George Clooney, Paul Greengrass Plot Crime Thriller
Greengrass will direct and produce the project along with Clooney and Grant Heslov, with writer Chris Terrio. Clooney will star in the project which re-teams some of the main figures behind Argo, Variety reports.

Angela Bassett Joins Gregg Araki's White Bird in a Blizzard
She joins Gabourey Sidibe and will play Dr. Thaler in the indie drama about a young woman whose life spins out control when her mother disappears, Deadline reports.

Humphrey Bogart Film Festival to Host Film Noir
And, of course, a parade of Humphrey Bogart films are also on tap for the event taking place - naturally - in Key Largo, FL. The inaugural edition will be held on May 2-5, 2013.  The festival will be hosted by Stephen Humphrey Bogart, the son of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and will feature preeminent film historian and critic Leonard Maltin.

China Box Office Expected to Surpass U.S. by 2020
China has already surpassed Japan as the number 2 movie market. It's media and entertainment industry is expected to grow 17% annually through 2015, Deadline reports.

Hamptons International Film Festival Appoints New Head
Longtime advisor Anne Chaisson has been named the festival's new Executive Director. She has been an advisory co-chair since 2003. Director of Programming David Nugent, meanwhile, has been promoted to Artistic Director at the organization.

I'd like to officially welcome back James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, & Nicholas Hoult to #XMEN for #DaysOfFuturePast

— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) November 27, 2012

Thrilled to announce @ianmckellen118 & @sirpatstew are joining the cast of #XMEN #DaysOfFuturePast #magneto #professorX More to come...

— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) November 27, 2012

This should be exciting for X-Men fans, who've seen the comic book franchise flit around timelines and younger/older versions of the same characters since Singer's X-Men spawned a film universe of spin-offs and standalone superhero pics. This synopsis for X-Men: Days of Future Past explains how two Professor Xs and Magnetos can co-exist in the same film (via The Film Stage):

The storyline alternates between present day, in which the X-Men fight Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and a future timeline caused by the X-Men’s failure to prevent the Brotherhood from assassinating Senator Robert Kelly. In this future universe, Sentinels rule the United States, and mutants live in internment camps. The present-day X-Men are forewarned of the possible future by a future version of their teammate Kitty Pryde, whose mind traveled back in time and possessed her younger self to warn the X-Men.

It's a familiar tale to fans of the X-Men comic; the dystopian alternate future saga of Days of Future Past was a hugely popular storyline, adapted memorably in the animated X-Men series in episodes featuring the time-traveling Bishop. The original comic storyline featured Kitty Pryde in the pivotal time-traveling role; is it too much to hope for Ellen Page reprising her X3 character to bring the entire X-Men film franchise full circle? (Probably.)

X-Men: Days of Future Past is being scripted by Simon Kinberg, aiming for a July 18, 2014 release — excited, X-fans?

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Around the 'net…

Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton and Jacki Weaver Join JFK Drama Parkland
The drama centers on the chaotic events that occurred at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on the day that JFK was assassinated Tom Hanks is producing, Collider reports.

Gerard Butler Joins Dynamo
The story is based on the landmark soccer game that took place between an occupied Ukrainian soccer team and their Nazi occupiers during WWII. Butler will play Nikolai Trusevich, the all-star goalie who served as a leader for the team and inspired the war-ravaged city of Kiev. Dynamo will shoot in 2013 in Europe, Deadline reports.

Josh Duhamel Eyes Hilary Swank, Emmy Rossum in You're Not You
Duhamel is in negotiations to star in the drama, which tells the story of a self-absorbed college student who undergoes a life change when she begins a part-time job taking care of a woman (Swank) who has Lou Gehrig's disease. George C. Wolfe (Nights in Rodanthe) is directing, THR reports.

Bryan Singer to Direct X-Men
Singer will return to the franchise he helped launch. He'll direct X-Men: Days of Future Past, the next installment of 20th Century Fox's superhero series. Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence will return. Fox hopes to make the July 18, 2014 release date it set for the sequel, Deadline reports.

Singer directed 2000's X-Men and 2003's X2 to great commercial success before handing over the reigns to Brett Ratner for X-3: The Last Stand, but he remained onboard the franchise as Vaughn stepped up to direct First Class, which he produced. He'll also produce Days of Future Past, which is set to bring back stars Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Jennifer Lawrence and already has a release date of July 18, 2014.

At this point Singer is uniquely invested in the X-Men franchise, and now that he's done with Jack The Giant Killer he'll turn his attentions back to the mutant comic book adaptation series. While he's a safe choice for the directing gig, his last superhero outing, however, was the disappointing Superman Returns. Thoughts, Movieliners?

[Deadline]

Around the 'net…

Twilight Finale Tracking Like a Monster Hit
Breaking Dawn Par - 2 is running 16% ahead of Part - 1's breakneck pace. It is outpacing Skyfall in terms of awareness. Summit is hoping to outpace the $138.1 million opening weekend grossed by Part 1, Deadline reports.

Adam Sandler's Comedic Western Moves from Sony to Paramount
The film, which was in development at Sony, is said to be an untitled comedic Western and likely will follow the Grown-Ups sequel that opens in July 2013. Sandler's last few movies haven't reached mega-grosser status — June's R-rated That's My Boy grossed just $57 million worldwide for Sony, THR reports.

Matthew Vaughn Not Taking On X-Men: First Class 2
Speculation is that Bryan Singer will direct the 20th Century Fox spinoff after Vaughn decided not to direct the sequel. Singer launched the X-Men franchise with the first two films, Deadline reports.

Jill Scott Boards Fox Searchlight's Baggage Claim
The Grammy-winning new should singer-songwriter will star in Baggage Claim along side Paula Patton and Derek Luke. The rom-com will be directed by David E. Talbert who also penned the script. Patton will play Montana Moore, a flight attendant who tries to find a man before her sister's upcoming wedding. Scott will play Gail Best, Moore's blunt best friend and coworker. The pic will open next year, Reuters reports.

(Fun, but I do wonder why the folks at What's Trending don't show Singer any Superman Returns and Valkryie parodies. Because, oh yes, they do exist.)

[What's Trending]

The Seabiscuit director knows the benefit of riding in a winner and not switching horses midstream. Ross lobbied hard to get The Hunger Games and turned it into the biggest hit of his directing career. Before that, he developed several serious historical dramatic projects under his deal at Universal that didn’t get off the ground. Staying for a sure-fire hit and a sequel that audiences actually want to see makes a lot of sense for Ross, particularly given how active the filmmaker has been in the construction of Catching Fire.

Hmm. OK? I mean, of course Ross reportedly backed out on creative and professional terms (whatever), which, if we were to take at face value, would imply that the Catching Fire upside isn't all it's cracked up to be. But since we don't take things at face value — particularly after a third consecutive number-one weekend at the box office — let David Poland walk you through the prospective, dizzying economics of it all:

[F]or the director/co-writer of four films to be paid, at best, 2.5% of the NET revenues on a franchise like this does not seem excessive or abusively demanding. [...] And if Gary Ross has to settle for 5 years of his professional life going for $20 million… $25 million… well… ya know… he’d have a legacy… he might improve as a director (he’s a decent director, but still a writer first)… he’d have the career lesson of a steady, defined gig, and the money doesn’t exactly suck.

In an industry of few sure things, one thing is sure. We know that [Lionsgate] is NOT going to lose money on paying Gary Ross $40 million for the next 3 films. Step up. Stop being greedy pigs. Do it like the grown up studios. And get on with it already.

Yeah! Like, now, because as you might have heard, Jennifer Lawrence has an X-Men sequel to shoot:

[S]ources say the filmmaker is concerned about an ambitious production schedule that would require shooting to begin in August so that star Jennifer Lawrence can complete her work before she is due to start filming a sequel to Fox's X-Men: First Class in January. [...] Since Fox's deal with Lawrence predates her contract for Hunger Games, X-Men is in a priority position. With the script for the second Hunger Games not yet locked, that means all preparations for a sequel would have to be done in four months -- a tough schedule to meet.

What ever will happen? (Hint: Ross will get paid, and happy fans will go on to push The Hunger Games franchise into a $3 billion juggernaut.) Stay tuned...

[Deadline, The Hot Blog, THR]

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The fairytale action subgenre gets another entry next summer when Bryan Singer’s CG-fantasy take on the Jack and the Beanstalk tale hits screens, with fresh-scrubbed Nicholas Hoult in the lead. That officially makes it “from the director of X-Men,” starring that one kid who was in that other X-Men movie — no, not X2. Or X3. The other one. Get your flaming tree catapults and Jurassic Park moment after the jump in the new trailer for Jack the Giant Killer.

Hoult stars as Jack, a lowly farmhand bequeathed with a handful of special bean who pays no mind to the age-old adage “Beans, beans, the magical fruit…” He gets them wet and soon enough there are ginormous stalks of green shooting through the floorboards to heaven — or, giant-heaven, where enormous beings live. These beings, however, are to be feared; we know this because their CG-composed feet squish ominously in the mud like Tyrannosaur toes on Isla Nublar. I imagine rousing adventure follows in ye olde storybook adventure style, complete with evil scheming humans (Stanley Tucci is… somewhere, supposedly!) and valiant palace guards (Oh hey, Ewan McGregor).

Alas, I can’t quite get excited for this given the uber-vanilla vibe it exudes, fancy CG beanstalks and soaring crane shots or no. Hoult may be, in fact, too fresh-faced to root for; I get shades of Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust from this trailer, and that’s not a good thing.

Plus? It was filmed in 3-D (on a RED camera), so expect beanstalk shoots and swords and whatnot to zip out at your eyeballs to boot.

The upside: It was written partly by scribe Christopher McQuarrie, who penned The Usual Suspects for director Singer.

The downside: McQuarrie and Singer also teamed up on Valkryie. So, yeah…

Verdict: Cracking in a bland pre-teen fairytale kind of way, but I need more danger! More grime! More excitement! More (or any) Tucci! In the least, more cats.

[view high res video at Apple]

· Next time you think acting on a big-budget film is nothing but free Starbucks and waiting around for effects shots to be set up, think of Jennifer Lawrence. For her part as Mystique in X-Men: First Class, the future Katniss Everdeen had to stand around practically naked for seven hours while a team of make-up artists painted her blue. Now that’s commitment to the craft! Click through to watch, then stick around for more Buzz Break.

[via Awards Daily]

· Vulture points you to a weird-ish story about Anne Hathaway’s dad interacting with an unhappy critic when his daughter was working on Get Real. [Vulture]

· Watch Movieline’s fall preview queen Jessica Chastain wax poetic about Tree of Life director Terrence Malick. The film hits Blu-ray and DVD on Oct. 11. [EW]

· Twitch Film reported a rumor that Craig Gillespie had left Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but Shock Till You Drop says it isn’t true; per Lionsgate, Gillespie is still onboard. Womp, womp. [Twitch Film]

· BuzzSugar asks the always important question: What’s your favorite line from This Is Spinal Tap? [Buzz Sugar]

Marvel Studios founder (and former toy inventor) Avi Arad has built an empire out of the superhero business, having produced everything from the Blade films to the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Hulk, Iron Man, and Spider-Man films and the upcoming Andrew Garfield-starring reboot, not to mention the 2012 superhero superfilm The Avengers. Needless to say, there was a ton to discuss and not nearly enough time when Movieline caught up with Arad at Comic-Con right before Sony’s Hall H panel for The Amazing Spider-Man.

With decades of comic book adaptations under his belt, Arad is something of the grandfather of modern-day superhero movie, having tried time and again to adapt classic Marvel superheroes for television and film. Somewhere around a decade ago, he happened on the formula for success with Blade (1998) and X-Men (2000), two films that launched the popularization of the genre and taught Arad how to fine-tune his approach as geek culture moved to the fore.

Now, the youth-oriented pursuits that always captivated Arad (toys, games, comics) have become dominant in the pop cultural landscape. Movieline chatted with the gentle-voiced super producer about his toy-making past, his disappointment over the Bratz movie, how X-Men taught him how to handle the sprawling, planned Avengers film franchise, why he connects to Ghost in the Shell but couldn’t figure out how to film Akira, and the status of his hunt for a Mass Effect director.

[Shaking hands, Arad marvels at my grip] How are you?
I shook hands with a girl who plays the violin. I couldn’t believe it. “Wow,” I said. “How did you do that?” She said, “I play the violin.” You think about it, you hold your hands like that for an hour, just holding? Good luck.

She must also be fiercely determined to be the kind of person who could hold up her arms for hours and hours.
That’s why [Rafael] Nadal’s such a good player. Someone had this cruel joke to say, “I think you’ll play with the left.” And it makes you think of your skill all the time.

It’s kind of perfect to speak to you here at Comic-Con, the place where comic books and toys and film and pop culture have collided and become huge.
I’ll tell you, I look at it as I’m a grandfather now, so I understand the feeling. I look at the growth of Comic-Con and almost domination of our kind of IP, the genre — it gives me tremendous satisfaction because it was very hard when we started. People didn’t get it. They said, “Comics are for kids!”, and the people who did know said, “Well, comics are not for kids.” Everyone had a reason why not, and then Blade came around, and wow. I can’t believe this movie did so well! That was a long time ago.

Do you consider Blade the turning point in today’s popularization of comic book movies?
I think Blade was the first time, yeah. And then X-Men, and even Spider-Man wasn’t easy to sell. If you remember, there was a period where Marvel kind of went away quietly. A friend of mine sold it for not a big number to another guy, and I was too young to understand this game. Otherwise, oh man.

You still got on board fairly early, considering. Not only into developing comic books into movies, but video games, toys… How did you know back then that this was the future? What were your instincts?
Well, I started as a toy inventor. That was my first career. I invented a lot of toys — cars, guns… It’s hard to gauge your age, but at one time or another you may have had a Skip-It. So, I invented the Skip-It.

Yes! You invented the Skip-It? You’re kidding.
I kid you not.

That gave me hours of enjoyment as a child, so thank you.
I did a lot of cars, but my specialty, the thing I liked the most, were dolls and robots. So I did My Pretty Ballerina, and the one you’re definitely know is Rollerblade Baby from Mattel… I did so many dolls, and now I still delve into it because I love it.

You did the Bratz movie as well.
Yeah, the Bratz movie — oof, we got stuff from the parents, and they didn’t even see it! In England it did better than in the U.S.

Why do you think that is?
I believe that because of the lawsuit, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was PR activity to tell parents, “Don’t go see the Slutz.” And kids loved it! They loved it, because we had screenings and so on. I remember Barbie was parents’ enemy number one, and that’s what made it successful — that’s why Bratz was so successful. So you go from toys to animation, animation to film and so on. It evolved, being a total ADD, it helps to move from subject to subject. Otherwise it would have been challenging. And I love all of it, so it’s like, hey — in the middle of the day if I want to do something about a toy line or have an animated show, it’s like I have to keep myself busy.

When you talk about it, you make it sound like the possibilities are endless.
It is! It is literally boundless, endless. I wanted to do a manga, so this year I introduced a manga called The Innocent that’s coming out of Yen Press. In France it’s already out and doing terrific, and in Japan. It was written in English, translated into Japanese. So I get now, it’s a different responsibility when you’re CEO of a company plus watching over production with Kevin [Feige] and Ari [Arad]. Basically, the three of us have to control an abundance of superhero movies.

I recently spoke with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely about the challenges of integrating their Captain America film into the greater Avengers film plans. How hard is it for you to keep a handle on what will happen in that universe, in film? How do you figure it out when you’re sorting out multiple superhero stories which might all have their own sequels, and connecting them into that larger story?
Well, it takes some careful architecture but in its core it’s natural. First, the people — the superpowers, the uniforms, are all metaphors for a lot more than that. But it’s a team. A team of people who, maybe some of them believe in the same thing, maybe all believe in the same thing, but they all have different ways of going about it. And then they’re human beings, so they compete, they dislike, they get hurt, they fall in love… so as long as the actors feel that they’re excited and they have enough to do. X-Men was the best teacher. I love the X-Men, that’s still my favorite. This is where you learn how to do group therapy, if you will! That’s what the Avengers are. It’s a bunch of people who have superpowers, and as we know, powers can bring as much angst as wish-fulfillment. They have to somehow get along to save the world. You’d be amazed how tough it is to get along when you have a bunch of strong people, who each one believes their way is the right way. So it’s not as complicated as writing an X-Men.

You mentioned your manga, and I’m curious about another of your projects with Eastern ties. How do you envision Ghost in the Shell translating, perhaps compared to other films like the Akira project?
I think the thing that always attracted me to Ghost in the Shell was that it was universal. Even the characters within it are universal. It’s not Western, it’s not Asian, it’s just characters. The philosophy of, “I think, therefore I am,” and where does it stop — how is technology going to affect us, is that going to be a new society where the have and have-nots are going to suffer again, but this time because I cannot afford the technology? I think it’s one of the most amazing books ever. Akira, I couldn’t crack it. I tried. I looked at it… I just felt it wasn’t a philosophical, worldly issue that is going to haunt us, because we are moving very fast to change our own bodies, our own abilities.

That, to me, is where Ghost in the Shell is, just the philosophy, is scary. If I cyberize my kid and you don’t cyberize your kid, they cannot go to the same school. There’s no chance. On the plus side — I don’t know if it’s a plus side, but — you can live for a long time. I don’t think society is made for that anyhow. I have a 90-year-old dad who is not well, but every time I look at him I think, “90 — I don’t want to be here at 90.” So think that I can be here at 110 with all this new stuff… I don’t know, how do you provide for that? No one’s going to hire people at 110, so what are you going to do? [Laughs] Ghost in the Shell touched on so many social issues, moral issues. Obviously it will always be the big corporation that finds a way to… think about the iPod, which can look back at you and report back.

Scary.
It’s scary — but it can be done!

What’s next immediately for you?
One of the things that I’m doing, that I started two years ago, is what I did with comic books to film but with video games to film.

Including the Mass Effect film, which I saw presented at Comic-Con.
Mass Effect is one, Uncharted is another, inFamous…

Video games seem to have more of an uphill battle when it comes to being adapted to film, in that historically they haven’t performed very well.
Because they haven’t been done right!

Why do you think that is?
There were comic-book movies made before Batman 1 and 2. You had Dick Donner with Superman, and then it went away. Because in the meanwhile, someone made some shitty movies and it ended up killing it. So until now, the video game-to-film business didn’t work. There were a couple of them that I was hoping for, but it takes one to break. Today, games are quite cinematic, and they’re about something. It’s fun, a first person shooter, but if you can find something about the story that is entertaining — like, Uncharted is just pure entertainment — and you figure out the way to make it in a different way, I think it’s going to be a big hit. Mass Effect is one of the greatest [games]; again, there is a philosophical issue around it — what brought us here? Is there a God? There are a lot of interesting questions about Mass Effect, and I think moviegoers are ready to get a little serious. It’s OK, especially when the fun is still there.

Do you have directors you’ve already been talking to?
We don’t want to do that because we are days away from a script, and the way to get a director is to give them something to read. Otherwise, you cannot interview them — it’s not like, ‘Hey, what ice cream do you like?’ [Laughs] They have to read it and give us a vision.

Find more of Movieline’s Comic-Con coverage here.