The schedule for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival has been announced and the American representation is at it’s lightest since 2006. Of the notable films on this years schedule: Quentin Tarantino will be screening his Inglorious Basterds, Sam Raimi will be screening his finished print of Drag Me To Hell, Ang Lee brings Talking Woodstock with Emile Hersch, Liev Schreiber, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan to France, and Terry Gilliam will bring the real last Heath Ledger film, Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. And, of course, UP’s historic opening spot.

But what does the WGA have to do with this craziness…

From Variety:

Confirming prognostications, Cannes Official Selection looks relatively light on U.S. fare this year. At a packed press conference in Paris’ Grand Hotel, fest program director Thierry Fremaux, flanked by Cannes president Gilles Jacob, told journos Thursday that Hollywood WGA strike could have been responsible for the lighter U.S. presence.

So what can we blame the WGA for, really? This year’s summer movie season? It looks like Wolverine, T4 and Star Trek might save us from what could have been a schlock-filled, half-written summer.

However, now we’re supposed to turn our focus to the smaller indie and auteur films which were in production during the horrid strike.

I love writers and all, but the film industry has been doing a pretty good job of mumbling: “well, with the writer’s strike” whenever something comes up light or underwhelming.

At least we should only have one year where that’s the excuse.

Check out the rest of the Cannes Schedule HERE.

You checked out the trailer to this right? Because by most accounts I’ve been hearing, everyone is going to be kind of pissed at Spider-Man for keeping Sam Raimi around for a third part of musical-number filled Spider-Man adventure instead of letting him return to horror, which he does in Drag Me To Hell.

There are some hell-sih looking arms pulling Alison Lohma down to…um…hell in this poster, and we’re still err-ing on the side of “this movie’s gonna be cool.”

Click the poster to see the full version at ShockTillYouDrop.com.

Poor Sam Raimi is at SXSW to promote his horror film Drag Me To Hell (which looks cool in trailer form HERE) and you can tell that everyone is itching for a Spider-Man scoop because this morning more little side stories had to do with Spidey coming back than in-depth analysis of how the mortgage crisis does or does not fit into Drag Me To Hell’s curse (am I the only one ready for economy-based horror? Too soon?).

It might just be my imagination, but I can picture Raimi letting out a long sigh before busting into the Spider-Man 4 information, which is some stuff we knew and some stuff we didn’t…

From MTV:

Raimi is keeping it all very close to the vest, but did reveal to us that the ideas and concepts are only looking forward to the fourth “Spider-Man” film and right now, a larger roadmap for the fifth film is not being charted out. He also said fans should expect to see the stories take place firmly within the Marvel Universe created by Stan Lee and not any inventions outside the familiar comic book storylines.

“The writers, producers and I are working out what the story will be, but we haven’t been talking in terms of Part 4 and 5.” Raimi told MTV News. “I’ve read that [about ‘Spider-Man 5’] also, but right now we’re just working on the story for ‘Spider-Man 4,’ just that one film.

“We’re definitely talking about working from all the material in the comic books and nothing [invented] outside of that, “Raimi continued. “All the characters or villain or villains, whatever we decide to do will be from Stan Lee’s creations or those that came after him.”

Note that twice in our interview Raimi said “villain or villains” plural and said, “I do have a pretty good idea, but I’m just not a liberty to say yet,” adding that Sony wants to carefully plan out when they announce the antagonist or antagonists to the fans.

Ok, re-trace what we know: The deal that had Spider-Man 4 & 5 filming at the same time was probably bogus. However, Raimi and Maguire are on board and Dunst is still looking like she’ll join up as soon as a script is written (or sooner if casting comes before a final script).

The villain teaser is a little odd, because there have already been multiple hints at multiple villians being a lock. From the anonymous source saying: “Once you find out who the villain is, you’ll know who’s playing it,” suggesting Dylan Baker’s Curt Conners will become the Lizard, since we’ve already seen Baker on screen (and armless). We also have a report that Morbius will cash in on the current Vampire craze and be the other villain, and that rumor came from the mouth of Raimi, though it might have been casting-unrelated.

What we know the most recently is that Mickey Rourke was rumored to be in talks with Raimi about being the other mystery villain before he hopped over to Iron Man II. So, once again the question is: What Spider-Man villian would Mickey Rourke play well?

There are several things about the Drag Me To Hell trailer that I really enjoy. The most exciting thing, though this probably has less to do with the actual trailer, is that Sam Raimi has found a way out of the commercial Spider-Man gamut, and managed to direct a horror film instead of endlessly making Spider-Man films until one is super un-profitable. Evil Dead? Evil Dead II? Army of Darkness? No man in a Spider-suit in those movies.

The thing about this trailer that makes me happy is that I’ve seen these horror tropes before (CURSE!) but it seems fresh, somehow. I know that sounds crazy, but with the loads of revenge-horror (Last House On The Left), remakes (Friday the 13th, H2), “true story” freak-outs (Haunting in CT) and fare like Lesbian Vampire Killers, a good old fashioned curse movie seems almost stupidly obvious.

Not to mention that this curse is directly tied into the economy, and the mortgage crisis, and as lame as that sounds, it doesn’t seem lame in the film at all.

Good to have you back Raimi…at least that’s the feeling after trailer one…

There’s kind of a miscommunication about exactly why Juno-starlet Ellen Page has dropped out of Sam Raimi’s return to horror filmmaking. The official statement claims that scheduling is all up in the air because of the impending summer-strike of the Screen Actors Guild. The first word that Ellen was gone was from Bloody Disgusting, and they claim that Page was unhappy with the script and dumped it.

Here’s the official press release from Raimi’s camp:

Ellen Page is no longer available for Sam Raimi’s supernatural thriller Drag Me to Hell due to scheduling conflicts caused by a change in the start date of the production.

The film is directed by Sam Raimi and written by Raimi and his brother Ivan.

In a joint statement from Ghost House Pictures and Mandate Pictures:

“We were racing to start production so that we could accommodate Ellen’s schedule. But like so many other productions trying to start before the potential SAG strike date, this one needed more time and we had to push back the start of production.”

And BG’s version complete with juicy cold-feet gossip:

We have confirmed this afternoon that young Oscar nominated star Ellen Page (Juno, Hard Candy) has dropped out of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell and that they are currently re-casting the role. We’re told that “she didn’t like the latest draft of the script,” which I’m sure is completely BS - I bet this is just a case of “I almost won an Oscar cold feet”. Good riddance I say. Universal’s film, which will be directed by Sam Raimi, is a morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse.

What thinks the general populace? Is Ellen Page a little too choosy after Hard Candy and Juno put her on some sort of map? Does she fear becoming a Lohan?

We can’t imagine that Raimi’s script had anything to do with it, because it’s Sam Raimi we’re talking about here. Sadly for gossip-town, the scheduling alibi is the most believable.

Because we really don’t want to slide sweet Ellen Page over to the bitch/diva column.

Jason Bourne can’t get a break, but that’s all better for us as news trickles down the line of a 4th Bourne film under discussion.

The tidbit is buried in a Variety piece about how Universal is the only studio not playing the post-strike atmosphere with extreme caution. Everyone else is cutting slates, moving films around so as not to touch any tentpoles against each other, turning down specs, but Universal is actually expanding their upcoming year from 14-16 releases to 18-20.

Here’s what Variety has to say about the upcoming projects:

The high-profile projects include the George Clooney-directed comedy “Leatherheads,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Bruno” (his “Borat” followup), along with movie adaptations of the musical “Mamma Mia!” and the play “Frost/Nixon.” And despite the misfire that was “Miami Vice,” U has enlisted Michael Mann for “Public Enemies,” a period actioner with Johnny Depp as John Dillinger.

On tap is a fourth “Bourne” movie, but their slate is full of efforts to either launch new franchises or resurrect old ones. The latter group include revivals of “The Mummy,” “Hellboy” and “The Incredible Hulk,” as well as another “The Fast and the Furious.”

U also launched a lucrative venture last week with Hasbro to make films out of its toy and board game properties. And the studio has a deal with animation veteran Chris Meledandri.

The article makes note that both Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon are coming back for The Bourne Fourthy and mentions that Universal has also lured Sam Raimi back to horror with Ellen Paige in Drag Me To Hell.

The one big question mark for Universal’s upcoming slate is the $175 million The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which they are prepping to open big in China in case Indiana Jones reminds us that Brendan Fraiser isn’t quite as badass as we thought he was.

We’re still holding out hopes for a series of really cheesy board game movies from Uni’s Hasbro deal.

Is there someway we can stretch “Don’t Wake Daddy” into a feature?