the industry

The Lorax Returns to Teach Us a Lesson

How Many More Books Does the Doctor Have?: Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax will hit the big screen as a 3-D animated feature in March of 2012. Horton Hears a Who screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio will write and co-direct with Chris Renaud. The book, published in 1971, revolves around a greedy entrepreneur who, despite warnings from the Lorax, destroys a forest. Ah, the seventies — when even adorable animated forest creatures had great mustaches. [Variety]

Switch-Up: Bryce Dallas Howard will play the villainous Victoria in Eclipse, the third movie in the Twilight series, which starts shooting in August. Rachelle Lefevre played the part in the first movie and the upcoming New Moon, but won’t be making it to the third. The official word is that there’s a scheduling conflict with Barney’s Version, an indie drama Lefevre recently signed on for, but we think we know what’s really going on — Lefevre, ultimately, just wasn’t hunky enough. [HR]

Ready, Set, Go: David Alan Grier has joined Race, the new David Mamet play opening on Broadway in the fall. Plot details are scarce (Michael Riedel, who read the script last week, says it’s a lot like Speed-the-Plow), but it is known that along with the previously cast James Spader, Grier plays one of the two lawyers at the center of the action. It’s also known that the play is probably not about Mario Kart. [Variety]

Theron to the Rescue: Charlize Theron’s production company Denver and Delilah Films has optioned Christopher Buckley’s novel Florence of Arabia. Theron may star as a State Department employee whose friend marries the prince of a Middle Eastern country and is subsequently executed; Theron’s character then fights for equal rights for women of that country. She gets on that a bit too late though, huh? [Variety]

Lopez Up Late: George Lopez will host a late-night talk show for TBS, premiering in the fall. The format will be flexible, with audience members occasionally invited up on the couch (!), and there’ll be no desk or cue cards and a short monologue. “The simple plan of the show is to create an energy that isn’t anywhere on TV,” Lopez said. He then immediately made the same type of lame joke (“Apparently in some parts of the country I’ll be up against telenovelas — can’t win that battle”) he’s been making about his sitcom for a while. [HR]

Not So Simple: Zhang Yimou will direct a Chinese-language version of Blood Simple, the Coen Brothers’ first movie. Yimou will move the action — a man planning on murdering his adulterous wife and her lover — from a random Texas bar to a Chinese-noodle shop in the desert. Awesome. [Variety]

The Lorax Returns to Teach Us a Lesson