Not much is yet known about Matt Reeves’ (Let Me In) follow-up to Rupert Wyatt’s 2011 film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. We know that it’s going to be called Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, that Andy Serkis is going to be back to do his part in bringing the ape leader Caesar to life, and that it’s supposed to take place somewhere around fifteen years after Caesar’s battle with the authorities on the Golden Gate Bridge. Thanks to a report from THR though, we now know the first name that’s going to be joining Serkis in the film’s cast. According to the trade, rising in popularity actor Jason Clarke has signed on to star in the film. Though Clarke has been getting regular work for coming up on two decades now, it’s been just recently that his film career has really started to get traction. Last year he was not only able to steal some scenes from the wildly charismatic Tom Hardy in John Hillcoat’s Lawless, but he also managed to turn a lot of heads and create a lot of buzz as the CIA agent who interrogates and water boards a prisoner in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty.

When word first broke that Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt wouldn’t be returning to direct the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, there was a moment of panic. But now that they’ve announced that Let Me In director Matt Reeves has stepped in to take the job, things have calmed down a bit, and it’s become time for work on the sequel to move forward. So, what’s the next step? It seems Fox has decided that it’s taking another pass at the script. While a first draft for the film was written by Rise writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, and a second draft was written for Wyatt by Scott Burns (Contagion), now that Wyatt is off of the picture the studio wants to tweak it once again, this time to tailor it to the strengths of Reeves. In order to get the job done, THR reports that they’ve brought on Mark Bomback, the screenwriter who collaborated with Len Wiseman on Live Free or Die Hard and Total Recall; who wrote Tony Scott’s last film, Unstoppable; and who co-wrote Fox’s upcoming super hero sequel The Wolverine.  Of course, what Bomback knows about tailoring a movie to Matt Reeves’ strengths is something of a mystery, but it should be noted that, given his placement on two big Fox properties, the studio must see him as being something of a golden boy these days.

When it was first announced that 20th Century Fox was making a prequel to Planet of the Apes that would star James Franco and a CG ape, not too many people welcomed the news with a whole lot of optimism. But once Rise of the Planet of the Apes hit theaters, it ended up blowing most everyone who saw it away. Director Rupert Wyatt took a less than appealing idea for a movie and ended up telling the sort of affecting, personal story that tentpole blockbusters rarely end up pulling off. So it was kind of heartbreaking to learn that Wyatt wasn’t going to be returning for the sequel and Fox was looking at a shortlist of directors to replace him. It turns out things might not be as bad as they originally looked though, because ComingSoon is reporting that the studio has found their Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director, and at first glance he appears to be a perfect replacement. The guy is Matt Reeves.

Over at Variety (via FirstShowing), Justin Kroll tweets that that Let Me In and Cloverfield director Matt Reeves is now not directing Warner Bros.’ brand-new Twilight Zone feature film, thanks to those pesky little things known as “scheduling conflicts.” Yet, in the case of Reeves, the director probably did have far too much going on to direct to this new venture. Reeves was tapped for the gig last October, but even back then, the filmmaker had one heck of a full plate. Reeves now has no less than six other projects currently in development that, no doubt, added to the scheduling woes. Those projects include his rumored attachment to direct the Cloverfield sequel, producing an untitled project with Brad Parker and J.J. Abrams, directing This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, writing and producing The Invisible Woman, directing The Passage, and writing and directing the adaptation of 8 O’Clock in the Morning. Yeah, the guy is pretty busy, yet it’s still too bad he won’t be helming Twilight Zone, as it sure seemed to fit right in Reeves’ wheelhouse.

According to Variety, Matt Reeves‘s Twilight Zone has captured another writer who is no doubt currently wondering why he’s back in Abraham Lincoln’s time and unable to convince anyone of the assassination. Jason Rothenberg wrote the original draft, which was tackled by Anthony Peckham (Sherlock Holmes), and now Joby Harold (All You Need is Kill, Awake) will take an ink-filled stab at it. The most fascinating thing about the Warner Bros. project is the idea that Rod Serling‘s show will essentially be stretched into a feature film. Previous movies based on the iconic television show were serials, and the show itself got paper thin when it tried to fill an hour-long time slot, so two full hours of being in the Zone could be a bigger challenge than most expect. After all, how much clever brow-beating can we handle? The answer to that question lies in watching every episode. Tread carefully, but there’s still hope for this project. Despite Hayden Christensen’s strange take on playing a motionless guy, Awake was a clever little flick (that Harold also directed). With any luck, his talent will be the final polish it needs to get shoved in front of cameras.

If you would have told me a couple years ago, when I still had the bad taste of Cloverfield in my mouth, that J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot had a new action film in the works, my ears probably wouldn’t have perked up much. But right now I’m still riding off the high of Super 8 and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, so questions of what Bad Robot is up to next are very much on my mind. Talk about a good 2011. Now, this company is famously secretive, so of course not much is know about their new project, but Variety is reporting that Abrams and his partner Bryan Burk, along with Let Me In director Matt Reeves, are set to produce a new action movie that will be directed by Brad Parker, coming from a script by Michael Gilio. Parker has one feature under his belt, The Diary of Lawson Oxford, and he did work with Reeves as a second unit director on Let Me In, but he seems to be a filmmaker that comes from the school of David Fincher. He cut his teeth doing a lot of commercial work and work for MTV, and then he stepped into the film world by doing digital effects for Fight Club back in the late 90s. It sounds to me like he’s learned at the feet of all the right people, so I’m interested to see what he has to offer as the man in charge.

We continue our journey through a month of frightening, bloody and violent films. For more, check out our 31 Days of Horror homepage. Synopsis: Based on the novel “Let the Right One In” by John Ajvide Lindqvist the film Let Me In is relocated from Sweden to Los Alamos, New Mexico. Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a friendless boy, a victim of bullies at school. Not a day goes by when he isn’t pushed, shoved, harassed and threatened. With no one to turn to, not a friend, or teacher, not even his parents who are consumed by a bitter divorce, Owen retreats into  violent fantasies of revenge. One night a man (Richard Jenkins) and his daughter Abby (Chloe Moretz) move into the apartment complex and Owen becomes curious about the girl who only comes out at night, sits in the cold with no shoes or coat, but seems untouched by the frigid New Mexico winter. She looks ragged, she smells bad, her hair is lank and her are eyes dull. But even so, Owen is drawn to her. The next time he sees her she’s been transformed, no longer sickly looking, she looks like a pretty little girl. Owen will learn she’s without a doubt different from any girl he’s ever met.

Matt Reeves has been tapped by Warners to direct their stab at The Twilight Zone which should start shooting next summer. The script comes from Jason Rothenberg – who has one television movie under his belt and a handful of flicks in development. According to Deadline Willoughby, this was a highly sought-after project, courted by many directors they don’t name by name. However, it also sounds like another in-name-only project where Rod Serling‘s series acts as name recognition while the movie is its own sci-fi beast with a similar tone. Of course, there’s already been Twilight Zone: The Movie, but isn’t really a remake. Furthermore, Reeves’s hiring brings up the question of when he’ll work on his other projects, and which will actually get done. Within the past 8 months, his name has been attached to a sequel to Cloverfield, a remake of They Live and a Frankenstein project. No one will admit it, but it seems only reasonable that renewed interest in the program stems directly from our exploration of all the episodes of The Twilight Zone. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.

Welcome back to Commentary Commentary, your weekly dish of directorial insight and/or, as indicated by last week’s column, shenanigans. This week we’re looking inside the mystery box with director Matt Reeves and uncovering what he has to say about our favorite recent monster movie, Cloverfield. Reeves did this commentary all by his lonesome, but something tells me J.J. Abrams was standing over him with a loaded gun lest Reeves divulge too much information. I’ll be listening intently for any Morse Code warnings or cries for help. Since this commentary track was laid down years ago, and since Matt Reeves has since directed Let Me In – more Morse Code messages. Hmmm – I have a feeling everything turned out okay. So here, in all of its Slusho wonder, is what I learned on the Matt Reeves commentary for Cloverfield. I wonder if there are going to be any Lost secrets. I hope there are Lost secrets. Or Star Trek 2. Okay, wishful thinking is over. Shutting up now.

Move over Snow White: there’s another literary character on the block looking to get a million film projects made about his trials and tribulations, and his name is Victor Frankenstein. It was just earlier today when we reported (with a surprisingly similar headline) on an adaptation of a Frankenstein-themed novel being put together by Sam Raimi, and now there’s more news about another being made by Summit Entertainment. This Dark Endeavor will be an adaptation of a Kenneth Oppel novel that is fully titled “This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein.” While Raimi’s project explores the friendship between Frankenstein and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Summit’s story is about Frankenstein trying to save the life of his twin brother. In order to do so he must find an old alchemist, hang out with his brother’s main squeeze, and go on a dangerous journey to find the components for the Elixir of Life. There promises to be action, adventure, and a love triangle. Not bad for a book about a doctor. The best news about this project is that Let Me In director Matt Reeves has signed on to direct. When I first heard that Hollywood was remaking Let the Right One In, I spent about ten minutes puking in a trashcan, but Reeves actually did a really good job with it. I went into that film feeling a strong bias against its very existence and came out thinking that it had matched the original in many ways and even surpassed it

What is Movie News After Dark? When it was first being written tonight, it was going to be a very silly column. Then some serious (and seriously awesome) links were found and you were saved from a fate far more ridiculous than usual. We’ll save that for another time. In this moment, on this night, Movie News After Dark presents you with all kinds of interesting things, words and doo-dads. But most of all, there will be fun. Aziz Ansari and Jesse Eisenberg are just around the building, ready to do something that will undoubtedly lead to hilarity in Ruben Fleischer’s 30 Minutes or Less, the film that will combine pizza delivery with the plot concept of Speed. Doesn’t that just make you urgently hungry? This new look is part of a slew of Entertainment Weekly magazine clippings found over at The Playlist.

Universal has signed Cloverfield and Let Me In director Matt Reeves to helm a new science-fiction film. Reeves will be adapting a famous Ray Nelson short story called “8 O’Clock in the Morning,” which tells the tale of a man who wakes up one morning and suddenly realizes that a lot of the people around him are secretly aliens, and that they’re controlling the planet. If that sounds a little bit familiar to you, it might be because “8 O’Clock in the Morning” is also the story that inspired the John Carpenter-helmed, Rowdy Roddy Piper starring, B-Movie classic They Live. This isn’t going to be a remake of Carpenter’s film, but instead a more faithful adaptation of the original source material. While Carpenter’s character used special glasses that allowed him to see the existence of aliens, the protagonist of “8 O’Clock in the Morning” has a much more psychological, nightmarish relationship with his newly discovered alien overlords. Reeves says that, “Carpenter took a satirical view of the material and the larger political implication that we’re being controlled. I am very drawn to the emotional side, the nightmare experience with the paranoia of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or a Roman Polanski-style film.” I liked what Reeves did exploring the emotional side of things and various nightmare experiences in Let Me In, so I think this project sounds like it could be very cool. Producer Eric Newman says that Reeves was the right man for this job because of his use

We are going to see it. We just don’t know when. This was the message Matt Reeves had for fans during a conversation with Total Film in which he continued the refrain from the past year set to the tune of a monster destroying the city. He, J.J. Abrams, and writer Drew Goddard are all busy right now, but they’re also dedicated to making Cloverfield 2 a reality. The last we heard about the project was a line about them doing it if they had a good idea, so either they’ve resolved to do it (while resolving to figure that good idea out) or they’ve already hit upon something they want to shoot for. Either way, mark your calendars (somewhere) for Cloverfield 2.

We live in cynical times, so it (at least seems) like a rare thing when a sequel doesn’t immediately follow a box office-ly successful movie. It’s even enough to cause a single tear when a filmmaker or producer says essentially what fans would say when it comes to the money grab. Cloverfield was a hit – the highest grossing movie of any January release when it came out. It propelled director Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams into the world of movies, so it seemed obvious that a sequel would start rolling immediately. It didn’t. And it may not ever. Matt Reeves can explain why, and it’s a statement that deserves applause.

If you thought we were meta enough with our list of best editorials, you were wrong. You were also wrong about that pub quiz question you missed last night but kept claiming, “the wording was confusing.” That’s okay. Soothe your second place loss to the “Long Beach Pub All Stars” by digging in deep to this list of lists. What criteria did we use to pick them? Simple. The key was finding those lists which acted as a catalyst for discussion, for reverie, for passion, and for self-reflection. The subjects might seem ridiculous, but there’s nothing like looking back on the year and seeing where movies took our minds. Time to get meta and do our part to bring about that ETEWAF Patton Oswalt keeps talking about.

So the news cycle has already moved on to chirping about The Hobbit (making it feel like January again) and about Steven Spielberg making a robot movie (making it feel like 2005 and 2001 again), but that won’t stop us from going all the way back to last week and continuing the conversation about Halo. With renewed efforts being made to bring it to the screen, the question continues to be who the best director would be for the job. We don’t know the answer to that, but we do know who would make the most interesting version of Master Chief blasting the slaughter dew right out of some alien hordes. That’s why we gathered together the bold (sometimes twisted) minds of the Rejects to answer the call and deliver a list of a few directors who would look outside the box to turn something incredibly commercial into something either brilliant or completely inaccessible. Without further ado, here’s the list:

Let Me In has the tough distinction of not only being a remake (or a recent second adaptation of a novel, if you want to look at it that way), but of being a remake of an incredibly popular cult horror film that only came out a few years ago. Still, even with that hurdle, director Matt Reeves sought to tackle the problems of adolescence, young love, and bloodlust with his version. I got a chance to sit down with him and lead actor Kodi Smit-McPhee to talk about tonal connections to Wong Kar-wai, choosing brutal acting roles, and the most popular method of securing the blood we so desperately need as fuel. Special thanks to Luke Mullen for editing.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr strikes out against… well, pretty much everyone reviewing movies by taking issue with The Social Network. Sue him if you don’t agree, or friend him at Facebook.com/FatGuysattheMovies. But while he cringes under the weight of Jesse Eisenberg’s smug Michael Cera impression, he also rejoices in October being officially here and all the horror movies the month of Halloween promises to bring. Up first, he cowers in a dark theater to the likes of Let Me In and Case 39.

The Superman movie Warners is contractually obligated to make by 2012 is still a ways off, but now that Christopher Nolan is involved, there’s even more attention being paid to it. That attention turned this week to the possible directors in line to take on the famous superhero – Tony Scott, Matt Reeves, Zack Snyder, Duncan Jones and Jonathan Liesbesman. Some are denying they know anything about it, some are saying they’ve already turned it down, and none of them are dressing up as Superman and running around their offices pretending to fly. That’s all well and good, but there are some pros and some cons to these names.

It’s cold, and there’s blood on the ground. There are empty streets to get lost in, but there’s a monster on the loose. Let Me In is nearly relentless in its tone of isolation and the chance of finding friendship in the eye of the puberty hurricane. There are few warm moments that emerge out of the kid’s eye view, and they’re as beautiful as the silence. In fact, the whole movie is an exercise in the careful crafting of something we can all relate to by using something none of us can. Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is bullied at school, left alone by a mother more wrapped up in her own impending divorce, and concerned mostly with eating Now And Laters and acting tough with a kitchen knife in front of his mirror. Abby (Chloe Moretz) moves into the building, and Owen’s life changes. He has finally found a friend. And that friend needs blood to survive.