1. Disney is making a prequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) that will tell the story of how Captain Nemo created his warship, the Nautilus. Supposedly, this will be a “family film”, though I’m not sure what sort of “family film” could have Nemo as its main character; in the original film, it was not James Mason’s revenge-seeking captain that we were supposed to identify with primarily, but the Paul Lukas, Peter Lorre and Kirk Douglas characters who were almost killed by him. The new film will be written by Bill Marsilli (Deja Vu) and directed by McG (Terminator: Salvation). — Variety
2. Olivia Wilde says the makers of Tron 2.0 are actually building many of the sets for that film, instead of producing everything in a computer, out of concern that “too much green screen” could prevent the world inside the computer from feeling “as real as possible.” That seems … odd. Meanwhile, Garrett Hedlund has been cast in the lead, as “a man who finds himself pulled into the world of a computer and retracing the steps of a character from the original movie named Kevin Flynn.” The film starts shooting in Vancouver in April. — SCI FI Wire, Hollywood Reporter
3. Hairspray director Adam Shankman says the sequel will probably not retain the subplot in which Zac Efron’s character accidentally takes acid and starts talking to the acne on his forehead. He talks about some of the other proposed ideas, too. — MTV Movies Blog
4. Summit Entertainment is expected to announce this week whether Taylor Lautner will get to play Jacob Black again in the sequel to Twilight. — Entertainment Weekly
5. Warner Brothers reportedly wants the villain of its next Superman movie to be someone other than Lex Luthor. About bloody time. Luthor has appeared in four of the five Superman movies produced so far, and in the one movie that didn’t include him, the villain was basically just a carbon copy of Luthor. If Batman can face a different villain or set of villains in every film, there is no reason Superman can’t do the same. — Latino Review
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