Today's Film News: When Tomatoes Attack!

By Katey Rich

First of all, in case you haven't noticed, it's ShoWest! The offices of the Nielsen Film Group are empty this week, with everyone except me and trusty layout editor Rex Roberts off in Vegas. I like to pretend they're hanging out at slot machines and flirting with cocktail waitresses, but they're actually working 16-hours days to pull off the largest conference of theatre exhibitors in the world. We'll be hearing daily from Film Journal's executive editor Kevin Lally, who thus far is filing incredibly detailed and professional dispatches from the conference. His well-turned prose makes me look bad, but I can't turn down an exclusive report, so what are you gonna do?

On to the rest of the day's news, starting with one item I can't even pretend to not be excited about: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is back! The guys behind the YouTube hit "Ask a Ninja" are moving into feature filmmaking, The Hollywood Reporter tells us, and they will be tackling a remake of the 1978 camp classic. "No changes to the original plot have been revealed," the Reporter writes, "but it still is expected to revolve around killer tomatoes." I think you only need to look to the images from the original film, at right, to understand why this is such a momentous, and gleefully hilarious, occasion.

Brett Ratner is often blamed as the guy who killed the X-Men franchise, but he has no intention to step away from comic book adaptations just yet. He's eyeing a potential adaptation of Harbinger, which producer Alexandra Milchan described to Variety as "in the vein of a young Blade Runner." I have no idea what that means, but I wonder if young Blade Runner and young Indiana Jones might go head-to-head? Harbinger is part of Valiant Comics, which filed for bankruptcy last year but now, like any comic book publisher worth its salt, is re-imagining itself as a film production company.

For a while it seemed like Dennis Lehane was the only urban crime novelist anyone was willing to adapt for the big screen, after Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone were hits in such quick succession. But now it seems that Gone Baby Gone director Ben Affleck is moving on to another city, Chicago, and another novelist, Marcus Sakey. Affleck will adapt Sakey's debut novel, The Blade Itself, along with his Gone Baby screenwriter Aaron Stockard. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the story revolves around two childhood friends who committed petty crimes as youth, and how one of them must keep a dark secret as an adult.

And finally, yet another Sundance "flop" has finally found distribution months after the festival's conclusion. Phoebe In Wonderland, starring Elle Fanning, Patricia Clarkson, Felicity Huffman and Bill Pullman, has been picked up for distribution by ThinkFilm, according to Variety. Lifetime Networks and Netflix were also part of the deal, securing television and DVD rights, respectively.