1) Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form are set to relaunch the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise for New Line. The first Nightmare movie was in 1984 from Wes Craven, introducing the striped-sweater-clad killer known as Freddy Krueger, who haunts the dreams of teenagers and kills them in their sleep. Originally played by actor Robert Englund, Freddy has appeared in nine films and two TV series. Platinum Dunes also remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and are planning several other horror revivals with various studios, including a new Friday the 13^th film, a remake of Near Dark and a remake with Universal Pictures of the famous Alfred Hitchcock film, The Birds, starring Naomi Watts.

2) Director Mark Romanek has dropped out of the production of the remake of The Wolfman for Universal, which says the film will go ahead with a new director. Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro and Emily Blunt are set to star in the movie with maestro Rick Baker in charge of the special effects. The change in directors may delay the movie’s scheduled February 2009 release date.

3) Playwright and musical lyricist Stephen Cole is creating a new stage musical with collaborator Jeffrey Saver, Time After Time, based on the 1979 novel written by Karl Alexander and the film adaptation written and directed by Nicholas Meyer. The film starred Malcolm McDowell as SF author H.G. Wells, who builds his own time machine. The machine is used by a friend who turns out to be the serial killer Jack the Ripper, played by David Warner, escaping from the police into late 1970’s San Francisco. Wells follows him into the future to stop him, and there meets a woman played by Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen and falls in love with her. Cole has reset the future time period to 2009 and moved the location from San Francisco to New York.

5) Black Death, a supernatural film produced by Ecosse Films and starring Sean Bean, Lena Heady, and Rupert Friend, tells the story of a band of brothers on a quest to hunt down a necromancer as bubonic plague breaks out in England. Geoff Sax will direct, based on a screenplay penned by Dario Poloni. 

6) At the Sundance Film Festival, Dreamworks acquired the rights to Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity, about a young couple who try to videotape ghost activity in their house. The film, shot in one week with a high-definition camera and largely unknown actors, will be released directly on DVD and distributed internationally in a seven-figure deal.

7) Paramount has ordered up a sequel to the SF hit Cloverfield, with plans to bring director Matt Reeves, producer J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Drew Goddard back for the production. The team is also working on another feature for Paramount, The Invisible Woman, about a former beauty queen who turns to a life of crime to protect her family, though it is likely that Cloverfield 2 will be done first.