The West Memphis Three trials are infamous, not just for the brutality of the crime that spawned them, but also for the controversy surrounding the verdict. The case involved the triple homicide of three 8-year-old boys and the conviction of three teenagers, who were thought to be responsible for the crime. After the three were imprisoned, however, doubts began to grow about their guilt, eventually leading to their release from prison on August 19th of this year, 17 years after their conviction. The entirety of the trials, convictions, imprisonments, and further investigations into the murders that eventually led to the suspects’ releases were already well-chronicled in the Paradise Lost trilogy of documentaries done by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, but now it seems that since the whole ordeal has come to an end, Hollywood is going to take a crack at dramatizing the story. To that end, screenwriters Scott Derrickson and Paul Boardman (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) have been adapting a screenplay from a book about the murders, Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, which was written by Mara Leveritt. That’s a lot of names involved with this project already, but let’s add one more to the pile. Derrickson and Boardman’s script is going to be directed by Atom Egoyan (Chloe), who has worked on the latest draft of the script with Boardman. The newest news about the film is that Egoyan and company have signed Reese Witherspoon to play a featured role. She’ll be [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Weekends are for relaxing. My favorite weekend task is usually laundry, followed by large stretches of movie watching, football games and sleeping in. This weekend I did something a little different — it was all sleeping in combined with tracking down movie news for this here column. Because I know that there’s nothing you need more when your weekend is over. So come and get it. Get you some Movie News After Dark.

Interviews done via email are usually not ideal. Usually, you don’t end up with the most inspired answers. Director Scott Derrickson, on the other hand, completely contradicts that theory.

Just last month Scott Derrickson’s remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still actually made the box-office stand still and grossed a mere $80 million. That’s fantastic bank for a small film about a quirky, pregnant teenager or an Indian teenager winning millions on a game show, but for a high profile sci-fi remake with big name stars it only barely covers the production costs.

Director Scott Derrickson’s remake of the 1951 science fiction classic, the latest in the long line of shiny, CG-heavy remakes, might be attractive at first, but in the end it reveals itself to be less than worthy of its name.

A new, international trailer has been released for this holiday’s feel-good epic, The Day the Earth Stood Still. And its got plenty of Gort to go around…

When I think of the upcoming remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, I think of Al Gore. I know it’s a stretch, but go with me on this.