Cinematical

Way back in November, John C. Reilly signed on to play Larten Crepsley in the adaptation of Darren Shan's Cirque Du Freak. Since then, we've gotten a sneak peek at Salma Hayek's bearded lady, but nothing of the sharp-toothed Crepsley -- until now! Empire has posted a first look at Reilly's character, which you can see cropped on the right. (It's a little bigger over at Empire, but unfortunately, not much.)

The film focuses on a 14-year-old kid, Darren Shan (Chris Kelly), who visits an illegal freak show, sneaks in after hours, and gets thrust into a life of freak shows and vampiric servitude. The photo shows Shan and Crepsley, so maybe this is when the poor kid getting pulled into the freakish life. Although really, I think Crepsley's outfit is the most freakish thing. That, and the darkly rouged cheeks.

The flick should hit US shores in 2008, before the scheduled UK release in February of 2009.

*Note: Both the real Darren Shan and the kid who plays the fictional Darren Shan use two names. To clear up confusion between the Empire report, here, and IMDb: The young actor goes by Chris Kelly and Chris Massoglia, while Darren Shan is also known as Darren O'Shaughnessy.

And we thought that the shrinking gap was only between theatrical and DVD releases. Now it's how soon a project can get off the ground after someone passes away. Anna Nicole Smith had barely been gone a month when projects started to cook up on her life and death. Now Defamer has spotted that a super-respectful NINETEEN DAYS after Tim Russert dies of a heart attack, a telepic is already in the works with a casting notice up on Craigslist. The notice even says that Randy Quaid has already signed on to star.

When the news broke, did someone reach over for their phone, call up Quaid, and get this set up? Or, maybe they, you know, waited a few days so they wouldn't seem eager to capitalize on the man's death (and spent that time throwing together a script). So, this ad says that a New York-based film company is looking to cast an unknown actress in the role of Maureen Orth, Russert's wife, and that the film will follow the last 24 hours of his life. So, not only can they not wait a bit to get this going, but it's also centered on the man's death?

The casting is certainly appropriate, but that's about the only nice thing I can say about this news.

November 21 is slowly inching closer, and Potter Mania is starting to heat up. Just in time for the Fourth of July, we've got a whole slew of new Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince pics to enjoy. There are seven tasty shots over at USA Today, including the one above, plus another two over at Moviefone.

You're not going to see many drug and sex paralells in these pics, but there is the obligatory trio discussing some important fact (in this case, the potions book), the wonderful Dumbledore, Draco looking much tougher and ticked off, and well, hit the jump to see my favorite one of all.

When films turn personal, there are a myriad of ways they can turn out. One way I never thought of -- out of body experiences that need soul saving. Variety reports that Val Kilmer, Shane West, Cam Gigandet, Eric Balfour, and Arielle Kebbel have signed on for a film called Silver Cord. James Ordonez will direct the feature, which he wrote with Ken Gord, and relive some personal experiences.

As Variety describes it, the film "centers on Ordonez's brother who came back to life after being declared clinically dead on multiple occasions. The brother died in 2004." But the summary up on IMDb says a whole lot more, written by James himself: "The story of a young man who is separated from the love of his life. To find her he has an Out of Body Experience but the silver cord that connects his soul with his body breaks and he is believed to be dead. In a desperate race against time his friends have less than 24 hours to save his soul before his body is cremated."

It's not every day you get so-called true life stories about people leaving their body to find paramours and then losing their body and being declared dead. Since he'd been declared dead a number of times, I guess the dude had a penchant for out-of-body travel.

After years of Beavis and Butt-Head, there was Office Space. But after red Swingline staplers and the need for flair, Mike Judge took a number of years off from directing -- until the largely ignored Idiocracy. This time around, however, we don't have to wait as long (as Eugene pointed out in April). Extract is on the way, and now EW's Hollywood Insider has shared more of the plot, and who's in talks to co-star alongside Jason Bateman.

The film will focus on a guy who owns a flower-extract plant -- the industrial sort, not the leafy sort. In typical, professional Judge fashion, the guy is having a bunch of bad luck, which includes "workplace issues and a cheating wife." EW sources say that Kristen Wiig is looking into playing the wife, while Mila Kunis might grab a role as a plant employee. That sounds like a set up for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, revisited -- the man can choose between his crappy partner and the wonderful nice girl right in front of him.

Between the possible murk of an actors' strike and Wiig's SNL schedule, the film is slated to start production in August.

The Battle of Britain is not the sort of cinematic theme that would usually pique my interest, but then again most films that tackle the subject don't try to reimagine it. And most projects don't sound as awesome as Jackboots on Whitehall -- a film I have been dying to see since December 7, 2006.

Imagine the German Luftwaffe flying in, bombing Britain into oblivion, as Hitler giggles with glee and takes over the country ... only to get his ass handed to him by the Scots. The idea sounds flipping brilliant, but there's been barely a word mentioned about this feature since some casting notices in 2007. So, using the power that is Google, I sat down today and went through a ton of pages, looking for some sort of word as to what in the heck is going on.

IMDb says it's in post-production. Rosamund Pike said in 2007 that the voices were all recorded. However, according to britfilms.com, which updated news on the project in April, the film should have began principal photography on June 23. Moviefone says it's set for release in 2010, while many other sites say it will be released this year. Whatever the case, it looks like it's still in the works, but hopefully it won't take another two years to get to us.

The guy is all sorts of recognizable due to his time as James 'Sawyer' Ford on Lost, but do you know that Josh Holloway is also the dude who got his start in Cryin'? Yes, he played the jerky guy who smiled and then stole Alicia Silverstone's bag, and she had to chase him down and give him a good kick. (Watch it above.) He's come a long way since purse stealing! Now The Hollywood Reporter posts that he's joined the cast of Stay Cool.

This is the Polish brothers feature that Hilary Duff joined recently -- where a successful author (Mark Polish) goes home to give a high school commencement address, gets hit on by a high school girl (Duff), and has to face his unrequited teen crush (Winona Ryder). But now Holloway has been added to the mix as a former jock who used to date Ryder's Scarlet Smith. Production should begin soon in California.

Back when I posted about television shows hitting the big screen in February, I included a joke Matthew Perry made about how the cast of Friends were "trying to organize a thing soon," but he meant a dinner, not a movie.

Did he, in fact, mean a movie? We can take this with a grain of salt right now, but The Daily Mail says that a film based on the popular series has gotten the green light to start filming in the next year and a half, with all of the actors interested in reprising their roles -- Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, and David Schwimmer.

Basically, it's all said to be due to the success of Sex and the City, and their source says: "she [Aniston] and Courteney have already talked this summer about what they want out of a Friends movie, and if deals can be made with them, everything else can fall into place rather quickly." The rest of the piece has a bunch of particulars about money, and how the show is at the top of the TV-to-screen list.

Whether it's true or not, it makes sense. But do you want to see the friends reunite?

As much as I enjoy Star Wars, I was never a big enough fan to buy fan goodies, until the LEGO game came out. Then, well, I spent hours making things out of LEGO pieces and trying to use the force to lift and arrange things. It was awesome to not only have the iconic characters to mess around with, but also to explore the environment of the movie. Now we've got Indiana Jones, but there's another big summer movie that is getting its shot in the LEGOverse -- that sweet, dark knight known as Batman.

Entertainment Weekly has posted an awesome new teaser video for the game, which showcases Poison Ivy fooling with Mother Nature, and Bruce Wayne laying the smackdown with his suitcase. If you love the movies, or the source material, you really should check it out. The best thing -- there's a character for everyone. This game showcases peeps like Batman, Robin, and Commissioner Gordon, as well as The Joker, Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn, The Scarecrow...

I see a whole lot of time wasting in my future. How about you?

Sinister plans and prison releases are nothing new to the world of cinema. You've got everything from Snake Plissken having an explosive implanted within him so that he will save the President, to Leito getting led back to District 13 to help a cop defuse a bomb. But now we're getting an old story of corruption on the big screen. Variety reports that Leverage and producer Charlie Loventhal have teamed up to adapt Jim Thompson's 1953 novel Recoil, with Ralph Pezzullo writing the script.

The project will focus on a man named Pat Cosgrove. He's sent to prison for bank robbery, and is ineligible for parole because he doesn't have a sponsor. Then a dude named Doc Luther pops up, and offers him a job and sponsorship. But the job isn't all work and owage -- it's fishy generosity. He gets housing, cash, cars, and clothing, without having to do much, if any, work. Then, as Variety describes it, he's "set up for murder by the same corrupt political insiders who sponsored his parole." And people say it's rough on the inside...

This could be a fun flick, and it's definitely not the first Thompson text to hit the screen. It's just been a while. The last time his work hit the film world, it was for This World, Then the Fireworks in 1997, but the writer, who died back in 1977, was also the pen behind The Getaway, The Grifters, and After Dark, My Sweet.