With Universal passing on Ron Howard’s adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ this past summer, due to its large budget, producer Brian Grazer has cut the production costs by $45-50 million, Collider is reporting. Howard, Grazer and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman worked to lower the budget all summer for the project, which would feature a film trilogy and a TV series. While promoting the upcoming ‘Tower Heist,’ Grazer said “We found a way to cut out $45 million out of the budget (for ‘The Dark Tower’) without changing the scope and actually giving it a good ending.” He added that with the original $140 million budget, the “ending wasn’t quite…

Think about how many new movies hit the big screen a weekend. Must be a lot of films in the works at once, right? Most certainly and this edition of the Movie News Cheat Sheet is a testament to that. We’ve got a handful of casting updates including the possibility of Joseph Gordon-Levitt joining Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained as well as news that Steven Soderbergh might have finally found his Man from U.N.C.L.E., Bradley Cooper. Word also arrived that MGM might pick up Eminem’s Southpaw after the production was dropped by DreamWorks while Universal moves forward with its Battlestar Galactica feature by hiring a writer. But, of course, we’ve also…

The Town director Ben Affleck has been tapped by Warner Brothers to adapt and direct Stephen King’s The Stand according to reports from the always reliable Deadline. Although he has yet to officially accept the offer (per Collider), Affleck is apparently the newest helmer attached for the difficult task. Previously, David Yates of Harry Potter fame was rumored to be taking on The Stand with writer Steve Kloves. Meanwhile, details on whether movie heads plan to adapt The Stand into a franchise isn’t clear. Currently Affleck, who also gained notoriety for his work with Gone Baby Gone, is working on the movie Argo with writers George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and…

The Wrap has broke the news that the adaption of Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ series if officially a no-go. The once promising project, that included three movies and a television series, was cancelled by Universal without comment. Since last year the studio giant did make attempts to contain the pricey production, cutting costs here and there, but without success some are saying, which possibly led to the Dark Towers franchise coming to a close. At this point no-one is talking about the failed adaption, leaving fans with only assumptions and hope that someone else will want to tackle the hefty project. When the Stephen King series was first announced…

While the Movie News Cheat Sheet is generally geared towards brightening up your work or school week with the best in movie news, this time around, utilizing the info will be that much more fun as you’ve still got a whole day left of the weekend. When your mouth isn’t full with Memorial Day BBQ fare, you’ll have all the latest in film news to keep the conversation flowing. Of course everyone will be talking about the hottest thing in theaters this weekend, The Hangover Part II, but you can take it one step further by learning the stats in the Box Office section of the piece. And how about…

This is probably the most ambitious movie project since Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of The Rings” Trilogy. Universal is looking to develop Stephen King’s widely popular book series “The Dark Tower” into a movie trilogy AND two seasons of TV, in-between each movie . This project will take a lot of commitment from production crews, actors, filmmakers and studios. Ron Howard is developing these projects and is looking to direct, at least, the first movie in the series. On the TV production side, it looks like most likely, the TV series will head to NBC (or its cable network) since it’s part of Universal. My guess would be NBC, I…

Screenwriter Matthew Greenberg is on board to adapt another Stephen King story for the big screen, The Hollywood Reporter announced on March 4. Greenberg, who penned the screenplay for the 2007 hit ’1408′ with John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, is now set to write the movie remake of King’s novel ‘Pet Sematary.’ Paramount Pictures is releasing the movie, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced ’1408,’ and Steven Schneider set to produce. ‘Pet Sematary’ was at one point going to be produced by Alphaville, with Mike Werb and Michael Colleary from ‘Face/Off’ fame set to write. George Clooney was also rumored to be attached to star. But Greenberg has officially…

Matt Greenberg, who co-wrote the adaptation of the Stephen King story “1408″ and starred John Cusack,is working on an updated adaptation of of King’s famous work “Pet Sematary,” which was previously adapted to film in 1989. Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Steven Schneider are producing the film for Paramount. The book’s synopsis reads; “The road in front of Dr. Louis Creed’s rural Maine home frequently claims the lives of neighborhood pets. Louis has recently moved from Chicago to Ludlow with his wife Rachel, their children and pet cat. Near their house, local children have created a cemetery for the dogs and cats killed by the steady stream of transports on the…

One of the television developments from last year that garnered attention from horror fans was the news that the AMC network wanted to create a series based on Robert Kirkman’s zombie comic series The Walking Dead. The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision Blog has now announced that the network has ordered a pilot for the show, which almost certainly guarantees that the show will be picked up to become a full series. AMC claims it has a 100 percent track record of turning every pilot it picks up into a series. Interest in the series also grew when it was announced that Frank Darabont, who has directed such Stephen King-based films…

Mandalay Pictures has optioned the rights to bring the upcoming novel “Horns,” penned by Stephen King’s son, novelist Joe Hill, to life on the big-screen. The book is about a 26-year-old man who wakes up one morning after blacking out during an all-night drinking binge to find a pair of horns sprouting from his head. The horns seem to grow more every day, and are somehow tied into the unsolved murder of his girlfriend. The book will be published by William Morrow in February of 2010. No other news has been announced about the adaptation’s production. Stay tuned for more “Horns” news right here at Shockya.com. By Costa Koutsoutis (Source:…