-expensive stars and make some new ones. This is following the foot steps of the Spiderman reboot, The Amazing Spiderman.The popularity of the series is not based on the star power of the actors and actresses, but rather the Transformers themselves, as proven by the success of the last film even without star Megan Fox.

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NBC has officially ordered a series based upon novelist Thomas Harris’ unforgettable creation, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal will be a modern update on Harris’ novel and the subsequent film, Red Dragon. The show will follow the beginning of Lecter’s relationship with FBI agent Will Graham, before Lecter was exposed as a serial killer himself. Obviously, if the series is successful, there is the chance that the show may delve into the material presented in the Silence of the Lambs  and Hannibal films.

Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller wrote the pilot script for the series and will also act as executive producer for the show. Fuller is also known for creating creative and visually striking shows like Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me. Fuller officially announced his involvement in the project last September and NBC’s interest was piqued shortly after.

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Saoirse Ronan is not only starring in Twilight author Stephanie Meyer’s The Host, but is now attached to headline yet another Snow White centric flick called The Order of the Seven. The film will have a completely new spin on the old story.

It will follow a centuries old and once revered Order of Warriors from around the world, who are now a jaded group of outlaws, as they reclaim their destiny after the reemergence of an ancient evil empress. Ronan will play Olivia Sinclair, a British ex-pat of 19th Century Hong Kong who guides the warriors back to their noble roots. The film will be lined with stars from China, Russia and Japan.

Ronan has been making a name for herself over the past few years as she has taken on larger and larger roles, which have included Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, the Oscar-winning Atonement and not to mention the action packed Hanna. This will be her first leading role.

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