Spielberg to remake Harvey

Steven Spielberg will direct a new movie version of Harvey, Mary Chase's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1944 play about a man and an invisible giant rabbit.

The Hollywood Reporter says the film will be a co-production of DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox, the companies' first teaming since Minority Report.

The new version of Harvey was written by novelist Jonathan Tropper. The film will once again revolve around mild-mannered Elwood P. Dowd (played by James Stewart in the 1950 movie) and his friendship with Harvey.

(next up for Spielberg will be a cartoon version of Gone with the Wind featuring Ren and Stimpy, you can only guess how that will turn out.)

The Big Brother Advertising Agency

There's a scene in Steven Speilberg's movie adaptation of the Philip K. Dick science fiction classic, 'Minority Report' in which Tom Cruise's character enters a mall and the ads personalize themselves to him as he walks by.
The science fiction of targeted virtual advertising as you move around town has now entered a phase of reality from an announcement NEC made. The recently launched technology, called Eye Flavor, uses facial recognition to "guess" at what people want.
A growing number of display screens are being equipped with small cameras and face recognition technology, providing demographic data about who looked at the ad and for how long. The technology can already recognize gender and age and, while it's currently being used for audience research, it isn't impossible to make the leap to custom, targeted ads.
more HERE

Six Degrees of a Ponzi Scheme

Along with Hollywood boldfacers Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, lost money in Bernie Madoff's devastating $50 billion Ponzi scheme, and a representative for Kevin Bacon confirmed it to New York Magazine saying, "Unfortunately, your report is true."
He wouldn't elaborate on whether they'd lost everything except for their checking accounts and the land they own. "I can confirm that they had investments with Mr. Madoff -- no further specifics or comment beyond that," he said, adding: "Please, let's not speculate or rely on hearsay."

South Park Attacks Lucas & Spielberg

Returning with new episodes as part of its 12th season, "South Park" didn't level its aim at presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain (fingers are crossed for such an episode to be forthcoming). Instead, the series had Hollywood heavyweights George Lucas and Steven Spielberg directly in sights.
Los Angeles Times article HERE

Who's gonna die this time...?

MGM is actually going through with its plans to remake 1982's Poltergeist. The studio has hired known horror movie writers to write a script. They are also currently looking for a director.
Steven Spielberg co-wrote the original script about "a suburban home built over an Indian burial ground and thus inhabited by a nasty spirit", but will not be involved this time. "Poltergeist" also spawned two sequels.
more HERE

Rumor and suspicion revolved around the films due to its subject matter and the fact that four cast members died in a relatively short span of time (six years) between the release of the first film and the release of the third including Heather O'Rourke who played Carol Anne in all three Poltergeist movies.
more about that HERE