• As if the nerds weren't having a good enough summer ... Angelina Jolie has been cast in Beowulf, which Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary are adapting for Robert Zemeckis to direct. Zemeckis is planning to do a performance-capture thing similar to the technique he used on The Polar Express to assault us with multiple Tom Hankses. Except there probably won't be 600 Angelinas running around on this one. Sorry.
  • The Weinsteins have optioned Panic, the latest thriller from author Jeff Abbot, which just hit stores yesterday. The story tracks a young documentary filmmaker "who learns that most aspects of his life have been total fabrications." Well, that's ironic.
  • Hack director Renny Harlin has signed with Screen Gems and Lakeshore to direct The Covenant. It'll follow "a mysterious stranger at an exclusive prep school". And it will suck.
  • An early-Rolling Stones biopic written by the guy behind Die Another Day? And it's a "note perfect pastiche of Swingin' 60s style? With Monet Mazur as Anita Pallenberg? What are we to make of Stoned?