the industry

Simon Pegg No Longer a ‘Bastard,’ But Will Go on a Road Trip

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Simon Pegg Career Update: Superbad’s Greg Mottola will direct Paul, the story of two British comic-book geeks in a cross-country U.S. adventure, written by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Because of “insurmountable scheduling conflicts,” however, Pegg won’t be appearing in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards. That sounds like code for, “I don’t want to be in a Mike Myers movie.” [MySpace, via ComingSoon]

…On the Other Hand: First of all, David Krumholtz is out. But don’t despair, because Freaks and Geeks’ Neal Schweiber, or “Samm Levine” if you’re into real names, has landed a part among Brad Pitt’s merry band of Nazi killers in Inglorious Bastards. We hope he gets to do ventriloquism and quote Bill Murray as much as possible. [Ain’t It Cool News]

Two Get Goosebumps: Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander are in negotiations to write the big-screen adaptation of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. Producer Neal Moritz hinted they’ll probably cast kids for the leads and bring in well-known actors for supporting roles like in the Harry Potter movies, and then … a ghostly hand grabbed his neck! [Chapter break] But it was just his sister, Marcy Moritz. [HR]

Relativity, Assemble!: Fox-based New Regency has given Voltron: Defender of the Universe a swift kick in the mechanized lion pants, putting the Japanese TV series adaptation into turnaround. Relativity Media is in negotiations to pick up the reigns on Justin Marks’s script, with a more moderate budget using green-screen technology “a la 300,” which of course means each lion will have ripped, chiseled abs. [Variety]

Moulin Rouge Redux: Three production companies, one of which belongs to Mos Def, are teaming up to make a movie about the Moulin Rouge, but uh, not like in the movie that already exists. Turns out The Fabulous Moulin Rouge tells the true story of Las Vegas’ first desegregated casino, albeit with a fictional main character who rises from mob debt collector to casino manager. Best of all, the movie’s to be shot in Dubai, which we guess means in six months they’ll have built an entire working replica of Las Vegas out of solid gold. [Variety]

Simon Pegg No Longer a ‘Bastard,’ But Will Go on a Road Trip