300 fans (and if the Cinematical reader comments are any indication, that would be all of you), take note. Variety is reporting that much of the creative team behind that "abs n' stabs" action extravaganza is reuniting for a new film called The Last Photograph. Photograph is based on an original idea by 300 director Zack Snyder, and is billed as a drama about "a photograph that becomes the catalyst for a journey two men undertake through war-torn Afghanistan." 300 co-screenwriter Kurt Johnstad will write the film for Snyder to possibly direct. The producers of the film intend to develop the film and then put it up for auction.

Reading between the lines of the Variety article, it seems like Snyder wants to direct the project, but doesn't know if he'll have time. And he doesn't know if he'll have time because he's involved with, like, everything! He's currently shooting the highly anticipated Watchmen (check out an update from Snyder on the film's progress here). He intends to direct an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man (read more about that project here). He may direct Army of the Dead, a "zombies in Vegas" flick you can learn more about right here. And he's co-writing and might direct an action fantasy film called Sucker Punch (which you can read more about here). Though I admired the look of the film, I was no fan of 300. On the other hand, I really loved Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead. So consider me cautiously optimistic about all the Snyder in our future.

Since the only female spies I can think of in the movies are La Femme Nikita, various Bond Girls, or Charlie's Angels, I don't think I'm wrong for thinking that there has never been a terribly realistic portrayal of a woman in the espionage business. Hopefully, that is going to change. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Paramount Vantage has tapped Sex and Death 101 scribe Daniel Waters to adapt Lindsay Moran's memoir, Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy.

Published in 2005, the book covers her time in the CIA, and critiques what she calls "a dysfunctional intelligence organization." Moran joined the CIA in 1998, after graduating from Harvard and working in Bulgaria as an English teacher. After five years as a "case officer," she became disillusioned with her lifestyle and quit. Moran's dissatisfaction with "the life" was also closely tied to her disappointment with the fact she was "far from being a female James Bond." She "discovered that the life was more isolating than anything else, with her not able to tell even her closest confidants or boyfriends what she did for a living."

Surprisingly, she was allowed to speak freely about her time with the organization, and even criticized them for both their slow reaction to the Sept 11th tragedies and their role in the Iraq War. Karen Tenkhoff (The Motorcycle Diaries) will produce. There is no word on a director yet, but considering the amount of spy projects getting the green light, it shouldn't take long. But for those who like their spy films with a little less bureaucracy and a little more glamor, there is always Bond 22. You can always count on 007 to give us our fix of super-model spies and unlikely adventures.

GamePro recently spoke with 30 Days of Night scribe Stuart Beattie and scored some news about his upcoming Gears of War adaptation. Based on the bestselling Epic game, the story centers on an elite military unit called Delta Squad fighting off an alien invasion by something called the Locust Hoard. But, Gears of War was never about story, it was all about firepower. So, how do you capture all that carnage on the screen? Why with green screen, of course. Beattie told GamePro, "There's no way to build that world any other way, really...That's a huge world. It's a planet and it's a bubble and it's a building. It's an epic sci-fi war and an enormous film. To get it made at all, the only way to make it for a price is to be on a sound stage. But the game also has that look, which is really interesting, so I think it will dovetail really nicely".

The rights to Gears were purchased by New Line back in March, and there were rumblings of a treatment floating around a few weeks later. There is still no word on a director yet, but New Line has promised that they will start looking for one as soon as Beattie finishes his script. Beattie is probably most famous for his work on The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but he is also responsible for Collateral and Australia, so you can't deny the man likes to make diverse choices. He has even worked on video games in the past; writing the script for an installment of the crime game, The Getaway. Beattie has yet to turn in a finished script for War, but he seems to be in a collaborative mood and has been working closely with Epic Games on the project. Gears of War is set for release in 2009.

Over at her blog, Nikke Finke has written a long and somewhat contradictory post-mortem on last weekend's big news story, spawned by her, that Warner Bros. no longer sees women as viable leads for their motion pictures. She notes a number of communications she's had over the last few days with Robinov, the studio chief who apparently made the offending comments, but says they are off the record and won't discuss them. She also strangely calls his e-mails "charming" at one point before returning to defend herself against accusations of overreach on this issue. Just as I was rolling my eyes and about to flip away from the blog, I noticed that Finke also throws in something on the Justice League movie. She says Robinov "has been saying he would only make Wonder Woman ... as a spin-off of Justice League. But his proviso is that Justice League, about four superheroes including Wonder Woman, would have to do really, really boffo to justify having a female as the main star of a spin-off pic."

This makes sense to me. I bet Robinov tried to lock Jessica Biel into some indentured servitude contract that would pay her peanuts for both the Justice League film and a low-budget Wonder Woman stand-alone to follow (think Catwoman-level cheapness), and she balked. If that's the case, then what is Robinov's problem? Why doesn't he just stop postponing the inevitable and cast Jennifer Connelly in this thing -- honestly, could anyone else do Wonder Woman justice? -- pair her with an A-list male star to alleviate concerns over womanly box-office punching power and throw money at someone to write a script that's actually not terrible. How hard could it possibly be?

I've accumulated a huge backlog of questions in the few weeks I've been doing The Write Stuff. Today, I open up the old mailbag and start dishing out some answers.

Jen asks:

Looking forward to reading the column! Here are a couple of topics about which I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts:

-screenwriting/film school and how useful and necessary it is
-writing for TV versus the big screen, and the pros and cons

To answer your first question, the value of film school sort of depends on the individual. I majored in Film Production and took some screenwriting classes. The screenwriting classes were incredibly useful, and are a great way to find out if writing is something you really want to do and can do well. If I had gotten crappy grades on my scripts, I'd probably be doing something else right now. As for my Film Production major, I haven't used the knowledge I gained there much, but should I ever want to make the leap to directing, you better believe those skills will come in handy. I can tell you that for a screenwriter, a Film Studies major would probably be more useful than Production. Watching the great films and discussing what makes them great is only going to make you a stronger writer. Of course, a Netflix membership is a lot cheaper...

I'll be honest with you, I would rather read anything other than something that has been branded as chick-lit. But, they do seem to be tailor-made for screenplays. The Hollywood Reporter announced that New Line has hired Kelly Bowe to adapt Jill Smolinski's novel, The Next Thing on My List. The story centers on a woman who finds the list of a deceased friend which includes all the things her friend wanted to accomplish before the age of 25. So, our heroine decides to finish the list for her. Unfortunately, most of the choices seem pretty PG; running a marathon, kissing a stranger -- c'mon, there isn't even a drug binge or a bank heist on the list (I guess that would be closer to my idea of a list ... I told you I wasn't cut out for chick-lit).

Co-producing the film with New Line is Wendy Finerman Prods. Finerman was behind the big-screen version of 2006's The Devil Wears Prada and also produced the upcoming romantic drama, P.S., I Love You, starring Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler. So while there is plenty of talk lately about women in the movie business, New Line seems quite happy to step in and cover the gap. While the Sex and the City flick is at the top of the list, there is no shortage of films for those of the "female persuasion" -- including the film version of the relationship self-help book, He's Just Not That Into You and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (starring Jennifer Garner and Matthew McConaughey). So it looks like List will be joining a growing slate of so called "girly" films that New Line is scheduling for the coming year.

Either the little Parker-Broderick is in need of a cushy college fund, or Matthew Broderick is loving the push of a many-movies year. After making it big in the '80s (ah, Ladyhawke and Ferris...), the actor has always taken it easy, tackling 1-3 films a year, with a few off here and there. The one exception was 2004, where he had 3 features plus one direct-to-video flick. Granted, he had a lot of stage work to also keep him busy. Now he's got 5 new films on the way, starting with Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie next month, and it looks like 2008 could be the year of the cinematic Broderick.

Variety reports that the actor has signed on to lead an indie feature called Wonderful World with Brown Sugar star and Tony nominee Sanaa Lathan. Joshua Goldin, one of the writers on Darkman, has written the feature and will take the directorial chair when production starts next week in Shreveport, Louisiana. Not much is being said about the film, other than that it "centers on a depressed, divorced, and unemployed father who finds solace in his Senegalese roommate's sister." The film should be a nice reprieve from his usual comic stints, which will include Finding Amanda and Diminished Capacity next year.

In another example of adaptation rights being picked up before a book is done, Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream is finally making its way to a feature biopic. Variety reports that Universal has bought the rights to I Am a Man, a book currently being written by Hampton Sides about King's assassination in Memphis, and the hunt for James Earl Ray. The decision was made from an 11-page proposal that's being described as "a compressed historical thriller" by the author, who has a history with the King story -- his father's law firm had repped King, a friend's father was the neurosurgeon who operated on King, and Ray's lawyer was his dad's best friend. Mark Bowden, the pen behind Black Hawk Down and the upcoming Killing Pablo, has already been tapped to adapt it.

As the story goes, King had gone to Memphis to lead a garbage workers protest. While on the balcony of his hotel, he was shot and subsequently died. Two months later, James Earl Ray was caught, and later plead guilty to avoid a trial conviction and death sentence. This seems to be as far as the movie will take it, but considering the studios' addiction to dueling pictures, I wouldn't be surprised if we later see one about his work before, or the aftermath of his assassination. There has been much chatter about a conspiracy theory, which is further strengthened by the fact that King's family believes Ray didn't do it. But that's another story. Is his assassination and the hunt for Ray what you want to see hit the big screen?

For months we've been mentioning that upcoming strike, remember? Well, we might have to forget about that priority list now, and all of those films on the fast track. While the contract is set to expire on October 31, everyone was expecting that the strike wouldn't happen until half-way through next year. Now it seems that the strike must just happen when the current contract fizzles into history, because current negotiations have been quite acidic. Variety reports that execs are starting to realize that the strike might just be a few weeks away, on November first, and that a "possible lockout is also being discussed."

One VP is quoted as saying: "We are trying to get as much stuff as possible shoved through." There's nothing like that image being used to describe a creative process. I particularly like the use of "shove." The VP isn't hurrying to get projects underway, but shoving as many through as he/she can. Nice. With that mindset, it's not hard to see why the writers are ticked.

So, as of now, the studios are ignoring spec scripts, and "are pretty much limiting themselves to making deals on fully-developed packages." WGA West's Patric Verrone says: "What I'm hearing from our screenwriters and showrunners is that they're being asked to schedule additional table reads, prepare additional scripts, and squeeze in more shows, which may be physically impossible in that amount of time." If writers are getting overloaded like work mules, I won't be surprised if everything comes to a screeching halt come Halloween. That being said, Variety did note that animation writing isn't under the WGA umbrella, so we might see more of that. If you want to know all of the areas this strike will hit (like the impact on television), check out the article.

Lots of people liked Brandon Routh's Superman, but many were also much less than impressed. He tried, but he just couldn't pull off the role like other fellow actors have in similar positions -- Tobey Maguire, Christian Bale, and so on. Instead of backing away from the comic world with a shrug, Routh is going to try again. Comic Book Resources has reported that the actor will take his next comic stab by starring in an adaptation of the horror series Dylan Dog. The movie, Dead of Night, will be directed by Snakes on a Plane helmer David R. Ellis, from a screenplay by Joshua Oppenheimer and Thomas Dean Donnelly.

Dylan Dog is a supernatural PI who lives in London, always wears a red shirt, black jacket, and blue jeans, and used to work for Scotland Yard. If you look at a picture of the character, he looks kind of like Rupert Everett, and that's because the look was based on the actor. (I guess he wasn't interested in the role...) I can see why Routh was picked, but I'm not sure it was the best match out there -- Routh has that fresh, gentle sort of quality, and Dog is all about the tortured visage. The actor will need to learn how to amp up the angst and look a little less sweet and cheek-pinchy.

I'm thinking Routh should take some pointers from David Boreanaz (who could've pulled the role off). Doesn't that picture on CBR look like Angel? Anyhow, fans will just have to hope that this stint works out better than Routh's last, and that this production doesn't get tossed into the pile of comic flops. The $35 million production will start soon in Connecticut.

I'm getting a feeling that I should get used to the idea of seeing a lot of vampire movies over the coming year. Variety reports that Bionic Woman writer/producer Laeta Kalogridis has been hired to do a major overhaul of the script for New Line's vampire action flick, Darksiders. The story centers on an FBI agent who teams with a group of vampires to stop an arms dealer in possession of some particularly nasty biochemical weapons. Now maybe I'm just picky about my bloodsuckers, but the idea sounds a little lame on paper, so I hope Kalogridis is planning some major changes. The original script was written by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein and was purchased by New Line back in 2001. Parker and Jennewein's last writing credit was the disastrous Ri¢hie Ri¢h adaptation back in 1994.

Unfortunately, Kalogridis also has a spotty record when it comes to scripts, having written both Alexander and Pathfinder. But I guess it's still better than being responsible for Ri¢hie Ri¢h. Kalogridis will be continuing to work on NBC's Bionic Woman, and has already committed to working with James Cameron on the graphic novel adaptation Battle Angel, and The Dive for Fox. New Line is going to have to wait until the finished script is ready before they can begin looking for a director. In the past, both David Goyer and Jonathan Hensleigh were attached to Darksiders to direct. But considering Goyer already has a vampire flick of his very own, I doubt he'll be returning. Unless Kalogridis and New Line can work quickly, I wouldn't expect the film to go intro production before the dreaded Hollywood strike begins.

TGIF! Happy Columbus Day, Happy Native American Day, Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, or whatever else you might be celebrating! Without further ado, here's a few more bits of news for the weekend:

• After Half Nelson, ThinkFilm is looking for some heart with a romantic drama called Blue Valentine, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Written by Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne, and Joey Curtis, the film will follow "a couple whose relationship is jeopardized when they find themselves in different places in their lives." Isn't that one of the vaguest premises you heard in a while? That's like saying: Hey, I'm writing a romantic drama! Someone replies: Yeah? What's it about? And you say: A couple who has problems. Anyhow, I'm sure it'll sound much better once we hear more. Production will begin in February.
• Variety reports that Neve Campbell is picking up some more television work. The actress will star with Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) and Rupert Penry-Jones (Casanova) in a 4-hour global warming thriller called Burn Up -- which will be directed by Omar Madha and comes from The Full Monty scribe, Simon Beaufoy. I'm not sure where the thrills come in, but Penry-Jones is playing "the head of a fictional oil company whose life comes apart as he's pulled into a global game of intrigue; Cambell is one of the company's staff who is also working with environmentalists, and Whitford will be an oil industry lobbyist. The production is still settling on a network.
• Last, but surely not least, we've got new The Incredible Hulk pictures over at SuperHeroHype. You might remember when he hit Toronto, which was turned into a faux Harlem. From there, the green giant hit Hamilton, a city about an hour away from Toronto, and has been wreaking havoc there. But remember -- this is a CG thang, so you won't see much more than lots of people and smashed cars.

Maybe because Halloween is just around the corner, Hollywood has vampires on the brain. Over the last couple of weeks, it seems like any "fang-related" property is getting the green light. So just days after news of a possible Fright Night remake, another cult favorite is going to suffer the same fate -- the bad news for me is that it is one of my favorites. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Sam Bayer has been hired to direct a remake of the 1987 "Vampire Western", Near Dark. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the original film starred Adrian Pasdar (Heroes) as a young man who is seduced by a girl into a gang of vampires led by Lance Henriksen. Rounding out the gang were Henriksen's former Aliens cast-mates Bill Paxton and Jeanette Goldstein.

Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes will be producing the flick and Disturbia scribe Christopher B. Landon will be in charge of the rewrite. In an interview with JoBlo.com back in January, Dark's original writer, Eric Red, said that he had written a sequel but, "...the obstacles to a "NEAR DARK" prequel or sequel were similar to a proper "HITCHER" sequel. Rights issues. And crooked producer incompetence...". I guess Bay and company found a way to work it out, but opted to just do a straight remake instead. Bayer is a music video and commercial director, and has made videos for everyone from Nirvana to Justin Timberlake. Near Dark will be his first attempt at a feature film. So even if I try and look at this objectively, I can't help but think that the odds of topping the original are pretty slim.

Whenever the talk of genetics and ethics comes up, there's lots of chatter around what is allowed, and what isn't. But come on, no matter what the rules are, if a scientist is splicing stuff together, and feels a high at the thought of creating new animal life forms, or other scientific breakthroughs, how can they resist that little human touch? If not the everyday scientist, then maybe some evil, cackling one who fits all the stereotypes and has some sort of evil superfunding. Whatever the case, it's like a dentist living above a candy shop and telling his kids that they most certainly cannot go there for candy. The temptation is too great, no matter what the ramifications are.

This is the environment that Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley are jumping into. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that the pair will star in a new science fiction thriller called Splice, which is being directed by Cube helmer Vincenzo Natali (and Guillermo del Toro is one of the film's producers). The movie centers on "the world of genetic engineering in which two young scientists (Polley and Brody) become superstars by splicing different animal DNA to create fantastical new creatures. They ignore the legal and ethical boundaries and introduce human DNA into their experiment." The script was written by Natali, along with Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor, and will find life in front of the camera in Toronto this November. It's a cool idea, and I'd go see almost anything that pairs Brody and Polley, but we have to wait until at least 2009 to see what they'll make of it.

Director Brian Robbins' name keeps popping up, and still, all I can think is: "Hey, it's that middle-of-the-road actor from the '80s." He had a bunch of 1-episode stints on the big, classic shows from that decade like Cagney & Lacey, The Facts of Life, Three's Company, and Knight Rider before nabbing the part of Eric on Head of the Class. He's the guy who had the little, black and white pictures in my issues of Teen Beat because the Coreys, the Brat Pack, and other cuties ruled the color spreads. But he's actually had a lot more success directing, mainly in that uber-fluffy sort of way. These days, he's got a directorial man-crush on Eddie Murphy and the projects just keep coming.

They brought us Norbit, we're about to get a little Starship Dave, and now Variety reports that they will team up for a DreamWorks comedy called A Thousand Words. To give the duo credit, it's an interesting idea: the movie will focus on "a glib man who finds out that he has only 1,000 words left to speak before he dies." Steve Koren, the guy who penned Click, wrote the screenplay. This being said, it all depends on execution, and it doesn't help that they want to rush this before the strike. But that might just be a little tricky -- Murphy has a slew of projects stacking up, from Nowhereland to Fantasy Island. But get ready, sports fans! At some point, we'll probably have yet another battle between the critics and those who love the world of Robbins!