Jackie Earle Haley

I haven't seen more perfect casting than this in a long time: Jackie Earle Haley will replace Robert Englund in the role of Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Haley has played some mighty creepy roles in recent years, like the pedophile in the 2006 drama Little Children and eerie masked avenger Rorschach in Watchmen. Director Samuel Bayer even mentions Haley's work as Rorschach as specific reasoning for this casting:

"Looking at his performance in Watchmen, here’s a guy playing a character under a mask yet you feel tremendous empathy for him," said Bayer of the actor. "And in Nightmare, he is going to be under prosthetic makeup. You have to feel something for the character. The greatest villains are multi-dimensional and I think he will bring that to the character."

Bayer, who called this take of Krueger "Nosferatu meets Ed Gaines," is not afraid that Hayley is in any danger of being typecast the way Englund was. “It’s what you bring to the material. He’s a well-rounded actor who will not be stereotyped by this. If anything, he’ll be celebrated for it.”

Well, if they have to keep remaking movies, at least some of the casting is spot-on. I'm happy for Haley, as I think he could potentially play any number of creepy characters and I think he'll do justice to this classic role. What do you think of this news? Could Jackie Earle Haley be the stuff of nightmares?

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• Andrew McCarthy will play Lily's father in the Gossip Girl spinoff pilot. — The Hollywood Reporter
• Michael Jackson is set to perform 20 to 25 shows at London's O2 Arena. — Billboard
• Paramount Vantage and Comedy Central have jointly acquired the rights to Ghosts/Aliens, Trey Hamburger's supernatural comedy novel, and will develop as both a series and feature. — The Hollywood Reporter
• Steve Carell will star in and produce the comedy Hi-T, about a man dealing with uncontrollable mood swings after an injury forces him to take testosterone injections. — ComingSoon
• Universal is finalizing a deal for The Adjustment Bureau, a "contemporary love story with sci-fi overtones" that may feature Matt Damon in the lead role. — Variety
• U2 is on track to score its seventh no. 1 album next week on the Billboard 200 chart with No Line On the Horizon. — Billboard
• Bravo has renewed Shear Genius and picked up a series about fashion photographers. — TV Week
• 20th Century Fox has signed director Tom Dey to develop a big screen adaptation of the Marmaduke comic strip. — ComingSoon
• Jackie Earle Haley has been tapped to star alongside Chi McBride in Fox's drama pilot Human Target, based on the DC Comics title. — The Hollywood Reporter

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It's obviously difficult to adapt a beloved written (and, in this case, drawn) work for the big screen — and it’s downright impossible to make an adaptation that satisfies every viewer (or certainly every megafan). I truly enjoyed reading the comic book series Watchmen by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore, and having seen the film adaptation, I don't dislike it. It's probably the best we could have asked for as far as adaptations go. And I know it's useless now to say that the work should never have been brought to film in the first place (though I do feel that way), so now that it has been made into a movie, is it any good? From a fan's perspective I say, sure, it's fine. But I don't have any other perspective to go by.

I have no idea how this movie comes across to someone who has never read the comic book series. I can't even pretend to be unbiased about this — as a fan, just seeing these characters come to life is incredibly exciting. But as a standalone movie, I can admit that it's probably not great. Essentially, it's made for the fanboys (and fangirls) and other viewers may not understand or like it. It's campy, sometimes resembling a silly soap opera, and truthfully I am hard-pressed to remember any distinct images or scenes from the movie, just a few days after seeing it. It's certainly temporary entertainment, and for some it may be frustrating to watch. For more about the movie and my take, read more

Saturday at WonderCon started with a bang: Watchmen director Zack Snyder appeared before an extremely packed house along with his cast to reveal about 20 minutes of footage from the movie, including the opening credits.

The conversation was lively and the footage very exciting. Of course, I can't give my final opinion till I've seen the movie start to finish, but based on what I saw this weekend, it's hard for me to imagine this film stumbling too hard. I'm a huge fan of the graphic novel, so I may be a wee bit biased — though it's hard to tell if that would make me easier or harder on the film. I guess I'll know soon, but to see my thoughts on the panel and more details about the clips, read more

OK, I'll admit it: When I first saw the teaser trailer for Watchmen, I didn't really get it. I liked the look of it and I think the use of that Smashing Pumpkins song "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning" is inspired. But I didn't understand what was going on, unfamiliar as I was with the source material. Well, I decided to become familiar with the source material and now that I have, I'm a wee bit obsessed. To find out why and to see a new trailer, read more

I watched the trailer for Winged Creatures before I knew the full cast list. I already knew that it included Forrest Whitaker and Jennifer Hudson and was surprised to find a whole slew of other amazing actors involved, including Jackie Earle Haley, Guy Pearce, Kate Beckinsale, and Big Love's Jeanne Tripplehorn. In addition, there's Dakota Fanning as a real, live teenager — not a precocious little kid.

The plot reminds me a little bit of that ill-fated TV show The Nine (which probably should have just been a movie in the first place): "A group of strangers form a unique relationship with each other after surviving a random shooting at a Los Angeles diner."

The whole look and feel of the film is eerie, moving, and quite sad, not unlike the tone of Mystic River (but slightly less dark). There doesn't appear to be a release date yet for Winged Creatures, but I hope it comes out soon. To check out the trailer, read more