We can add Mike Finch and Alex Litvak to the names of screenwriters who have attempted to adapt the Mattel toy line “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” to the big screen. Columbia has hired the duo, whose script for the Robert Rodriguez-produced Predators franchise relaunch finally got that project out of long time development hell, to hopefully work similar magic on the toy property.

First hitting toy store shelves in 1982, the toys featured the powerful, sword-wielding He-Man and his allies battling the forces of the evil Skeletor for control of Eternia, a planet where magic and advanced technology co-existed.

Before Columbia took over the film rights for the characters, a Masters of the Universe film had been in development at Warner Brothers for several years under producer Joel Silver. Kung Fu Panda director John Stevenson was set to helm the project with writers Justin Marks and Evan Daugherty taking passes at a screenplay. Ultimately, none of their worked satisfied Mattel and the project moved on to Columbia last fall. No new director has been attached to Columbia’s attempt at getting the film to the screen.

Twentieth Century Fox looks as if they are moving forward with their plan to relaunch a potential franchise featuring the Marvel Comics superhero Daredevil, with a report hitting late yesterday afternoon that the studio has hired David Scarpa to write a new script that will presumably retell the origins of the blind attorney-turned-super powered protector of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen district.

Deadline Hollywood’s story also reports that the recent that part of the impetus for moving ahead now is that the studio could potentially lose the rights to the character if they didn’t continue to use the character over an un-specified period of time.

The first Daredevil film starred Ben Affleck in the title role and was released over Valentine’s weekend in 2003. Although it was met with mixed reviews, the film managed to pull in $100 million more than it’s $80 million production budget. A director’s cut released on DVD the following year was generally held to be a better version of the film.

Needless to say, I have to question Fox’s reasoning here in hiring Scarpa. His script for 2008′s The Day The Earth Stood Still was abysmal, completely missing the points that made the original 1951 original a classic. I have not real reason to believe he can do any better with this assignment.

It is especially puzzling given the words of Fox’s co-chairman Tom Rothman, who stated back in October 2008 that if they were to do a new Daredevil film, it would be with a director that is “a visionary at the level that [Dark Knight director] Chris Nolan was. It needs someone, it needs a director, honestly, who has a genuine vision. What we wouldn’t do is just do it for the sake of doing it. Right?” There has been no announcements as to what director may be attached to the project, and that certainly seems like something that the studio would want to publicize. Is Rothman just stalling for time, hoping to fulfill the contractual obligations needed to retain the rights while still searching for a top level director with a strong vision for the franchise who will throw out Scarpa’s draft and start fresh? Or is looking to just blow ahead and grab what cash he can while he still can, while simultaneously keeping the character’s rights out of the hands of Disney-owned Marvel?

They sing. They dance. And evidently, one of those crazy, talented high school kids on Fox’s popular freshman series Glee can now add screenwriter to her list of talents.

Dianna Agron, who plays the dimwitted cheerleader Quinn on the musical dramedy, recently told StarPulse, “Recently, I got the confidence to write a screenplay – a story about a guy who can’t say ‘I love you’ – and it’s been optioned!”

No word as to whether the film is a straight romantic drama, a comedy or even a musical. Come to think of it, we don’t even know what the script is titled.

While this is Agron’s first feature screenplay sell, she previously wrote, directed, starred, costumed, set decorated and quite possibly made lunch for the short film A Fuchsia Elephant. I would say it is a good bet that Agron isn’t content with just being an actress and may be looking to become a multi-hyphenate threat.

In the meantime, Glee returns with new episodes this spring and Agron will be next seen on the big screen in the indie drama Bold Native later this year.

While he obviously didn’t spill any actual story details, screenwriter Peter Morgan has disclosed that the next James Bond film will feature a “shocking story.” The promise came in a short interview that the writer did with Bond fansite MI-6.

Morgan is perhaps better known for having worked on the dramatic films The Queen and Frost/Nixon. Morgan was hired to rewrite an original script by long-time franchise writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Morgan’s hiring fits in to what appears to be the new pattern in the scripting of the series with Purvis and Wade providing initial script drafts and then a writer with credits in more straight dramatic fare coming in for a rewrite. Previously Crash and Million Dollar Baby writer Paul Haggis polished the screenplays for the franchise relaunch Casino Royale and its follow-up Quantum Of Solace.

Although production on the next untitled Bond film is currently on hold due to MGM being up for sale, it is hoped that it will go into active pre-production sometime next February. Both series stars Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench have indicated that the current, although not officially announced, plan is to start shooting at the end of next year with a presumably late 2011 release. No director has been attached to the film yet.

Voted on by a group of Hollywood insiders, from producers’ assistants to studio development executives to talent agents, the Black List has quickly become the barometer for what scripts that people in the industry are reading and liking. The annual list is compiled anonymously and consists of screenplays that have been making the rounds.

The 2009 edition hit email in boxes yesterday and as expected, it contains some scripts that people expected to see and a few surprises. While the List is generally considered to celebrate screenplays that haven’t gotten a greenlight yet, there are always are a few that make the list which are in some stage of active production and this year’s list is no exception, including this year’s number 2 script, The Social Network, writer Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of the same-titled book that charts the creation of the social networking website Facebook. Interestingly, there are a couple of book adaptations, comic book adaptations, a remake and even a rewrite or two that differed significantly from the original material to warrant people to vote for their inclusion. And as in occasional years past, there are a couple of scripts whose log-lines sound coincidentally familiar. This year, Betty’s Ready and The Handjob both center on teengirls seeking their first sexual experiences. Celeste & Jesse Forever and I Hope We Can Still Be Friends also share similar plots, this time about divorcing couples who vow to try and remain friends.

Below are the top 10 (actually 11, due to a tie) scripts on this year’s list. You can download the entire here. In the upcoming days and weeks, we’ll have in depth reviews of several of these titles.

1) The Muppet Man by Christopher Weekes – A look at Jim Henson’s life, the creator of the most famous puppet franchise of all time, The Muppets.

2) The Social Network by Aaron Sorkin – A look at the rise of Facebook and the effect it’s had on its founders.

3) The Voices by Michael R. Perry – Jerry, a schizophrenic worker at a bathtub factory, accidentally kills an attractive woman from accounting. While trying to cover his bloody tracks, Jerry starts taking advice from his talking (and foul-mouthed) cat and dog.

4) Prisoners by Aaron Guzikowski- When his young daughter and her best friend vanish on Thanksgiving Day, Keller Dover takes matters into his own hands, imprisoning and torturing the man who he thinks did it. But does he have the wrong man?

5) Cedar Rapids by Phil Johnston – A small town insurance salesman heads off to the “big city” of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to try and save his company.

6) Londongrad by David Scarpa – This is an adaptation of the Alan Cowell book, “The Terminal Spy: A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal and Murder” which is supposedly about the death of that soviet spy who was poisoned by radioactive tea.

7) L.A. Rex by Will Beall (based on his novel of the same name) – Rookie LAPD officer Ben Halloran gets partnered with scarred and tobacco-spitting Officer Marquez, and the unlikely team hit the streets of L.A. on the brink of a gang-rivalry explosion amid run-ins with the Mexican mafia, brutal gang murders, and corrupt cops.

8) Desperados by Ellen Rapoport – Wesley Robbins, a 30-something single attorney with an unhealthy obsession with coupling up, thinks she’s found the perfect man. But when he doesn’t call for days after the first time they sleep together she freaks out and sends him a scathing email, only to learn he’s been laid up in a Mexican hospital with some broken bones. On a whim, she and her girlfriends travel down south to erase the email before she ruins what she believes could be her one true love.

9) The Gunslinger by John Hlavin – When a Texas Ranger is horrifically tortured and killed, his sharp-shooter older brother, Sam Lee Hensley, plots revenge against the mysterious, sadistic leader of a notorious drug cartel.

10-tie) By Way Of Helena by Matt Cook – Set in the south at the turn of the century, Texas Ranger David Kingston and his Mexican bride are sent down to the mysterious town of Helena to investigate the multiple Mexican bodies washing up in the river. What they discover is an idyllic-like town where everything is not as it seems.

10-tie) The Days Before by Chad St. John – A man from the future keeps hopping one successive day into the past, desperate to stop a vicious race of time-traveling aliens from wiping out humanity.

Here’s one from the “They just don’t get it, do they?” file.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog has broken the story that producer Joel Silver’s two-decades in the gestation adaptation of DC Comics’ classic World War Two comic character Sgt. Rock has hired yet another writer for the project who is taking a rather radical approach to the material- He intends to move the war time adventures of Rock and the men of Easy Company from the trenches of war torn Europe to the future.

Producer Joel Silver has hired Chad St. John to write this new take on the material based on the strength of his unproduced spec script The Days Before. St. John has also written the remake of Outland that is currently still in development. Previously Brian Helgeland, John Milius, David Peoples, Jeffrey Boam, Steven De Souza, John Cox and Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo have all tried their hands at scripting the film.

Sgt. Rock first appeared in a 1959 issue of DC’s war anthology series Our Army At War, becoming so popular that the book was simply renamed Sgt. Rock in 1977. The series published its last issue in 1988 and according to DC continuity, Rock died on the last day of World War Two from the last bullet fired in the conflict.

One of the reasons given for this rather stupid move is the anticipated high cost of a full-tilt, World War Two would be too pr0hibited. But a movie set in the future with all the needed special effects needed to realize that world would somehow cost less? I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t seem to make much sense. Take a look at what some people are reporting as the budget for James Cameron’s sci-fi war film Avatar. Even if those numbers are inflated, and they probably are, are you still trying to tell me that it would be cheaper than a proper World War Two era film?

The Reporter article also states that World War Two films have been out of vogue in Hollywood for a while, but as we know, that kind of thinking is fairly short-sighted. Instead of trying to cash in on the latest hot thing, they should be looking for the next hot thing. If no one is doing a World War Two movie, perhaps doing an amazing, action-packed war film will give ticket buyers an exciting alternative to the same-old same-old that is usually available at the local cineplex.

But when you boil it down, I think that there is just one word that can be  uttered in the face of a movie that takes a character and then proceeds to strip them of all their identifying features and place them into a new context- Catwoman.

UPDATE: It turns out that Kurtzman and Orci are NOT the pair that are producing the Doc Savage adaptation. According to Collider, it is actually Neil Moritz and Ori Marmur, the producing team currently working on The Green Hornet, Battle: Los Angeles and Jack The Giant Killer for Sony Pictures. This means that Doc Savage will also be done for Sony, and as Michael E. Uslan is at Warner Brothers, his involvement is doubtful. Now if there’s anyone out there with a copy of the script that Michael Chabon was reportedly working on for Uslan and is willing to share…

Shane Black, creator of the Lethal Weapon franchise, is preparing to script an adaptation of the classic pulp adventure character Doc Savage, according to Ain’t It Cool News. AICN head honcho Harry Knowles had a chance encounter with the writer, who revealed that he would be scripting the project for Star Trek producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

What’s surprising to me about this news is that earlier this year at the New York Comics Con I chatted with Batman Begins/The Dark Knight producer Michael E. Uslan who stated that he had the film rights to the pulp character and had been hoping to make an announcement about a film project at the forthcoming San Diego ComicsCon. No announcement ever came though. Right now it is not known if Uslan is still involved with the project.

A brilliant master of all trades, Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr. trotted the globe investigating all sorts of scientific mysteries and helping people in distress with the help of his five friends- “Monk” Mayfair, “Ham” Brooks, “Renny” Renwick, “Long Tom” Roberts and “Johnny” Littlejohn. The character first appeared in his eponymously-named pulp magazine in March 1933 and quickly became one of the most popular pulp heroes of the 1930s and 40s, rivaling only The Shadow in sales. Although created by Street and Smith Publications publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic, it was the series’ main writer, Lester Dent, who fully fleshed out the background and adventures of Doc and his aides. The series proved so popular that it spawned a comic book series from Street & Smith and two short-lived radio series.

Doc Savage continued to be popular even after his pulp series ceased publication in the summer of 1949. In the 1960s, Bantam Books began reprinting the original pulp novels in new, slightly edited, paperback editions. It took to the summer of 1990 to reprint the entire series.

The popularity of the reprint series inspired producer George Pal to produce a Doc Savage film, released in 1975, starring Ron Ely. Although the casting of Doc and his five aides captured the look of the characters, the movie’s campy tone disappointed fans and kept audiences away.

Additional, National Public Radio produced a new 13 episode radio series in 1985. Doc also reappeared in new four-color adventures at various times from DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse and Millennium between the 1970s and 90s. In 2007, Doc’s creator Dent became a hero in Paul Malmont’s novel The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, teaming with Shadow creator Walter Gibson to stop a plot to destroy New York City.

Today, Doc’s pulp adventures are being reprinted again, though with out the edits found in the Bantam series, by Nostalgia Ventures/ Sanctum Books. Most recently, DC Comics announced a new comics series that would see Doc and his aides interacting with the publisher’s more pulp-based characters, starting with a one-shot teaming the Man of Bronze up in an adventure with Batman.

Scripter Diablo Cody will be adapting the long-running Sweet Valley High ‘tween book series for Universal. The studio is currently in negotiations to for the rights to the books, with Cody already attached to the project to write and produce.

“Diablo Cody” and “Sweet Valley High.”

Now there’s two names I never thought I’ld would be putting into the same sentance.

So far in her career, Cody is best known for writing about pregnant teens , teens possessed by murderous demons and housewives with multiple personality disorder, subjects I feel reasonably safe in assuming that the Sweet Valley High books never touched. Then again, a quick purusal of the Wikipedia entry for the series shows that the twin girl stars of the book have gone through a series of unbelievable adventures including battling vampires and werewolves, been romantically involved with numerous European royalty, attending a school wich seemed to have an excessive number of proms per school year and never getting a zit, so who know?

The Hollywood Reporter states that “Cody’s formative years were informed by the books,” so I can understand the allure of the project for her. I will leave it to those more familiar with the series to draw a parrallel between the book series’s twin leads and the dynamic between the Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried in Jennifer’s Body.

Justin Lin, director of the recent Fast & Furious,has been picked my Summit Entertainment to helm their in development remake of Highlander. As of yet, the studio has no cast attached to the project and no set start date. Lin will be bringing along his Fast And Furious producer Neal H. Moritz along with him.

The film’s screenplay by IRON MAN screenwriters Art Marcum and Matt Holloway combines elements of the original film along with some ideas from the franchise’s spinoff television series. But the basic story of a group of immortals battling each other down through the ages for a vaguely defined prize.

While the original film earned itself a cult fanbase largely on the strength of its high concept, Highlander is also remembered for its exciting visual look courtesy of director Russell Mulcahy. I’ve never been that impressed with Lin’s directorial work, so I have to admit that the news doesn’t really give me much confidence in the project. Of course, reading a copy of the script might put my mind at ease.

Perhaps the news that Warner Brothers attempt to make a live-action version of the classic anime film Akira was dead was perhaps a bit premature.

Collider is reporting that Children Of Men and Iron Man scripters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are the latest writers to take a crack at adapting the popular animated film. Previously, Gary Whitta was working on a script that would split the original film into two parts for Leonardo DiCaprio’s production shingle Appian Way. Prior to that, Stephen Norrington took a crack at the script for producer Jon Peters.

I have to admit that I admire Warner’s tenacity in trying to get a live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic anime up and running, no matter how much of a bad idea I think it is. The success of the original film can be traced to its careful balance between visual style and story substance. To try and capture that particular lightening in a bottle twice, especially when moving from the animated realm to the live action, seems doomed to fail.

But I have to wonder at the amount of development costs that the studio has accrued so far. Is there a point where the bean counters decide that the studio has spent enough and just pulls the plug on the whole thing, or do egos come into play and demand that the film be greenlit, that too much has been spent to NOT not go forward, incurring further expense on the gamble that the film will ultimately be a hit and recoup the already large layout of cash. (I have a feeling that this may have partially informed Warner’s decision to proceed with Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns after years and millions of dollars spent on various attempts to get a Superman franchise relaunched.)