DreamWorks

Young acting hopefuls have a shot at acting opposite Hugh Jackman in the upcoming boxing robot drama Real Steel.

DreamWorks Studios is actively looking for a fresh new face for the upcoming sports sci-fi drama. Jackman stars as a former boxer with one last title shot in a robot boxing championship. He teams up with his long lost son Max, a part currently uncast. Max is described as a charming street-smart, tough, who's complicated and resourceful.

Last week Dreamworks announced they were looking for a young male actor, age 10-14 years old, and have open casting calls set for Chicago on February 14th, and New York on February 20th. Those interested in auditioning can submit a video audition online at realsteelcasting.com, which also has information on the two open calls.

Reel Steel was written by John Gatins (Coach Carter, Hardball), and is set to be directed by Night at the Museum's Shawn Levy.

Stephen King's latest novel, Under The Dome, has only been on shelves for 10 days, but DreamWorks TV has already optioned the the book and is looking to adapt it for a possible cable mini-series. That's right -- Spielberg and King are are back in mutual business.

It's not the first time the two have come together for a potential project. Spielberg has been trying to bring King's 1984 novel (with Peter Straub), The Talisman, to either the big or small screen for roughly 20 years. TNT came close to putting together a six-hour mini-series in 2007, but the TV event (as I believe they call these things) was shut down due to budgetary reasons. Imdb.com currently has a listing for a 2010 version of The Talisman series, but there doesn't seem to be news of such an endeavor anywhere else.

As for Under The Dome -- a quick visit over to the book's Wikipedia page reveals a wealth of positive reviews, including the likes of the Associated Press, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Consensus seems to be that this is one of King's best in quite some time.

I feel like the last three years have seen a spike in studios snatching up unpublished manuscripts for film development. I understand calling dibs on the rights to the next work from a novelist like Stephen King or Dan Brown, whose name recognition all but guarantees a nice return on investment, but I am a little puzzled at the transition from picking up spec scripts to picking up spec novels. Then again, I haven't been privy to the same information executives at DreamWorks have; their fast-tracking of Daniel H. Wilson's aways-off novel Robopocalypse probably makes a whole lot of sense to those who have taken an early look at it.

Or, perhaps more accurately, it makes a lot of sense to someone who looked at last summer's box office chart. Terminator Salvation and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen proved that romping, stomping robots are always kings of the opening weekend -- and even Duncan Jones' Moon proved that name-recognition wasn't a must and that robots don't have to be gigantic and people-hating to be profitable. Whatever the motivation, Robopocalypse "cautionary tale of man versus machine" has been all lubed up for the development process at DreamWorks, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Ah, the Weekly World News, or as the publication likes to call itself "The World's Only Reliable Source of News", my favorite supermarket checkout isle magazine of all time (sorry, Reader's Digest). I used to stare at it longingly as a child, wondering if there really was a Bat Boy or if the President of the United States was, as so dutifully reported, a transvestite alien. Now that the news rag has gone online-only (if only one of their often mentioned psychic mediums had told them that making up stories about mutant babies and dead celebrities wasn't a sustainable business model for print publication), headlines like "Wife Meets Dead Husband in the Devil's Triangle!" just don't have that spark of truth like they used to.

That's about to change, however, because DreamWorks plans on making all of my dreams come true by turning the Weekly World News and its zany cast of characters into a serialized TV show. That's right, if things pan out (and man alive, I hope they do), Bat Boy, Bigfoot, Elvis, and the Lake Erie Monster are all going to be a regular part of popular culture once again.

By: Elisabeth Rappe (originally posted on Cinematical)

I really believe this is the best geek news we'll have all month. Not only is Robert Downey Jr. officially on board Cowboys & Aliens, The Hollywood Reporter announced that he's bringing Jon Favreau along for the ride. Considering the graphic novel was penned by Iron Man screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, it's literally a dream team come true.

As if it wasn't touched by the movie gods enough, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, they-who-can-write-no-failures, are penning the script, and producer Damon Lindelof came aboard last fall. There's no way this can fail. Even if the movie was one big trick, and simply 2 hours of Robert Downey Jr. in a cowboy hat reading a phone book, it would succeed. We would just call it arthouse, and praise them all for subverting our expectations!

But there's no danger of arthouse here, Cowboys & Aliens really does promise to be pure fun with this team. The story takes place in 1880s Arizona, where a war is raging between settlers and Native Americans. Their war is interrupted by the arrival of a UFO, which promptly unleashes hell onto the plains of Silver City. The Native Americans and settlers must unite to fight a larger threat, and are led to battle by Zeke Jackson (Downey), a gunslinger and former member of the Union Army. You can read the entire graphic novel online, which should keep you satisfied until Cowboys & Aliens hits theaters in the summer of 2011.