Ridley and Tony Scott have reportedly assumed control of the reboot, co-producing for writer-director Joe Carnahan in anticipation of a summer 2010 opening. That's a full year behind the schedule Fox initially drew up for John Singleton, who inherited and soon putzed the project away within a few months last spring. And while you can't keep a good rehash down in Hollywood, the usual loss of quality with every creative generation hinted at more of a Joel Schumacher plan D than this kind of action pedigree. Fox is serious!

And, per Variety, so is Ridley Scott: "Tony and I feel that marrying this Scott Free project with Joe's sensibility will result in a fast-paced, exciting franchise, one we hope will be around for years to come," the director told the trade. Yes — "years to come," likely building on the postmodern Dark Knight template making the world safe for brooding, mercenary war vets and the retrofitted vans carting them from assignment to assignment. With a lot of work and a little luck, Oscar will be snubbing this American institution, too, by 2013.

• Fox assembles 'A-Team' [Variety]

We're just glad to hear it's still technically alive after months' worth of starts and stops, but never more glad than we were this morning to hear that the behind-the-scenes drama has achieved thrilling new levels of acrimony. Reports today have Universal and Imagine eyeing a March starting date for the revisionist Robin Hood drama, if only long-time collaborators Crowe and Scott were getting along:

Sources say Crowe blames Scott for the disastrous drubbing their fourth collaboration, Body of Lies, received from critics and at the box office last summer, and no longer wants to work with the British director.

"Ridley is the only one who is willing to stand up to Russell and tell him he's too fat and that he can't show up four hours late to the set," said one source. "He [Russell] wants someone he can control."

The actor and director share an agent at William Morris, a representative for whom denied any such edicts or prerequisites for Crowe, who hasn't had a hit with Scott since Gladiator in 2000. But it would seem a reasonable split under the circumstances, with Crowe already having succumbed to Imagine's trainer-to-the-stars and Scott surely having better things to do than bump around the forest for two months with a drama magnet who can't even open a movie. But enough about Sienna Miller. Maybe it is time for a change after all; Ron Howard seems a close, innocuous friend of all involved, with friendlier, Cinderella Man-era euphemisms like, "Let's do that one again, but slimmer" and, "Rice cake, Russell — I mean, nice take, Russell" coaxed Crowe into fighting trim without the old-school taskmastering.

• DIRECTOR STRESSES OUT CROWE [NYP]

She asked aloud “whether there’s unchartered territory for a creature who’s become somewhat debased by this computer generated thing. I haven’t seen ["Alien Vs. Predator"] but I just think if you overexpose the creature, that’s a mistake.”

Weaver confirmed that she and Scott have discussed re-teaming for a fifth film, “Both of us feel a kind of commitment to that woman. He’s as much responsible for who she is as I am.” Then as she opined on the way the alien creature had been ruined in the recent films, Weaver’s comments got especially interesting.

“We’d have to go back to the drawing board on [the alien],” she said. “Ridley said that right away when we first talked about [a fifth film].”

And finally, the quote that’s gotten me mighty curious, “What we’re interested in is taking the character of Ripley and seeing what other science fiction story we can tell about someone who has lived several lives.”

Though purists may blanch at the idea of an alien-less Alien sequel, we agree that there are plenty of stories left for Weaver's indomitable central character. In particular, we're looking forward to RIPL-e, in which Ellen Ripley, tasked with garbage management on a far-off planet, must overcome her longtime distrust of androids when she falls in love with an adorable (and tasty!) iPod.

• Will Signourney Weaver Appear In The ‘Ghostbusters’ Sequel? She’s Got Ideas [MTV]

• Sigourney Weaver And Ridley Scott To Team Up For Alien-Less ‘Alien’ Sequel? [MTV]

After the jump: Which agent kissed off WMA, taking her highish-profile client list to UTA?

· Rachel Getting Married and Religulous's healthy performance at the box office—to say nothing of Kirk Cameron's fireman-wife-God love triangle movie Fireproof—mark a new Golden Age for specialty cinema. Hooray for Specialtywood! [Variety]
· After two weeks of ratings declines, Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters have plateaued. [THR]
· Theresa Peters—-the agent of James McAvoy, Kirsten Dunst, Mandy Moore, Joshua Jackson and Jeffrey Dean Morgan—left WMA, and joined UTA as a partner, adding a couple of semi-heavy-hitters to its recent gets of Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus and Seth Green. [THR]

Warners may be the only studio that hasn't yet had its big Iraq-themed clusterfuck; that time appears to have arrived. (Its defunct subsidiary Warner Independent bungled the underrated In the Valley of Elah to a $1.5 million wide release last September, just one of the misfires that cost the mini-major its life.) Universal only opened with $17.1 million for last year's The Kingdom, and Paramount saw Stop-Loss die quickly this past spring, earning almost half of its $11 million total gross in the first week of release. So if Iraq and the war on terror aren't over yet as Hollywood themes, they probably will be when Monday rolls around.

Critics aren't digging it either, but maybe even more importantly: Has Leonardo DiCaprio ever seemed more out-of-place than the Body trailers and TV spots?

It's worse than Blood Diamond, and we're facing it again with the upcoming Revolutionary Road. Audiences see more punchline than pedigree. From Warners to the White House, would you really entrust any matter of national security to this man? We'll have our own bold, pinpoint predictions about Body's fate in tomorrow's Defamer Attractions column, but for now, better safe than sorry, Warners: Watch out for chihuahuas.

Wright revealed at the Creative Screenwriting event that they have been working on various treatments for a Blade Runner sequel over the last couple years. And there is also the claim that recently the duo have been working with Blade Runner co-executive producer Bud Yorkin on the project. It should be noted that Yorkin likely doesn’t control the rights to a Blade Runner sequel, and all of this is being developed outside of the studio. But this isn’t just some small side project, Travis also claims that they are already working with a previsualization team on some of the hunter action sequences for their eventual pitch with the studio. I don’t believe that Ridley Scott is involved, but the screenwriting team has worked directly with his brother Tony Scott on projects, so their might be a possible connection.

While we regard the idea of a Blade Runner sequel as simply batty, we're heartened that the project doesn't yet have studio cooperation. Travis and John, we understand the allure of a sci-fi brand name and an easy paycheck, but if you give us a bedraggled Shia LeBeouf as Deckard and a cartwheeling Mandy Moore as the replicant with whom he's forced to tussle, we're sending Rutger Hauer after you. Trust us, he could use the work.

• Exclusive: Eagle Eye Co-Writers Working on Blade Runner 2 [Slashfilm]

Keep in mind this is the same script Universal bought more than a year ago for seven figures, piling on none-too-cheap rewrites by Brian Helgeland and now, according to Patrick Goldstein, British playwright Paul Webb. But that's the least of his problems, said Uni chair Marc Shmuger:

The original script had enormous appeal because it had what Hollywood craves—a great part for a big movie star. But it wasn't exactly the kind of character Scott imagined for his vision of Sherwood Forest. "The script had the sheriff of Nottingham as a CSI-style forensics investigator, set in medieval times," Shmuger explains. "It was really well written, but Ridley's interest took him in a different direction." ...

The delay could help on one front. Crowe, who has looked, shall we say, like he's been feasting on the king's venison in recent films, needs to lose some weight before he's ready to play such an athletic part. (After all, he's not playing Friar Tuck in this movie.) As encouragement, the production team plans to send Joe Abunassar, a top Las Vegas-based trainer who works with NBA stars, to Australia to get Crowe into fighting shape.

So old-fashioned! Everyone knows the Seth Rogen Stretch-and-Retch is the wave of the future. In any event, Shmuger confirms the studio still wants Nottingham, but all signs point to a mid- to late-2009 shoot for a 2010 release, which we take to mean that the U and Nottingham producer Brian Grazer should default to Ron Howard by the time you finish reading this. Alas, Ridley, you were close.

• 'Nottingham': Will Russell Crowe ever romp in Sherwood Forest? [LAT]

"I just found out," Miller, 26, tells the BBC. "It's the most exciting news in the world."

This isn't any old Robin romp: This time in Sherwood Forrest, the usually villainous sheriff is due to be portrayed as heroic, while Robin - traditionally known for nobly stealing from the rich to give to the poor - is not. ...

Casting for the Hood has yet to be announced.

We were under the impression that "revisionist" simply meant Grazer and Scott may splurge on a dialect coach for this version, thus avoiding the dodgy English accents that torpedoed Kevin Costner's mullet-hero stab at Robin Hood in 1992. Instead, look for the crafty filmmaker circumvent both the old myth and a near-certain SAG-strike hangover by simply hiring Denzel Washington, tweaking a few lines from the American Gangster script, jamming everyone in the forest for eight weeks and letting the testosterone do the rest. He's not Ridley Scott for nothing.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Sienna Miller to Star in New Twist on Robin Hood [People]

If you saw the preview for The Insider, you pretty much know what most of Body of Lies will be like. It's men under intense pressure shouting at each other over cell phones, usually beginning their speeches with some variant on "Don't fuck with me!" Russell Crowe smugly lectures Leo for most of the movie in speeches like this: "This is the New Model Al Quaeda. [sic] These are the new evolved analog cockroaches. They got in place and waited. This is war. This is not Osama got Lucky on his flying fucking carpet."

The testoster-ensemble is mitigated by agent DiCaprio's naggingly "nymphomaniac" wife back in the States (played by Black Book siren Carice van Houten) and a mysterious "French aid worker" whose vagina apparently doubles as a launching pad for Leo's tender character arc. And while we've stood by Scott through even his most banal transgressions (this story kind of reminds us of Legend, in fact, but without the unicorn), we're a bit nervous about the 70-year-old's chances of finally breaking his awards-season drought with what amounts to a well-tailored Departed Redux. Worse yet, we expect most viewers would agree that the world needs another war-on-terror film like we need Dune re-made by Peter Berg. Wait, what's that? Oh, fuck.

[Photo Credit: Estrenoblog]

• Advance Script Review: Body of Lies [CC2K]

The loss cut deep.

"Everybody thinks they're making a movie and are ready to start, then suddenly they're all going home and packing up all the stuff," Grazer recalled. "We had hired every department head. The extras were cast and fitted for wardrobe. We had floors in a building with thousands of changes of clothes for the actors. We had locked locations and had all the props to make it viable to shoot."

Fuqua was devastated: "It goes without saying that the experience was painful."

Grazer was embarrassed when he heard from Washington's agent that the movie had been canceled, his first and only film ever to be shut down.

"It was such a failure. I don't like costing people money," he said. Over the last two decades, Grazer has produced 58 movies — 40 of them for Universal — with his production partner, director Ron Howard, including the Oscar-winning hit "A Beautiful Mind."

After a week of feeling defeated, Grazer decided to call Washington. "I said, 'Look, this is really uncomfortable, but if I can figure out a way of reapproaching this will you stay involved?" he said he asked. Washington told him yes.

The rest, as they say, is history: Grazer eventually found a new director in Ridley Scott, convinced Universal to fork over the $100 million it would take to fully realize his vision, and used his mystical soul-hearing powers to mesmerize longtime collaborator Russell Crowe into joining the project, finally making the years of suffering he endured in the pursuit of his greatest superproducing challenge to date pay off. And once Grazer completes his four-hour retelling of his Gangster odyssey at the movie's gala premiere, the standing ovation will be defeaning.

• 'Gangster' gets a shot [LAT]

Mr. Deutsch said the script he commissioned from the screenwriter Ryan Rowe significantly updated the character, and envisions the series as more an action-adventure type movie rather than a straight-ahead detective story.

In an e-mail message, Sir Ridley, better known as the director of broad-brush action epics like "Gladiator" and "Black Hawk Down," said he found the books' characters fascinating. "In the case of 'Encyclopedia Brown,' we have a classical hero and heroine who just happen to be kids," he wrote. "They are ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, and that makes these books attractive."

"Also," continued Scott,"and this is just hinted at in the books, but Encyclopedia and Sally secretly attend an enchanted English finishing school where they're quietly honing their magical powers in preparation for a series of climactic battles with Bugs Meany, The Bully Who Must Not Be Named. It's all in there in the books, you just have to read between the lines a little."

• Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Hollywood Franchise [NY Times]