A UK-based company called Velvet Octopus is ready to begin production on a sequel to 2001 cult hit Donnie Darko, of Jake Gyllenhaal fame. Jake will not be returning, but Daviegh Chase, who played Donnie’s younger sister Samantha in the film, will be returning to star in the “sequel.”

The second film picks up seven years after the first film (and the ill-fated jet engine incident), with Samantha Darko and her friend Corey on a road trip to Los Angeles when they start having weird visions.

This seems like a really bad idea. Velvet Octopus would like to make it known that they have “spoken” to Richard Kelly, the director of the first film, but that he is not involved in any official way. That makes us thing: bring on the suck.

Cast, details and when this shit-storm starts to go down, after the jump.

Once again, we could report on this story so much easier if we actually owned an Xbox 360, but – since that’s not happening in the next month or so – we usually get by on the kindness of Xbox-owning strangers. That’s why we know about BioShock, one of the best reviewed games lat year, pre-Halo 3 and GTA IV.

BioShock takes place in an underwater art deco civilization where your hero must kill little girls to suck the “Adam” out of them. There’s also a gene splicing plot, some mutants and giant guys in diving suits with drills for hands.

And now it’s got a director.

We still haven’t gotten around to catching up with episodes one through whatever-episode-is-on-now of Gossip Girl. It has reached that watershed point where we need to start caring about it, not watch it but keep it on notice or completely ignore it.

Option three is going to be difficult, so it’s down to options one and two.

Either way, Gossip Girl has some new gossip surrounding the next season: it will be a 24-episode extended season to make up for the episodes lost during the Writer’s Strike.

Not that it’s official. Nothing is official until next week’s upfronts, where our various prophecies will come true.

Good news for fans of the cinema of Frank Miller. Lionsgate has decided to move Miller’s solo directorial debut The Spirit from its original January 16th release date to December 25th 2008.

This means bigger audiences fro The Spirit, at least from being open on national Jews Go To The Movies Day. Not to mention that the farther a film gets away from the late February dumping ground reserved for parody films and cheap date movies, the better.

The 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys is about the drug trade in Miami and the colorful characters who populate said lifestyle. It’s an awesome doc by Billy Corben that was released in 2006 and analyzes how the econmic growth in Miami is connected to the drug trade.

If that synopsis sounds like it could use more hot babes, explosions and chase sequences…we have good news for you under the cut, buddy!

The one thing you can say about Heroes Season Two is that theytried really hard to come up with characters that weren’t just the X-men re-hashed.

There was the girl that learned things from watching them and Maya, the black-teared wonder who killed everyone with her bitchy weeping.

Second season sucked, just like the second season of Friday Night Lights was lackluster.

And now the two shows have more in common than a sophomore slump.

Word came down the trade grapevine this weekend that the McG Terminator flick, previously over-titled as Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, will be shooting for a PG-13 rating a la Live Free Or Die Hard.

Obviously, opinion is split.

With Iron Man recording the 2nd best non-sequel opening ever (second only to Spider-Man, which is also a Marvel property), the ball is now in Marvel’s court.

The comics-publisher turned film-studio announced its first quarter earnings today, along with additional news about their upcoming film slate.

If you missed out predictions about this announcement, click here.

Then, continue on after the cut for the details of Iron Man 2, Thor and THE AVENGERS SUMMER!

Ok, ok. We haven’t seen Iron Man. You’d think we’d be the kind of people who would rush out to see the early showings, and we’re not going to deny there were some curious phone calls between friends and staff members last night around 8PM, but most of us were trying to finish up some work before The Office/30 Rock came on.

So, we’re still amongst those who have not yet pledged the price of a movie ticket towards Iron Man’s noble fight.

If Iron Man makes over $70 million, as conservatively suggested, the following things will be proven/justified:

- Iron Man is the best reviewed studio-film of the year.

- Iron Man is the first real “summer movie.”

- Iron Man might be able to crush Speed Racer, leaving open territory between here and Dr. Jones.

- Iron Man’s success will prove that all the GTA fans can play video games and see movies in…gaps!…the same weekend.

-Iron Man 2 will be greenlit for a 2010 release date.

Yes, we’re sure about that last one. Sumner Redstone and Brad Grey (Exec Chairman and CEO, respectively) told Entertainment Tonight that if the movie does as well as expected, Paramount will greenlight a sequel for the same week in 2010.

That would throw it up against Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired was one of the big buzz documentaries at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It managed to get picked up by HBO Films for a $1 million deal, only to see a tiny release in March.

Tiny. Really tiny.

In order to qualify for an academy award, a film has to play in New York and LA for a minimum number of two screenings per day. Wanted and Desired was given it’s bare minimum run at 181st street in New York (far from the film buff districts) and in Pasadena in LA.

The film was pulled pretty damn quick and got virtually no press leading everyone to think that it had died a post-Sundance death like oh so many other projects.

Turns out that’s not true.

HBO has sold Wanted and Desired to ThinkFilm who will give it another theatrical run starting on July 11th, followed by a DVD release next year. HBO did retain the right to air it first, so subscribers will get to see the doc on June 9th.

You can read more about the content of the doc in our old Sundance coverage on its sale here.

Nothing like a sure thing, eh boys?

For the past few months, maybe even years, Ian McKellen has been the only Lord of the Rings actor who was pushing for The Hobbit to be made and for Ian McKellen to be a part of it.

When Peter Jackson was supposed to be directing it: Ian wanted in as Gandalf.

When Peter Jackson got kicked off The Hobbit: McKellen wanted to come back as Gandalf, but only if Peter gave his blessing.

When it was rumored that Guillermo Del Toro was going to take the reigns: Ian blogged about how he wanted to be Gandalf and was waiting to speak to Del Toro when things were confirmed.

Well, things were confirmed and McKellen’s non-stop poking worked out in his favor.

“Yes, it’s true,” McKellen told Empire magazine.

“I spoke to Guillermo in the very room that Peter Jackson offered me the part and he confirmed that I would be reprising the role. Obviously, it’s not a part that you turn down, I loved playing Gandalf.”

Was it the bathroom? It was the bathroom wasn’t it? Were you on the phone in the bathroom? Can we talk to you about being on the phone in the bathroom? Can you at least tell us what room you were in? Was Del Toro actually there with you? Was he in the bathroom?

See how annoying that is Ian? Did you really think that you needed to keep making a stink to get the role that your name is basically synonymous with?

Whatever, all that drama is over.

A little tidbit on the 24 two-hour TV movie that will be running this autumn as a way to hold us over ‘till the new season starts in ’09.

It looks like Jack is going to Africa after-all, which we talked about a long time ago when it was struck from the 24 timeline.

No longer.

CNN doesn’t seem to know that they are breaking this story as it is shelved at the bottom of an article about 24 mini-episodes called “Extraction.” If that was good and/or important, we would have told you.

“Jack Bauer is under Senate investigation for crimes against humanity,” Coto explains. But while in Washington, FBI agent Renee Walker brings him in to deal with a series of possible terrorist attacks instigated by former CTU agent Tony Almeida, previously presumed dead. “Jack’s thrust into this mystery of how Tony is still alive, and why is he trying to bring down this country?”

To further fill “24’s” gap this year, Coto says a two-hour “prequel” TV movie is expected to air this fall, which will bring Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer to Africa and “lead directly into the events of Season Seven.”

“He’s a soul in turmoil and has been moving from place to place trying to find somewhere he can be at peace,” Coto says. “But he winds up in Africa in the middle of a military coup.”

Meanwhile, Bauer is subpoenaed to appear before the Senate hearing while in Africa, but doesn’t want to go.

“He’s not running away from anything,” Coto says. “It’s because they’ve taken everything from him, but they won’t let them take his freedom.

To Africa this fall! In an attempt to un-jump the shark!

There are a few things that we are planning to hear “officially” when the networks pitch their upcoming schedules to advertisers in an attempt to draw the millions of dollars worth of advertising needed to keep executives feeling comfy and – to a lesser degree – television on the air. Upfronts are in May, but here are a few news items you can expect to be covered.

Fallon Takes Over For Conan - We were amongst the first to break this news, and you can read that post here.

Scrubs Goes To ABC - Once again, we’ve been talking about this for awhile, but expect it to be confirmed by ABC during upfronts. Scrubs is already back in production on 18 new episodes, though the network is telling them to keep it quiet. That means you can stick a fork in this deal, it’s done.

Sit Down, Shut Up on Fox - Mitch Hurwitz (of Arrested Development), Bill Oakley (The Simpsons) and Josh Weinstein (Simpsons) are teaming up for an animated re-make of Australian TV show “Sit Down, Shut Up.” The animated version will revolve around the lives of seven staff members at a dysfunctional high school in a small northeastern fishing town. The action centers on faculty members, as their egos and personal agendas trump the students’ needs.

w00t! w00t!

From AP:

Guillermo del Toro is directing “The Hobbit” and its sequel, New Line Cinema announced Thursday. The 43-year-old filmmaker will move to New Zealand for four years to make the films back-to-back with executive producer Peter Jackson.

Finally! After weeks of knowin that it was probably going to be Guillermo, and hoping that the announcement would be made on a Wednesday to save us from the giant gossip black hole that exists in the middle of the week, New Line (now a tiny sect of Warners) has pulled the trigger and is going to move Del Toro down to New Zealand, where he’s sure to start brainstorming with Weta, writing with Peter and Fran and reading lots of Tolkien.

Basically all the good parts of the 9 bonus discs included with the extended Lord Of The Rings DVD trilogy.

We wonder if this will affect Hellboy II at all, or at least allow critics to include Hobbit jokes, like: “Unlike Hobbits, Hellboy Doesn’t Come Up Short.”