Today's Film News: Psychopaths and Their Women

By Katey Rich

Javier Bardem and Daniel Day-Lewis were kind of co-conspirators in last year's Oscar race, representing the "out-of-this-world psychopaths from amazing neo-Westerns" contingent as they both steamrolled the competition on their way to the gold statue. Now they're interchangeable once again: Day-Lewis is in talks to replace Bardem in Nine, The Weinstein Company's adaptation of the musical based on Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. Variety says the Weinsteins aren't making any promises about the casting, but the idea of Day-Lewis in a romantic role again is too good to pass up, no?

Um, wow. The good news just keeps coming. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Werner Herzog and David Lynch, a team made in heaven and/or hell, will co-direct the murder drama My Son, My Son, based on the true story of a man who acts out a Greek drama in his head and kills his mother with a sword. Now imagine reading that plot description without having those two directors in mind. Sounds awful, right? But if I would trust either of them to tell this story on their own, the combined power of the two is probably enough to change the world.

The second-best-selling children's book series, after Harry Potter, will finally be hitting the big screen, and fellow members of my generation can rejoice. There's going to be a Goosebumps movie! Variety reports that Columbia has acquired the rights to the Scholastic series, written by R.L. Stine and consisting of 50 books. The books, for those who didn't pack them in their trunks to take to camp, star children and feature scares from creatures like mummies, ghosts, giant insects and all manner of creepy-crawlies. Variety refers to them as "safe scares," but the idea of a father turning into a plant (as one did in Stay out of the Basement) still gives me, well, goosebumps.

And finally, in today's all-positive edition of film news, Jason Reitman is returning to developing a project he was working on before the whole Juno thing began. Variety reports that he's writing and directing Walter Kirn's novel Up in the Air, about a human resources executive whose only joy in life comes from his attempts to earn his millionth frequent flyer mile. You know, pregnant teens are great and all, but it will be nice to see Reitman return to the milieu that made him famous: corporate bigwigs that nobody likes. Is Aaron Eckhart available?