Ron Howard to Direct "Mena'; John Carney goes to 'Sing Street'; John McTiernan Returns for 'Red Squad'

* Rush may have been met with critical acclaim, but it didn't lead to a sizable box office or anything in terms of Academy Awards nominations. That's not stopping Ron Howard from pushing forward. He's got an adaptation of In the Heart of the Sea coming up soon, and now he's set to direct drug-world film, Mena, which Universal has just spent a whopping $1M to acquire Gary Spinelli's spec script. The true story centers on "Barry Seal, a portly pilot who, in the 1980s, was a 300-pound gun runner, and drug trafficker who transported contraband for the CIA and the Medellin cartel. He was eventually shot to death by the latter in Baton Rouge." [Deadline]

* After making his name with the beloved Irish musical romance Once (still a personal favorite), John Carney has wisely stuck closely to the genre. Later this year he'll deliver Can a Song Save Your Life? with Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo, and now he's set to direct Sing Street, which will feature original music by his friends Bono and The Edge of U2. The 1980s-set film follows "a 14-year-old Dubliner dealing with the stress of his parent’s marriage, a drop-out brother and bullies at a new school. The youngster forms a band then heads off to London with his aspiring model girlfriend in search of fame and fortune." Filming is set to begin this summer.

* Yay, John McTiernan is back! Once the most prominent action director of the 1980s, responsible for knock-out flicks like Predator and Die Hard, McTiernan found himself swept up in the Anthony Pellicano wire-tapping scandal and was sent off to prison. Obviously this killed many of the projects he had cooking (he was to direct the awful Killing Season at one point), but now that he's finally been released it's time to get back to work. McTiernan is sticking to his roots by directing Red Squad, a DEA thriller penned by Cam Cannon and Jorge Suarez. The story sounds like typical McTiernan, centering on “a former DEA agent with a rogue streak and his select team of mercenaries who descend upon a Mexican border town to neutralize a drug lord.”[Variety]