An official press release from Legendary Pictures last evening has announced that the development of the BioWare video game Mass Effect for the big screen is now underway.

Columbia Pictures has acquired the screen rights to “Maximum Ride,” the best-selling young adult novel by James Patterson.

Masamune Shirow’s well-traveled series Ghost in the Shell has just been optioned by Dreamworks to create a 3-D live-action film. Variety reports that uber-busy Steven Speilberg snatched the project from Universal and Sony Pictures and made it a priority of his to get the film at Dreamworks.