* Video game company UbiSoft has teamed up with New Regency to co-finance an adaptation of their best-selling video game, Assassin's Creed. We learned of their plan to bring the historical adventure to the big screen late last year, but it took a serious jump in prestige a couple of months ago when Michael Fassbender came aboard to star. His name is largely what got this deal moving, and the plan is to find a writer and director in time to have filming begin by next summer. The story follows a bartender named Desmond Miles who discovers he comes from a long line of assassins, and is forced by a manipulative corporation to jump back in time and relive their experiences.
* No hardboiled private eye has been adapted in more ways than Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. With a few TV series already, with both Darren McGavin and Stacy Keach, not to mention a handful of movies and radio shows, Hammer is basically the model from which all film noir detectives are based. Now Warner Bros. is keen on bringing him back to the big screen as they've scooped up the film rights to Spillane's novels. Screenwriters have already been met with, and the current question that they're attempting to answer is if they should bring him into modern times. Good lord, no. Spillane wrote thirteen Hammer novels, and picking one to adapt will be tough. My pick is I, The Jury. Start from there and run with it. [Deadline]
* After getting dumped into turnaround last month by 20th Century Fox, it looks like Walt Disney is picking up the adaptation of Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Steve Carell is attached to play the father, with Lisa Cholodenko directing the story of a very unlucky family having the worst day ever. It begins with young Alexander going to bed with gum in his hair, and ends up with him contemplating a move to Australia. With two sequels having been spawned, Disney no doubt looks at this as a potential franchise. [Deadline]
