When Warner Bros. spun the Hollywood Wheel o' Remakes today, it landed on "Video Games." So they hired screenwriter David Hayter, currently bringing his own Hayter-ation to the Watchmen adaptation, to pen the screenplay for the Capcom game, Lost Planet. According to Variety, "The vidgame revolves around an expedition to an ice planet that harbors an energy source with the potential to save mankind." I sure hope this energy source costs less than the $56 the BP gas station mugged me for a few minutes ago. With my luck, the energy source in question will be Soylent Green.

A while back we reported on how the producers of the Witchblade movie had released a teaser poster before a writer or director had been chosen. Since no actors had actually signed on, a generically sexy female was shown on the poster wearing the Witchblade gauntlet. But once the teaser site went up spotlighting the scantily clad superheroine, the film quickly gained a director and a writer -- so why hasn't that worked for Conan?

It's hard to imagine that anything can beat the awesomeness that is the original Red Dawn. After all, it had Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey as teenagers fighting (and slaughtering) invading Cubans and Soviets. Plus, Harry Dean Stanton screamed "Avenge me!" from behind a chain-link fence. But they're remaking it all the same, and the writer and director attached to the project may actually be just what the film needs to become even more kick-ass than the original.

Animals have taken over Movies Without Pity! At least for this entry. First up, Walden Media has acquired the latest in a long line of live action talking animal features. The Hollywood Reporter says: "The project, titled Housebroken, takes a comedic look at a group of talking animals forced to live under the same roof when the two halves of the couple that owns them moves in together." [Isn't that the plot of Step Brothers? - Zach] "It's based on a pitch from Made of Honor scribe Adam Sztykiel, who will write the screenplay." Talk about a ringing endorsement! "From the guy who turned Dr. McDreamy into a maid of honor comes a different kind of animal!"

Hollywood is fighting for hostages -- or at least for the rights to potential films about those who were recently freed in Colombia. Variety reports that studio bigwigs and filmmakers are hot to get their hands on stories about the fifteen hostages released just last week. According to the report, "several potential projects are already taking shape and producers have begun tracking down almost everyone involved to make rights deals." Never let it be said that Hollywood is slow to act on a story. Slow to make an Indiana Jones sequel, perhaps, but not this. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that producers had stowed away on the commando helicopters that landed in the jungle.

If you're a PBS or BBC geek like me, or just a lover of veterinary literature, the title All Creatures Great and Small probably brings up a very specific memory for you: Country vet James Herriot tending to his stable of animal patients. He treated horses, dogs, cats, and a pregnant cow or two--the latter by very memorably inserting his arm into the birth canal up to the shoulder. So when The Hollywood Reporter reported that the writers of Wanted have penned a script for a movie also called All Creatures Great and Small, it gave me a moment of pause. I started imagining Siegfried Farnon as the Morgan Freeman character, Sloan, recruiting young vets and barn yard animals into a secret fraternity of assassins. Dairy cattle would be instructed to "curve the milk" to hit their targets. But never fear; although Derek Haas and Michael Brandt's script is about animals, it's probably not about cows.