It has been a real treat, hanging out with you all here on Film School Rejects this week, but today I head back home to CriterionCast.com. I won’t be leaving you empty handed, as there have been some excellent links, images and clips going around today that you all should certainly check out.

Gary Ross shocked the world by directing one of the year’s most wildly successful films, The Hunger Games, and then opting out of coming back and making its sequel. What could he possibly have to do that’s more important than making another bajillion dollars by directing Jennifer Lawrence shooting arrows at people? So far, we’re not exactly sure. He’s become attached to a biopic about the life of famed magician Houdini, but there’s no concrete word whether or not that’s actually going to be his next job. And now another possibility has popped up. THR is reporting that the director is currently in talks to helm an adaptation of the children’s novel “Peter and the Starcatchers” over at Disney. The book, which was written by Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson and has already been adapted into a successful (it won five Tonys!) stage production, is a Peter Pan prequel that tells the story of Peter and a girl named Molly going off on an adventure that involves the keeping of a trunk filled with magical starstuff out of the clutches of the evil pirate Black Stache (so called because of his back mustache, who knows what he’d be called if he got his own boat and had his hand replaced by a hook…). A screenwriter by the name of Jesse Wigutow is said to be penning the adaptation.

Despite the fact that we’re getting pretty close to its 75 year anniversary, The Wizard of Oz is just as recognized and celebrated today as it’s ever been, and we’ll probably still be showing it to our kids another 75 years from now. There’s good reason for that. Its music is gorgeous and iconic, its cinematography is ageless, and its production design and in-living-color presentation must have been something to see back in 1939. But, in the grand scheme of things, is this really a movie that’s so great that we should still be treating it with so much reverence? Or has watching The Wizard of Oz simply become a tradition we mindlessly follow, like always eating a turkey on Thanksgiving or puking up green food coloring on St Patrick’s Day? Steven Spielberg’s 1991 film Hook spins off of a legendary story, continues the tale of a handful of legendary characters, and was brought to us by maybe the most legendary director there’s ever been… but to say that it isn’t considered a legendary movie would be a pretty big understatement. It’s got a tone right in line with the best of Spielberg’s work, and it’s photographed just as beautifully as anything else he’s done, but ever since its release it has largely been considered a trifle, or even an annoyance. Critics have called Hook full of bad humor, overstuffed with exposition, and devoid of any of the magic of the original Peter Pan tale. Many consider it to be

As we all already knew, Peter Pan is a monster who swoops down, breaks into bedroom windows, and takes children deep into the night to never, never return. Now, filmmakers are catching up to that fact and developing a story that reflects the grisly, real-world terror of Pan. According to Dark Horizons, Aaron Eckhart has signed on to play Captain Hook – a former police detective haunted by the ghosts of his past, hunting down a kidnapper (who probably wears green tights). AnnaSophia Robb will play Wendy, a victim who survived and has joined in the manhunt. Plus, Sean Bean is on board to play Smee – the only person on the police force helping Hook. All of these things are good things. The propensity to go darker for our children’s stories is a trend I can fully get behind, because it means revealing a much more human side to tales usually filled with glitter and fairy dust. On that note, there’s no word yet as to whether Tinkerbell will be a much-needed prostitute with valuable information. Animation director Ben Hibon will make his directorial debut here from a script written by newcomer Benjamin Magid. It’s good to see some new blood pumping through the system aided by some solid acting talents and a strange premise. Of course, this isn’t the first dim project for the boy who wouldn’t grow up (not to mention the four or five hundred Snow White and Red Riding Hood and Hansel & Gretel projects