Will Smith has signed on to return as Agent Jay and Tommy Lee Jones is in advanced negotiations to return as Agent Kay in the film which Sony confirmed will be in 3D. Josh Brolin is also in talks to play the younger version of Kay.

Barry Sonnenfeld directs from a script by Etan Cohen and production aims to kick off this Fall. MIB3 will open against Peter Berg’s board game adaptation “Battleship” scheduled to open the same day.

Ouch, I feel for Peter Berg – and even though I’m sure his film will be excellent the MIB franchise is a one big, anticipated mother of a… well, let’s just say MIB has a strong following. But then again, maybe the two can coexist during the first weekend…

Dark Horizons

Fincher wants a “European look” for the film and is planning to shoot all the exteriors in Sweden. Due to tax incentives though, studio work will be done in other countries.

Surprisingly Fincher also wants to keep Swedish locations intact instead of shifting the action to the U.S. like so many remakes. The move will draw further comparisons with the already released and acclaimed Swedish-language film trilogy which shot in several of the locations mentioned in Larsson’s novels.

The Swedish shoot also brings up the question of language – will all the characters talk in English or only some, and will Lisbeth Salander or Mikael Blomqvist be changed into being British or American characters (the casting has yet to be locked down)?

Shooting will kick off in October.

“It was based on my respect for the art of Hergé and wanting to get as close to that art as I could,” says the director. Hergé wrote about fictional people in a real world, not in a fantasy universe,” Spielberg said. “It was the real universe he was working with, and he used National Geographic to research his adventure stories. It just seemed that live action would be too stylized for an audience to relate to. You’d have to have costumes that are a little outrageous when you see actors wearing them. The costumes seem to fit better when the medium chosen is a digital one.”

Like Cameron, Spielberg shot the actors on a special performance-capture stage. The performers donned lycra suits, covered in reflective markers, and their every movement was tracked by more than 100 cameras. They also wore a head-rigging with a camera near their jawline that recorded intensely detailed data of their faces — enough detail to avoid the “dead eye” faces that had an unsettling lack of movement or emotion in many previous motion-capture films. Ultimately, all the camera data was fed into a computer to create a 3-D replica of the actor. The digital document of the actor and the performance is so all-enveloping that the director, in this case Spielberg, can go back and change the “camera” movement and orientation long after the actor has left the set.

“I just adored it,“ he says. “It made me more like a painter than ever before. I got a chance to do so many jobs that I don’t often do as a director. You get to paint with this device that puts you into a virtual world, and allows you to make your shots and block all the actors with a small hand-held device only three times as large as an Xbox game controller.”

The film is produced by Peter Jackson and stars Jamie Bell as the title character, Andy Serkis (Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) as his buddy Captain Haddock, and Daniel Craig (James Bond)  as the evil Red Rackham.
“The Secret of the Unicorn” is due in theaters in 2011.

It sound like Spielberg really has embraced the possibilities of this new technology. But you can’t help felling a tiny bit worried that in the long run, flesh and blood actors will be… superfluous?

Based on Sara Gruen’s best-selling historical tome of the same name, story centers on a Cornell U. veterinary student who leaves his studies after his parents are killed and joins up with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, working as a vet for the circus. Witherspoon will play Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August (Penn), the charismatic but twisted animal trainer.

Studio, which is eyeing a June start date, wouldn’t confirm details of the project. “Twilight” star Pattinson has been on every studio’s wish list. His deal is expected to close. Penn, who is in Haiti on a humanitarian mission, is the bigger question mark. He has an offer from the studio but is still mulling the role.

If Penn decides to join in, Pattinson really should proceed with the project. When you get the chance to work with talent like that you shouldn’t hesitate.

As most of you know, the studio last week scrapped the fourth installment of the web-slinging hero under director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire and decided to reboot and scale down the franchise. While unlikely names such as James Cameron and David Fincher were floated, Marc Webb quietly rose to the top of the list of candidates.

Webb became a sought-after director with “(500) Days of Summer,” his comedic romancer for starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, earning him praise for the realistic way he portrayed a modern relationship.

Columbia issued a press release regarding Marc Webb directing “Spider-Man,” and here’s what Marc Webb himself had to say: “This is a dream come true and I couldn’t be more aware of the challenge, responsibility, or opportunity. Sam Raimi’s virtuoso rendering of Spider-Man is a humbling precedent to follow and build upon.  The first three films are beloved for good reason.  But I think the Spider-Man mythology transcends not only generations but directors as well.  I am signing on not to ‘take over’ from Sam.  That would be impossible.  Not to mention arrogant.  I’m here because there’s an opportunity for ideas, stories, and histories that will add a new dimension, canvas, and creative voice to Spider-Man.”

Webb, who has options on two sequels, will now tackle a James Vanderbilt script that sees a “Spider-Man” movie that will look and feel very different from the big movies that went before it.

The plan for the movie is to be in the $80 million range and feature a cast of relative unknowns. And the story will be pared down to center on a high school kid who is dealing with the knowledge that his uncle died even though the teen had the power to stop it.

The touchstone for the new movie will not be the 1960s comics, which were the inspiration behind the movies by Raimi, who grew on up on them, but rather this past decade’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” comics by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley where the villain-fighting took a back seat to the high school angst.

The production will begin this year.

“We’re going to shoot it this year I think.” says Hill, “We hired directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller who directed ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs‘ and are friends of mine. They are incredible. Their take on the movie is incredible… It’s about cops who go back to high school. Young rookie cops who go back to high school. I think that’s a real interesting idea as opposed to saying, that’s not what happened in the show so it can’t happen in the movie“.

Working from a script by Michael Bacall and Joe Gazzam with an original idea by Hill (who is also executive producing), the film will keep the same basic premise as the series but will have a tone that Hill believes will surprise fans.

“Audiences are not expecting what it’s going to be. It’s not a parody of the show. I’m not playing Johnny Depp’s character… I’m not saying I’m Johnny Depp. I’m not playing his character. It’s a group of people that go back to high school to deal with a drug problem. To deal with crime in high school. I really love the “Back to the Future” moment of that where it’s getting to relive a certain period of your life… It’s a comedy with really cool action. We’re not doing something serious like ‘Miami Vice.’ But it’s not a parody. It’s a funny movie with a lot of great action and a real story. I’ve been saying that it’s like a John Hughes movie with ‘Bad Boys‘ style action.”

Outside of Hill there is no cast currently lined up. The focus is on tailoring the script to Lord and Miller’s vision, but Hill is certain that the production is headed in a great direction, adding, “I wouldn’t make it if it wouldn’t be awesome.”

Anyway, Variety reports that Steven Spielberg and Stephen King are joining forces (again) to develop a limited series based on King’s supernatural thriller “Under the Dome.” DreamWorks TV has optioned the book and is looking to set it up as an event series, likely for cable.

The book has earned strong reviews as a return to form for the prolific author, revolves around the drama that unfolds after an invisible force field suddenly descends on a small vacation town in Maine. As the locals fight for their survival, the town descends into warring factions led by enigmatic characters. DreamWorks is starting to meet with writers for the project. The plan is to set a writer before shopping the skein to prospective buyers.

Great news! I’m looking forward to the result and I promise to keep you updated on the progress.

Reeves and young stars Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz were among those on-set as filming commenced at Albuquerque Studios. Filming will also take place in various other locations in New Mexico before returning to Albuquerque to wrap in January. In the haunting and provocative “Let Me In,” an alienated 12-year-old boy (Smit-McPhee) befriends a mysterious young newcomer (Moretz) in his small New Mexico town and discovers an unconventional path to adulthood.

The film is based on the bestselling vampire novel, “Lat den Ratte Komma In“, by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, and is an English-language remake of the highly acclaimed Swedish film of the same name. The filmmakers note that while the new film will pay respect to the original Swedish version, they intend to forge a unique identity for “Let Me In”, placing it firmly in an American context.

On a side note, the book is amazing, and if you can get your hands on a copy I urge you to read it. Now!

The story centers on a wheeler-dealer Los Angeles lawyer named Mickey Haller who operates out of the back of his Lincoln. Haller is content with a career defending garden-variety criminals until he lands the case of a lifetime, defending a Beverly Hills playboy accused of murder.

McConaughey is on board to play Haller. It’s unclear what role Jones would play; the playboy character, which could be the second male lead, is described in the book as somewhat younger than Jones, though the part could be adjusted to accommodate an older interpretation.

Both Jones and McConnaughey had breakout roles playing characters in the justice system, McConaughey a young defense attorney in “A Time to Kill” (1996) and Jones the federal marshal Samuel Gerard in “The Fugitive” (1993). Both movies were among the highest earning of each actor’s respective careers, with Jones also seeing significant success with the “Men In Black” franchise, where he also played a government agent.

Connelly turns out frequent bestsellers, but Hollywood has been more reluctant to turn his books into films. The film “Blood Work,” based on Connelly’s novel about an FBI profiler, became a Clint Eastwood pic in 2002.

The story will be an original effort based in the universe of the popular online role-playing game. “We would choose… something that encompasses lands and characters and storylines, and we would be true to it. But our story may or may not be about one of those central characters. They might be in the picture, those characters that these myths are told about, but they would be more supporting characters.”

The aim is to adapt the game, rather than a previously conceived story written within that world. “We want to be really faithful to the game,” Raimi said. “We would have our writer, Robert Rodat, really craft an original story within that world that feels like a ‘World of WarCraft’ adventure. Only obviously it’s very different ’cause it’s expanded and translated into the world of a motion picture.”

Raimi understands that there’s a massive “Warcraft” fanbase out there, and a need to serve those fans as much as he serves the need to create a mass-marketable event film. The hope is that they’ll properly capture “the Horde and the Alliance and the mythology that takes place in the game, and the archetypes that the game presents. I think we would try and find touchstones within the game to make it accurate and true and choose one or some of the lands that are portrayed in the game with as much accuracy and authenticity as possible.”