Merry Christmas, everyone! Now let’s cut off all our hair and sell it so our children can eat! Wait, is that not how you celebrate the holidays with your family? Too bad, it’s how we’re celebrating this year. With the news that Universal has pushed back their Les Miserables to open on Christmas Day, the rest of Hollywood (completely relatively speaking) has joined in and mixed up their release date schedules like so much calendar Cobb salad. Just when will we see Aaron Eckhart as a new wave monster and where is that The Rock-as-concerned-dad drug film we all need and what the hell is Battle of the Year? After the break, let’s dream some dreams with the new release dates for Les Mis, Snitch, No Good Deed, Battle of the Year, and I, Frankenstein.

Yesterday, our own Cole Abaius reported on the possibility of Bill Nighy joining Stuart Beattie‘s I, Frankenstein as a demon, but before we get official word of Nighy going evil, Deadline Manchester reports that Yvonne Strahovski has signed on to play the female lead and principal love interest in the film. Best known for her work on television series Chuck, the role will continue Strahovski’s steady slip into more feature work (she recently co-starred in Killer Elite). Beattie wrote the script for the modern take on the Frankenstein’s monster tale, working off a graphic novel by Kevin Grevioux. Aaron Eckhart is on board to play the monster (which any nerd worth their salt knows is not actually named Frankenstein, that name comes from the monster’s creator Dr. Victor Frankenstein, so I am at a bit of a loss when it comes to the name of this project), who wavers between his more hideous needs and a burning desire to be truly human. As if that wasn’t enough to make a monster go positively batty, he’s also being “pursued by demons wanting to gain the secret of his reanimated corpse.” Also? Those demons want to create an army of the undead. And I thought Mary Shelley’s novel had enough issues to keep the staggering one busy.

According to Variety, Bill Nighy is in talks to play another immortal-yet-aged being for I, Frankenstein. The movie is being written and directed by Stuart Beattie, the screenwriter behind the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which Nighy was a part of. This will be Beattie’s second feature as director after Tomorrow, When the War Began. A modernized version of Shelley’s story which sees Aaron Eckhart playing a centuries-old Frankenstein’s Monster is an abstract idea, but it should push Beattie more into the minds of American audiences as a director. So far, it’s also the furthest along in a slew of Frankenstein projects that have yet to be struck by lightning. As for Nighy, there’s nothing ever wrong with casting him, whether it be for a villainous demon or an aging rock star trying to mess up the lyrics to a Troggs song. Hopefully here, he plays both. I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my toes.

Kevin Grevioux is best known for creating the Underworld franchise, which tells the story of a centuries-old war between the vampires and the werewolves. He doesn’t just limit himself to writing about ancient vampires and werewolves though, it turns out he also has a penchant for writing about an immortal version of the Frankenstein monster. His graphic novel, I, Frankenstein is about a character named Adam, who is basically Dr. Frankenstein’s creation (who has survived to present day because of some genetic quirk inherent in his creation), going about his journeys and finding himself coming upon a stylized Gothic metropolis. After he arrives in said city, he finds himself caught between two immortal clans who have been warring for centuries. See? Kevin Grevioux writes about all sorts of things. The big news about I, Frankenstein is that it’s being adapted into a feature film. It has been adapted for the screen and will be directed by veteran genre screenwriter Stuart Beattie and, according to a press release sent out by Lionsgate, it will be starring Aaron Eckhart as the Adam character. Beattie says of the story, “Mary Shelley’s story is about the creation of the first human being. This is the story about that being becoming human.” Sounds like some pretty heady stuff. Luckily Lionsgate is confident that they’ve found the right actor to bring the character to life.

The effects designer turned director has chosen another project. Where does that leave I, Frankenstein? Still available in comic form, that’s where.

Start your morning right with a full blast of news. It’s better than coffee because it won’t get you all jittery and stunt your growth. Although, it might lower your sperm count. We’re still running some tests.