The Host

Assorted News Mash-Up

Director Ron Howard of "A Beautiful Mind" and "Frost/Nixon" fame is venturing into comic book adaptation with his next project, "The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft." Based on the Image Comics title, the story reimagines the rather sickly and ... morelegendary horror writer as an action hero battling the very supernatural forces he's written about (Boom! Studios has been doing somewhat of the same thing with their "Poe" book). The book is fun and the art is great, but let's see if Howard has a feel for the material.

Another horror comic getting onto the big screen is James Farr's "Xombie," about a cop-turned-zombie. The title actually started as an online animated series, which Farr then turned into a book from the Devil's Due imprint. Farr developed the concept with real-life-cop turned writer Will Beall. "Star Trek" and "Transformers" writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci will produce.

In one of the weirder stories from last week, director David Cronenberg is apparently thinking about remaking his brilliant (and damn near untouchable) 1986 remake of "The Fly." Although there's been talk of a new version for years, Cronenberg has distanced himself from it until now; his direction of an opera version of the material last year in Paris and Los Angeles may have changed his mind. I saw that opera and was, frankly, not impressed. I'd rather see this master director work on something brand new instead of revising what many largely consider his masterpiece. But, hey, I guess that's why I don't work at a movie studio.

Duncan Jones' directorial debut, "Moon," was one of this year's best sci-fi movies (and maybe even one of this year's best movies, period), so it's heartening to see that his next project seems equally ambitious. Some pre-production art from his new movie, "Mute," has surfaced at the Web site of production company Liberty Films, with CHUD reporting that the movie takes place in the same world as "Moon" and involves a mute bartender looking for his girlfriend in a future Berlin. Another intelligent sci-fi filmmaker, "Gattaca" writer-director Andrew Niccol, is also back with "The Cross," shooting now in Australia with stars Orlando Bloom, John Goodman and Olga Kurylenko. The movie follows two brothers who traverse some kind of border, although being a science fiction film it's probably not the Mason-Dixon Line. Niccol, by the way, has also been tapped to script and direct the film version of "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer's first non-teen-vampire novel, a sci-fi/horror hybrid called "The Host."

(The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft/Image Comics)