With the tighter confines of a New York City subway car to contain him, Travolta has downgraded his Parisian bazooka for a more conveniently terrorizing handgun. And as the heavily tattooed hijacker to Denzel Washington's transit worker-turned-crisis negotiator, he's surrendered the adorable leather-daddy exterior we had hoped he'd maintain for at least a few more roles. Alas, the savagery is complete. As for the rest, we're still not convinced the 1974 original required a visit from the End of Ideas fairy, but who can say really say no to Tony Scott? Oh. Well, give it a look anyway.

• 'The Taking Of Pelham 123' [YouTube]

· John Malkovich has been cast as Turnbull in Warners' Jonah Hex, a "wealthy Southern plantation owner whose son is killed by Union soldiers during the Civil War," who blames the titular bounty hunter, played by Josh Brolin, for his death. [Variety]
· Justin Marks, the go-to screenwriter for junk food regurgitation like He-Man, Voltron, and Street Fighter, will rewrite the update of Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo. It's the next project from acclaimed director McG, who not long from now will be trying his best not to rock the submarine as his star and DP have it out. [Variety]
· Billionaire investor Carl Icahn got a great deal on over a million shares of struggling Lionsgate, putting his net ownership at over 12.2 million shares, or 10.5% of the company. That's a lot of wigs! [Variety]
· Viacom fourth quarter profits fell to $173 million, down from $559.5 million last year. Sumner Redstone says he's close to a deal with creditors of his debt-ridden holding company National Amusements, and that the days where he had to liquidate Paramount and Viacom stock to bail himself out are long over. Probably. [THR]

Whether this red-do will be able to draw a strong cast of boozy grandmothers and ultra-skinny Degrassi alums remains to be seen, but EW's Michael Ausiello has the casting breakdowns of each new character, which he compares the Melrose Place alums of yore:

The new Jake and Amanda are... David Patterson and Ella Flynn. He's Melrose royalty, the now-grown son of the original Jake, with the taut abs and thick black book to prove it. She's his omnisexual sometime lover, a PR whiz whose tongue is as sharp as her stilettos.

The new Billy and Allison are... Jonah Miller and Riley Richmond. He's a Kevin Smith wannabe whose obsession with his movies is unlikely to give him a happy ending with his sickly-sweet schoolteacher fiancee — especially when she takes a shine to the glamorous life he loathes.

The new Matt is... Auggie Kirkpatrick. A hunky hippie, this recovering alcoholic is willing to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. No word on whether the word sucker will be tattooed on Debbie Downer's forehead, but come on…

The new Jane is... Lauren Bishop. Sort of an anti-Michael, this straight-arrow med student falls on such hard times that she's forced to pull a Sydney and trade sexual favors for financial ones.

The new Sydney is... Violet Foster. Though she's fresh off the turnip truck, this small-town teen already has a worldly-wise m.o.: play the sex kitten till you're ready to bare your claws.

Which original cast members will be fired when Special Guest Star Lindsay Lohan eventually joins the cast as Amanda Woodward's cigarette-swallowing daughter? We can't wait to find out! (If it doesn't work out thou, Linds, there may be other avenues for your jaw-unhinging talents.)

• Exclusive: Look who's moving into the new 'Melrose Place' [EW]

1. Try finding another leading man as charismatic as Paul Newman — who can ice skate. And, in the spirit of the original, he's got to pull off a crusty, ex-pro player/coach pushing 50 who can credibly oversee a rogue Charlestown Chiefs squad of misfits, hacks and ne'er-do-wells. And charm the ladies. And do his own skating. Never. Happen.

2. Weren't the sequels punishment enough? It took 25 years for some dark-hearted cynic at Universal to realize the studio hadn't bludgeoned its cult classic into franchise submission, but they made the most of the travesty in 2002, toplining Stephen Baldwin in the straight-to-DVD abortion Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice. When you thought it couldn't get any worse, Leslie Fucking Nielsen showed up last year to drive the Slap Shot 3: The Junior League nail into Newman's casket. We understand no legacy is safe in Hollywood, but in these punishing economic times, let's be responsible. Plunder Bull Durham or something for a while.

3. You can't replace the Hanson Brothers. Tempting as it may be to rope in some of the modern NHL's most outlandish characters as the Chiefs' infamous "retards," let's face it: People love the Hansons. It's not like Universal can go out, put black-rimmed glasses Sean Avery, Todd Bertuzzi and Claude Lemieux, and throw them in the locker room to deliver indelible (and NSFW) scenes like this:

4. Dean Parisot is no George Roy Hill. Director Hill was no genius. But for five films between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Slap Shot, he was one of the '70s most expert arbiters of tone, character and action, winning an Oscar for The Sting in 1973 but arguably topping out with this ensemble comedy that perfectly captured the lower-middle-class angst of late-'70s America. Parisot, who's attached to direct the new version, parlayed his own 1988 Oscar for the Steven Wright short The Appointments of Dennis Jennings into the sterling efforts of Galaxy Quest and his most recent remake horror, Fun with Dick and Jane. Well done, Universal.

5. Everyone will have to wear helmets. Safety first, we know. But imagine this extraordinary sequence working with the entire cast's faces obscured:

God, please make it stop.

• Parisot skates to 'Slap Shot' remake [Variety]

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]

Duff and Kevin Zegers are locked in for the title roles in The Story of Bonnie and Clyde, an indie revision of the gangster love story immortalized 42 years ago by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in, you know, Bonnie and Clyde. That one won two Oscars, made Beatty's multi-hyphenate reputation, and revolutionized the depiction of violence with its bloody, climactic slo-mo ambush sequence.

This one? We're not sure; the optimist in us would like to believe Duff and Zegers' post-Disney angst will nicely complement their Depression-era crime spree. But really, we'd just be happy with Duff's requisite closing-title story-song eschewing Autotune and avoiding the imminent chorus rhyming "love" with "above." Any costume and art departments with a budget should be able to plug up the gaps from there.

• Hilary Duff set for 'Bonnie and Clyde' [Variety]

The story of two teenage girls brutalized by a gang of prison escapees — who in turn are brutalized by one of the girl's parents after coincidentally stopping in at their nearby house and giving their game away — was part commentary on Vietnam's defilement of the '60s, part remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring and all blood-drenched, eye-popping exploitation legend. Not so much now, where the product placements in the kitchen alone probably covered the make-up budget.

But so what? We'll have a look anyway and are already anticipating the sequel Next to Last House on the Left, in which Axl Rose exacts his own revenge on the coffeehouse chanteuse raping Sweet Child o' Mine in the trailer's second half. [YouTube]

"Hedlund has been considered one of those actors that is on the cusp within the industry, though without much of a profile in middle America," said THR in their casting scoop. "Starring in a $150 million effects-intensive feature could change that." Yes, WHAT? $150 million dollars for Tron, the sequel to Tron? We're assuming that $80 million of that is going toward the actual movie, and the other $70 million will be set aside to buy each moviegoer a Madball and Commodore 64. [THR]

THR's James Hibberd alerted readers this afternoon to A&E's forthcoming Paranormal Cops, a sort of down-downmarket variation on Ghost Hunters in which the spirit-chasing subjects are not the usual plumbers or students but rather men and women entrusted by day with guns, badges and other reinforcements of social order. "Paranormal Cops is the perfect marriage of A&E’s successful crime and justice genre with our blossoming paranormal programming that documents real-life accounts of bona fide paranormal investigators," rambled Robert Sharenow, the network's nonfiction chief who actually allowed reporters to attribute this endorsement to him.

Speaking of perfect marriages, you probably won't have one with Osbourne scratch post Megan Hauserman, who after a month is still looking for wealthy men to buy her, ahem, hand in her next reality atrocity, Trophy Wife. Come one, come all, you Los Angeles and Las Vegas Craigslisters — all this can be yours:

Looking for the ultimate Trophy Wife? Reality TV Star and Playboy Cybergirl Megan Hauserman is looking for a man who will shower her with love and money.

If you are a single man with the net worth of $1,000,000 or more, then Megan would love to meet you. Whether you are a CEO or a TRUST FUND BABY, she would make the perfect arm candy for any man...who can afford her!

This calls for a compromise: Paranormal Ponce, an A&E series chronicling the lives of five upscale pimps who, having failed in their search for Hauserman's ideal man, instead channel the ghosts of dead suitors with the horniest, most credulous male heirs. The matchmaker gets 20 percent and an option on the second season or the post-divorce revival, whichever comes first. Now that is a hit. And, if we get Sharenow on it, probably inevitable. Can't. Wait.

• A&E reality show has cops chasing ghosts [The Live Feed]

• VH1 Trophy Wife
  [GotCast]

E! notes today that George Lucas has sold his blessing to Star Wars: A Musical Journey, which will premiere next year in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra providing accompaniment to series excerpts screened in chronological order — from The Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi. The bad news: No Clone Wars, and thus no showstopping Ziro the Hutt number. The good news: Reports also cite the inclusion of "a Stormtrooper kick line and singing Wookiees [accompanying] John Williams' Oscar-winning score."

While that may not sound good (or even legitimate), we must keep hope alive that Journey may yet provide a new generation with a conflagration similar to the Star Wars Holiday Special — that infamous 1978 spectacle so exhaustively explored today by VF's Frank DiGiacomo:

[When Bruce] Vilanch heard Lucas’s storyline at a development meeting at Smith and Hemion’s L.A. offices, he quickly realized that a “big challenge” lay ahead. Lucas was intent on building The Star Wars Holiday Special, as it would be called, around Wookiees — specifically, the family of Chewbacca, Han Solo’s shaggy sidekick, as they outwitted Imperial forces to come together on Life Day, the Wookiee equivalent of Christmas. Suddenly, Vilanch says, the special was in danger of looking like “one long episode of Lassie.”

“I said: ‘You’ve chosen to build a story around these characters who don’t speak. The only sound they make is like fat people having an orgasm,’” the 250-plus-pound Vilanch recalls. “In fact, I told Lucas he could just leave a tape recorder in my bedroom and I’d be happy to do all the looping and Foley work for him.”

The Musical Journey producers, meanwhile, insist you can expect a little more class in 2009. Translation: Ms. Fisher, your agent's holding.

• The Han Solo Comedy Hour! [VF.com]

• Cue the Ewoks, Star Wars Hits the Stage [E!]

Things like, y'know, karate, or a character who can plausibly bear the name of Mr. Miyagi. We've made our suggestions on the topic, but it looks like producers intend to go in a wildly different direction, according to Will Smith (whose son Jaden will be stepping into Ralph Maccio's bare feet). In fact, now that they've gotten budgetary incentives from China, there will have to be some important changes:

Interestingly, though the original movie was set in the United States, the new version will take place in China, and that means key characters will change with it. “We’re making it with the China Film Group, so it’ll be based in Beijing. Mr. Miyagi was originally Japanese, so there’ll be a Chinese adaptation to it.”

But wait, isn’t karate a Japanese martial art in the first place?

“Fortunately, karate is originally a Chinese art form, so that’s the area we’re playing around in.” (Ed. Note: Though karate was developed in Japan, it is based upon Kenpō, a Chinese fighting style.)

Will Mr. Miyagi now become Mr. Mao, and will he teach kenpo in Beijing instead of karate in the San Fernando Valley? Will "Sweep the leg!" become "Envision the white infidel Sharon Stone"? Sorry, Elisabeth Shue — looks like that phone call you placed to your agent may languish on the "to call" list forever.

• Will Smith’s Search For Mr. Miyagi Continues As ‘Karate Kid’ Remake Moves To China [MTV]

Co-producer Brad Fuller told Empire today that the teen bloodsucker romance was not only too stylistically close to his idea for the remake of Kathryn Bigelow's original, but that conceptually, "Near Dark and Twilight are too similar in terms of a vampire movie."

They are? A human falls in love with a vampire? Havoc ensues? If he says so. Of course, Fuller acknowledges Near Dark would have been Twilight's sexier, darker, R-rated big brother — less sparkles, more splatter. But nevertheless, with all the newer film's success, “It’s not the right time to make that.” Lest anyone be accused of unoriginality. Ahem.

• Exclusive: 'Near Dark' Remake Is Off [Empire via MTV]

Universal has planned a fourth installment of Jurassic Park since 2001, when Joe Johnston inherited the franchise from Steven Spielberg on the way to $368 million globally. Among the plotters: Michael Crichton — the original source novelist who succumbed to cancer a month ago — and Park producer Marshall himself, who took a moment over the weekend to discuss what precisely that means for JP4:

When asked if there was any development on the long-anticipated sequel, Kennedy responded, "No... I don't know. You know, when Crichton passed away, I sorta felt maybe that's it. Maybe that's a sign that we don't mess with it."

Or maybe that sign came with John Sayles and William Monahan's script draft that surfaced four years ago, to which even some of the Web's easiest-to-please critics reacted with horror over the story's "Dirty Dozen-style mercenary team of hyper-smart dinosaurs in body armor killing drug dealers and rescuing kidnapped children." We're just saying. It could have been anything.

That said, if the Crichton factor allows for a more dignified closure, we'll take it. Can we somehow invoke his passing to spike Beverly Hills Cop 2009? What about this Arthur remake? Surely he'd be as outraged as the rest of us.

• Producers Say No to Jurassic Park 4 [Coming Soon]

A New York producer named Sean Pomper issued a press release today announcing the film, a meta-slasher romp starring castoffs from Survivor, Rock of Love, The Mole, The Biggest Loser, I Want to Work for Diddy, even the Howard Stern offering Wack Pack at the Christys' Farm (!!!) — a veritable dollar-store ensemble of talent that will gather on Long Island to "ponder the question... 'Would you kill for $1,000,000?'":

[The cast is] invited to participate in a new TV Show where the prize is $1,000,000. Before the first contestant is voted off, a "freakish accident" happens, and they meet their demise. When the second and third guest "bite the dust" our contestants discover that they are not only playing for $1,000,000 but playing for their lives. [...]

"The Reality Stars are led to believe that they are competing for a prize of one million dollars, and before they realize a scam took place, the game costs them their lives," [Pomper said.] "This is a first-time acting opportunity for many of America's Top Reality Stars."

Pomper adds that shooting begins next week, with more reality-based features to come after Reality Horror Show finds its niche in the 900-section of your cable provider's channel guide. But even that exposure would be some kind of extraordinary cultural milestone we might not mind in the end. As opposed to, say, like, Zoolander 2. Godspeed, Sean Pomper!

• 'Reality Horror Night' [via PR Web]

A screenplay by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (Wanted, 3:10 to Yuma) appears to have turned up as the Leaked Script of the Month selection for December, getting its first coverage by readers at Latino Review. "The studio loves the draft but Eddie Murphy is not too keen on it," the site reports, but for the sake of argument we'll just imagine Murphy going along with it because, well, that's what he does. The film (working title: Beverly Hills Cop 2009) features Axel Foley returning to California after his ex-partner Billy Rosewood turns up dead in an apparent suicide. Except Axel knows better, and he will get to the hilarious bottom of it. Or something:

[Axel's] new partner is Goodwin, a fat rookie with low self-esteem who has a crush on a lady cop in the facial recognition department. When he's not solving the mystery of who tossed Billy out the window, Axel is playing matchmaker with these two. He's also teaching Goodwin how to be a better cop. It's like the Axel Foley Finishing School. [...]

It turns out that Billy was learning about a group of corrupt LAPD officers who were involved with gun running with a Beverly Hills rich kid who has ties to the military. The mystery isn't that big a deal, and Axel mostly gets from place to place by half-assedly conning people. He makes up a fake story about who he is and then doesn't follow through on it. It's like Brandt and Haas saw the first BHC and just didn't have the energy to write anything that matched up to it.

Let's not be that hard on them, though: Fulfilling this franchise legacy 15 years after the fact is an utterly thankless task, despite the deep well of romcom subplots made available by advances in facial-recognition technology. Rocket launchers and fistfights are thrown in as well, but those aren't aren't quite as funny; perhaps this calls for the old fourth-installment standard of vodka tie-ins and thorny-orb ball thwackings. People love ball thwackings.

• Exclusive: 'Beverly Hills Cop IV' Story Details!! [Latino Review via Cinematical]

Perhaps Smith is just looking for a new screen challenge after mastering his simulated-sex technique, but the kinetic bloodletting of director Chan-wook Park's original — which came one Michael Moore doc shy of winning the Cannes Film Festival in 2003 — won't likely wash with the mainstream. And the watering-down of legendary set pieces like those above won't make friends with the genre geeks lunging into Universal City today with pitchforks and torches.

Also, [SPOILER ALERT] Americans don't do incest subplots and ambiguous endings. These aren't exactly tweakable story factors in Oldboy, though perhaps Spielberg can turn Smith's daughter into an alien in some third-act reveal that dazzles us into FX submission. Again, fellas, take our benefit of the doubt, just don't make us regret sharing it.

Either way, we know Smith doesn't do live squid (link NSFW), and a California roll just won't be the same. We've changed our mind: Stop this remake.

• Spielberg, Smith in talks for 'Oldboy' [Variety]

The Hollywood Reporter notes that Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson were among the names once circling the project, a nifty batshit tandem we hope remains viable so many years on. (We share another writer's disappointment that newly retired Joaquin Phoenix won't be around to join them.) Peter Farrelly told Variety, meanwhile, that American Idol-style auditions will be held to discover the next Curly, "the most physically gifted member of the trio," and scuttled rumors that Farrelly alum Jim Carrey would add 150 pounds in an Oscar-chasing Method binge as the stoutest Stooge.

The trades offer conflicting details about the film's "plot" as it were: either three vignettes of 25-30 minutes apiece or four vignettes of 20 minutes apiece, with THR citing another contest commissioning briefer comedy shorts that would precede the main feature. MGM has production chief Cale Boyter overseeing what would be his first actual production since fleeing New Line last spring; the tentative Nov. 20, 2009 release date places The Three Stooges in theaters directly opposite Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes.

And according to Farrelly, the male-skewing ad campaign is already on:

"When the economy started turning, we felt like the world could use a Stooges slapfest. Bobby and I haven't done a real physical comedy in a while, and it's the most exciting thing we could think of now, to have people go to the movie, see some great slapstick fun family humor." [...]

"We love the Stooges and honor their memory, and we don't want them to disappear. We hope that next Thanksgiving, dads will introduce their kids to the Stooges and create a new generation of knuckleheads."

At least until the MPAA comes along and slaps on an R-rating for "language and intense, sustained scenes of graphic violence." Don't think they won't, either.

• Stooges go back to roots with MGM [THR]

• Farrellys to direct 'Three Stooges' [Variety]

Efron could pull in mid-seven figures for Footloose — by far his biggest payday to date — in addition to script approval for the story of Ren McCormack, a surly city kid whose relocation to a Midwest hellhole where dancing is banned ignites a particularly well-choreographed civil-disobedience streak. Dirty Dancing's Kenny Ortega is attached to direct while Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett is polishing the screenplay.

All of which are secondary details, we know, to the burning questions of what will survive from Bacon's star-making original. The soundtrack will reportedly retain hits including "Let's Hear it for the Boy" and "Holding Out For a Hero," but more importantly, what arrhythmic schlub will replace the late Chris Penn in the first song's requisite dance-instruction montage? And does Efron have the brooding edge to own the latter tune's cutthroat, tractor-centric game of chicken? The End of Ideas jury is still out on this one, but if Efron vetoes the bleacher make-out session to "Almost Paradise," expect trouble. The guy has to get to second base eventually.

• Paramount Fast-Tracks 'Footloose' [Variety]