1) AstroBoy, created by Japan’s manga guru Osamu Tezuka and turned into a hit animated television series, will be given a big screen CG-animated adaptation, to be directed by David Bowers and produced by Imagi Studios. Set in a futuristic city, AstroBoy is about a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist in the image of the son he has lost. Unable to fulfill the grieving man's expectations, AstroBoy sets out on a journey in search of acceptance, experiencing betrayal and a netherworld of robot gladiators, before he returns to save Metro City and reconcile with the father who had rejected him. The movie is expected to hit theaters sometime in 2009.

2) Two upcoming horror films have had their release dates moved back, possibly due to the writers’ strike. A remake of Hellraiser, from Dimension, was due in the fall, but now has TBD status. Eli Roth’s Trailer Trash with MGM was scheduled for late summer but is also now in scheduling limbo.

3) Filmmaker Jieho Lee’s directorial debut is the fantasy film The Air I Breathe, starring Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker, Sarah Michelle Geller, Kevin Bacon, Andy Garcia and Brendan Fraser, out in theaters now. Lee co-wrote the script, which is based loosely on the Wizard of Oz and a theme from an ancient Chinese proverb -- that everyone is connected by their emotions of happiness, sorrow, anger and pleasure. Gellar portrays a budding pop star, Garcia and Fraser are gangsters, with Fraser’s character also being a shaman who has visions of the future.
 
4) Disney/Pixar have announced that they will release new versions of the animated Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3-D late this year. The third Toy Story movie will arrive in theaters as a 3-D feature in the summer of 2010, under director Lee Unkrich, who co-directed Toy Story 2. To convert the films to 3-D, the filmmakers are taking the original digital elements of the films and rebuilding them.

5) In addition to The Air I Breathe, Sarah Michelle Gellar will be keeping up with the fantasy medium by starring in the supernatural thriller Possession, opposite actor Lee Pace, who stars in ABC’s hit fantasy television series, Pushing Daisies. Gellar plays a newly married lawyer and Pace is her ex-con brother-in-law. When her husband, played by Michael Landes, and Pace get into a car accident and end up both comatose, Pace’s character wakes up thinking that he is Gellar’s husband, and may actually be him. Possession opens in theaters in late February.