Alex Pettyfer’s recent dismissive and derogatory comments about the town which keeps him in employment appear not to have had a negative effect on his career. The I Am Number Four star with not one, but two high-profile projects in the works.

First up is the lead in Steven Soderbergh’s (thought he was retiring?) comedy drama about a young, struggling actor who moonlights as a stripper to make ends meet, whilst he pursues his career (based on the real-life exploits of co-star Channing Tatum no less!).

He’s also being lined-up to appear alongside Matthew Goode (Watchmen) in action adventure Overdrive, where the two will play brothers who specialise in thieving cars, and embark on a mission which takes them to the South of France. With scripting duties by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (Wanted, 3-10 to Yuma), the film will be produced by Taken helmer, Pierre Morel

In light of that now infamous interview with VMAN (where amongst other industry disses and tawdry personal details, he remarks that Hollywood is a “shit-hole”), Pettyfer seems impervious to the effects of self-induced career suicide, which would suggest that in the land of showbiz you can’t keep a good ego down, regardless to how grotesque it presents itself.

News via The Hollywood Reporter and Collider

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Taken director Pierre Morel appears to have his sights set on the Sam Raimi and Bill Block-produced sci-fi action adventure EDF.

EDF (Earth Defence Force) is based on a script from Air Force One scribe Andrew Marlowe and follows the efforts of a government-created space fighting force which is put together to defend an already weakened Earth against a second attack by an approaching alien horde.

Morel was attached to the new adaptation of Dune for a while, and the studio even went as far as having the existing script rewritten to match his vision of the project. Maybe the demands of trying to bring such a dense and complex book back to the big screen proved too big a challenge.

EDF certainly sounds like a purer, more action-orientated genre piece than that of Frank Herbert’s famed 1965 novel.

The journey from page to screen for popular works of fiction has always proved a challenging one, and classic sci-fi tale Dune is no exception.

Deadline is reporting that Paramount (the studio who currently has the rights to Frank Herbert’s best-selling novel) will be done with the material by next spring if it hasn’t managed to begin production by then.

It’s been a long and winding road for past filmmakers who have attempted to adapt the seminal sci-fi tale. Both nutty South American visionary Alejandro Jodorowsky and pre-Blade Runner Ridley Scott were attached to different versions before David Lynch brought it to the big screen in 1984. The film was both a critical and box-office failure (although it has since developed somewhat of a cult reputation).

The material has been strong enough to encourage a TV miniseries and sequels a couple of years back, and since being picked up by Paramount almost four years ago, various directors such as Peter Berg and Pierre Morel have had a stab at bringing it back.

There is now a new draft of the script written by newcomer Chase Palmer which the studio and producers intend on shopping around in a last attempt to attract any potential directors.

Here’s hoping someone can finally deliver a film version which stays faithful to the original source material.

After cameoing in such films as Paranormal Activity and The Skeleton Key, it looks as though the humble Ouija board is ready for its turn in the limelight.

Part of the baffling decision to adapt numerous board games for the big screen, the Ouija board is relatively light on narrative backstory compared to fellow efforts Stretch Armstrong and Monopoly. With Battleship having to employ aliens to pad out the running time and earn the considerable $200 million budget, you have to wonder what  transformations will inevitably befall this particular game – which has players ask questions of a ‘mystifying oracle’ to which alleged answers are spelled out with a triangular gamepiece. Riveting.

With Platinum Dunes behind the project – and a supernatural reputation – you could be forgiven for thinking Ouija had ‘traditional horror movie’ written all over it. Not so, apparently, with Taken’s Pierre Morel tipped to direct –  and numerous ’Lost’ alumni writing – the project will more of an action-adventure feature than a traditional horror. Nobody wants to be typecast, after all.

With the L. A. Times likening the film’s proposed direction to National Treasure, I can’t help myself hoping for something a little more Jumanji. What would you like to see from Ouija?

The latest action movie to be released by Warner Home Video is that of From Paris with Love which stars John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The movie centers around Meyer’s character, James Reece who is doing everything he to become a secret agent. He enters a fast track when he meets his new partner, Wax, a CIA veteran who shows him ‘how things are done’!

Synopsis: Living an enviable life in Paris, James Reece (Meyers) works as a personal aide to U.S. Ambassador. Unsatisfied and desperate for a taste of the real action Reece snaps up the chance to take on his first real CIA mission. Partnered with wisecracking and trigger-happy special agent Charlie Wax (Travolta) in a race to stop deadly terrorists, his action fantasy fast becomes a living nightmare.

Thrust into the violent Parisian underworld, Reece finds himself in the ultimate fight for his life against the highly dangerous crime ring they’re trying to bust. In an electrifying showdown, it seems that brash, straight-talking agent Wax might be Reece’s only hope for making it through the next forty-eight hours alive…

From Paris with Love kept me entertained throughout. The storyline was nothing that we hadn’t seen before but the action sequences and creativity in the direction really did stand out from director, Pierre Morel (Taken; The Transporter). Jonathan Rhys Meyers managed to pull of his American accent for most of the movie and John Travolta plays pretty much the same character that he did in Pelham 123 except in this, he’s the good guy!

If you like action, cheesy one liners, good fight sequences, a pretty good twisting story and John Travolta kicking some butt, then this one is probably for you!

BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• Making-Of Documentary
• Music video
• Interview w/ John Travolta
• Interview w/ Director Pierre Morel
• Interview Michel Julienne, Stunt Coordinator

From Paris with Love is released today on Blu-ray, DVD, On Demand and Digital Download.

DVD Trailer

Earlier this year we reported on the news that Pierre Morel would be taking Dune back to the big screen. I say back as David Lynch adapted Frank Herbet’s influential novel in 1983. Sadly that adaptation did not go well with Lynch eventually deciding to remove his name from the film (it was released as an Alan Smithee film).

I don’t have particularly high hopes for Morel’s version of Dune based on the films he has made so far but perhaps he will bring something to the project that we have not yet seen in his previous work. I’m still hoping that one day Alejandro Jodorowsky will return to his abandoned Dune adaptation although the chances of this are pretty close to zero.

Although there are a lot of flaws in Lynch’s Dune I have always had a soft spot for the film. First seeing it as a child I was blown away by the strange visuals and the intensity of some of the scenes. That said, it did not get close to the heights that it should of done considering the talented cast and crew.

One talented cast member who worked on the film was Sean Young and she recently posted some behind the scenes footage she shot on Super 8. You can watch this footage below which comes from her Youtube channel. She apparently has about thirty minutes more footage so keep an eye out for it there if you like the video below.

Big, bad and bald. John Travolta is taking no prisoners is his latest, From Paris With Love, and by the looks of the new poster, revealed today by Empire, Pierre Morel is gearing up for this one to be one big bang after another.

I recently watched Taken and disregarding the blurry, frantic flashback cliche it was a solid action film, with Neeson a Jack Baueresque hard man.

This film, with its rom-com title looks to be continuing that trend and we’ll be lucky if Paris has any monuments left once the film is over.

Take a look below.

A brand new red-band trailer has been released for From Paris with Love which stars John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers courtsey of BeyondHollywood.com. It’s directed by Pierre Morel who is tipped to direct the Dune.

From Paris with Love should be with us 5th March and after seeing this red band trailer, I’m not looking forward to seeing it more than I was before!

Check it out below.

Bringing Frank Herbert’s Dune to the big screen has proved consistently problematic, not least how to condense the epic spice swiping saga into an audience friendly running time but finding the right creative team is always a challenge – if David Lynch can’t do it then I don’t know who can…

Paramount Pictures think they have found their man though, according to Variety, as Peter Berg, who had been developing Dune for a while, has left the project to film his war drama Lone Survivor (as well as the bizarre adaptation of the board game Battleship – with aliens…) with Universal and to fill the hole Paramount have elected Taken director Pierre Morel to bring the world of Arrakis to life.

Josh Zetumer’s script will be given a fresh coat of paint to bring it in line with Morel’s vision, but given the weight of expectation and sheer density of Herbert’s world it will take a screenwriter of considerable talent to make it work. Morel’s latest, From Paris with Love, is turning heads with its new trailer, and should build on his reputation for fast moving action thrillers – hardly the same as a swirling space saga, but Morel is a big Dune fan which is an absolute necessity for any adaptation of this seminal work.

A new, second full-length trailer for John Travolta’s ‘From Paris With Love’ has been released on Apple. The movie is directed by Pierre Morel who has just been anounced will be directing Dune. From Paris with Love also stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Amber Rose Revah and Melissa Mars.

The short plotline says: In Paris, a young employee in the office of the US Ambassador hooks up with an American spy looking to stop a terrorist attack in the city.

From Paris with Love is scheduled for release 5th March 2010 so not too long before the mayhem begins! Watch it below or head over to Apple to view in HD.

French movie website, EuropaCorp have released two new teaser trailers for Pierre Morel’s upcoming action film From Paris with Love, starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

There are a number of films being released in 2010 which I am very much looking forward to, and this is definitely one of them. Although I am a fan of John Travolta, the main reason I want to watch this film is because of the director/producer partnership of Pierre Morel and Luc Besson. The duo have previously made District 13 and Taken, and although both movies were weak in certain areas, they were two of the most entertaining action films of the past decade. Whilst the action genre in Hollywood has suffered greatly in recent times as the major studios have pushed for watered-down, family friendly action movies, these two French filmmakers have helped fill the void for entertaining, balls to the wall, action mayhem the likes of which we used to see from Hollywood a long time ago.

Synopsis: A young embassy worker, Richard Stevens (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and an FBI special agent, Charlie Wax (John Travolta), cross paths while working on a high-risk mission in Paris.

Watch the new teaser trailers now below or view the theatrical trailer that we’ve previously posted here.

From Paris with Love is set for release on February 5 2010 in the USA, February 25 in Australia, and March 5 in the UK.

Two new posters have been debuted for John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers new movie, From Paris with Love on CraveOnline. It’s directed by Pierre Morel who previously brought us Taken starring Liam Neeson which did surprisingly well at the box office.

It’s set to be released 12th March in the UK and it looks like we might see a different side to Travolta in what looks like his comedy action role. If you’ve not seen it, check out the trailer which I posted a while ago and then click the images below to enlarge.

Synopsis: A low-ranking intelligence operative (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) working in the office of the U.S. Ambassador in France takes on more than he bargained for when he partners with a wisecracking, fast-shooting, high-ranking U.S. agent (John Travolta) who’s been sent to Paris to stop a terrorist attack.

Here’s the new trailer for John Travolta’s latest movie, ‘From Paris with Love’ in which, he comes equipped with a giant tash! From the title, it sounds like it’s going to be a lovey dovey story but after you watch the trailer and view the rocket launcher on his shoulder, you’ll realise it’s actually a full blown action movie! It’s directed by Pierre Morel and also stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak and Richard Durden.

Synopsis: A low-ranking intelligence operative working in the office of the U.S. Ambassador in France takes on more than he bargained for when he partners with a wisecracking, fast-shooting, high-ranking U.S. agent who’s been sent to Paris to stop a terrorist attack.