08.21.08: Lucas Eyes Jackson For 'Red Tails', 'Poltergeist' Reboot Launched, 'Wolverine' In Turmoil?

Samuel L. Jackson has revealed to IGN that George Lucas has him in the frame to direct his long-in-development World War 2 action-drama Red Tails, about the exploits of a squadron of African-American military flyers known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Jackson’s got a history with Lucas after playing Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequels and reveals that Lucas sent him John Ridley’s latest Tails draft a couple of weeks ago. “At one point Lucas was asking me if I’d ever want to direct anything. I said, ‘I don’t know, man. I’m trying to find things.’ He said, ‘Well, let me send you this thing. Maybe you might want to direct it.’” And…? “I don’t know. I don’t have a year and a half of my life where I wanna stop acting.”

Poltergeist Remake Planned
With horror classics so frequently tilled up for reboot treatment these days, it was only a matter of time before somebody dug up the 1982 ghost-story classic Poltergeist. Sure enough, MGM has assigned fright-specialists Stiles White and Juliet Snowden (also behind the forthcoming resurrection of Hitchcock’s The Birds) to have a crack at the screenplay, although neither original director Tobe Hooper or producer-co-writer (and the film’s real director, according to Hollywood legend) Steven Spielberg are involved. More at Variety

Bond Book Not Fit For 007
Author Sebastian Faulks’ James Bond novel Devil May Care was released earlier this year to commemorate Bond originator Ian Fleming’s 100th birthday, but despite ratcheting up millions in sales, it’s been swiftly rejected by Eon Productions as a potential big-screen outing for their reborn super-spy. 007 franchise supremos Barbara Broccoli and her stepbrother Michael G. Wilson have ruled out buying the novel's movie rights, leaving it in limbo for the foreseeable future. According to Broccoli, it was the ‘60s setting that put them off because it doesn't gel with their modern-day reboots Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace. Which probably is stretching the truth a bit considering how easily they decade-jumped with Fleming's Royale. More at Variety

Wolverine In Trouble?
According to web scuttlebutt, all is not well on the Down Under set of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Fox chieftain Tom Rothman is trying to override the creative direction of Gavin Hood (who directed the excellent South African drama Tsotsi) by casting a more family-friendly hue on the X-project. In one reputed incident, Hood returned from a brief stint away to find that one of his sets had been repainted to make it brighter and less sombre. Guess Fox and Rothman aren't so keen on the "dark side", despite The Dark Knight's world-conquering exploits…

Radcliffe Talks Potter
Daniel Radcliffe took part in a New York Times Talk and Snitchseeker has posted a rundown of what the HP star talked about, including how he found out about Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince’s release date switcheroo 24 hours before the rest of the world...

Affleck Joins Extract
Ben Affleck is negotiating to play an ambulance-chasing lawyer in Mike Judge’s comedy Extract. The Office Space writer-director has already cast Jason Bateman as a flower extract factory owner dealing with a streak of bad luck, including his wife’s affair with a gigolo, and an accidental-injury suit filed by one of his workers (played by Clifton Collins Jr.)…