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Like a dormant volcano waiting to erupt in a shower of blood-soaked lava, the Death Wish franchise has slumbered in limbo, occasionally nudging the seismic news--o–meters. Now there are real rumblings, with word that Joe Carnahan has been hired to write and direct a new take on Michael Winner's 1974 original.

Winner's film saw Charles Bronson assume the soon-to-be-iconic role of Paul Kersey, a liberal architect type who turns trigger-happy vigilante when his wife and daughter are brutally attacked. Swearing vengeance on criminal scum everywhere, he stalks the streets of New York taking out his victims.

Highly controversial and not exactly what you might call subtle, the film nevertheless sparked a wave of cinematic copycats and nudged the current action movie genre to ever more violent ends.

Four sequels were pumped out across the next 20 years, but eventually things came to a grinding halt with 1994's Death Wish V: The Face Of Death.

Back in 2007, Sylvester Stallone, then high on successfully bringing back Rocky and getting set to release the latest Rambo, had his eye on a Death Wish remake, with Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines writers Michael Ferris and John Brancato writing the script. They had plans for a franchise, but that never happened.

MGM and Paramount have the rights, and now Carnahan is the man they want to breathe new life into the bullet-ridden idea. He'll write and direct the new version, though there's no word on when he'll get to it, as his schedule is already crammed with likely movies. And because he's just seen The Grey top the box office charts in the US, chances are he might try to use that heat to ignite one of his long--gestating passion projects such as White Jazz. He's also setting up to make Killing Pablo. 

While The Artist has been grabbing the awards headlines recently, The Help has been right there with it, in cast terms, at least. And on Sunday night at the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, the film scored a triple success, with prizes going to Best Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer, Best Actress Viola Davis and the cast as a whole.

But The Artist wasn't completely shut out – Jean Dujardin scored Best Actor for his performance as silent film star George Valentin.

Elsewhere in the film section, Christopher Plummer scored another award, taking home Best Supporting Actor for Beginners. And Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows actually won something, nabbing Best Stunt Ensemble.

Telly wise, it was also a good night for Boardwalk Empire, which walked away with the Best Drama Cast award and Best Actor for Steve Buscemi. Jessica Lange was Best Drama Actress for American Horror Story while 30 Rock's Alec Baldwin was Best Comedy Actor and Betty White got Best Comedy Actress for cable show Hot In Cleveland. And Modern Family went home with Best Comedy Cast Award.

Check out the full winners' list below

FILM

CAST
The Help

BEST ACTOR
Jean Dujardin, The Artist

BEST ACTRESS 

Viola Davis, The Help

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS 

Octavia Spencer, The Help

STUNT ENSEMBLE

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2

PRIMETIME TELEVISION

BEST DRAMA CAST 

Boardwalk Empire

BEST COMEDY CAST

Modern Family

BEST DRAMA ACTOR 

Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire

BEST DRAMA ACTRESS

Jessica Lange, American Horror Story

BEST COMEDY ACTOR 

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

BEST COMEDY ACTRESS 
Betty White, Hot in Cleveland

BEST ACTOR IN A TV MOVIE/MINISERIES 

Paul Giamatti, Too Big To Fail

BEST ACTRESS IN A TV MOVIE/MINISERIES 

Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce

STUNT ENSEMBLE

Game Of Thrones

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Mary Tyler Moore

When it comes to films depicting the death of Osama Bin Laden, Kathryn Bigelow's still-untitled action thriller has been receiving most of the attention. But there is another movie out there looking to cover similar territory – John Stockwell's Code Name: Geronimo, which has just set Kathleen Robertson to star.

She'll be playing an eager CIA officer who is part of the team directing the operation that sent two teams of Navy SEALs into Pakistan to track down and kill the Al Qaeda leader.

Stockwell, who is still best known for directing the likes of Blue Crush and Into The Blue, will be sticking more with sand than sea this time, as he's planning to start shooting today in New Mexico. He's working from a script by Kendall Lampkin.

Robertson, meanwhile, has most recently been seen on US cable drama Boss, featuring alongside Kelsey Grammer. She's also co-written and starred in the indie thriller Gravity Pulls.

While there are few sure bets when it comes to awards prognostication, a director scooping the top prize at their own guild's ceremony is often a pointer to the same
person hoisting an Oscar at the Academy Awards. So though he'd never let himself feel it, The Artist's Michel Hazanavicius has every right to feel a little more confident, as he scored the DGA award on Saturday night.

"It's maybe the highest recognition I could hope. I really love directors, I over-respect directors. This is very moving and touching to me," he said on ascending to the podium as a standing ovation filled the ceremony. "Best director – I really don't know what that means. All movies are different, so it's a strange thing to try to compare them and say which is best, but I'm very happy to get this. Thank you."

Hazanavicius had been competing against Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, David Fincher and Alexander Payne for the award.

On the TV side, Robert Weide won for Curb Your Enthusiasm, and used his typically deadpan style in his acceptance: "I have very mixed feelings about this because this means that I just lost a $300 bet to my wife, Linda. Why do they call this a medallion? It's a plate. I understand when you go to Don Mischer's house for dinner, you actually eat off of these."

The other winners of the night:

Movies For TV And Mini-Series
Jon Cassar, The Kennedys

Dramatic TV Series
Patty Jenkins, The Killing

Musical/Variety TV
Glen Weiss, 65th annual Tony Awards

Reality TV
Neil P Degroot, Biggest Loser

Daytime TV
William Ludell, General Hospital

Children's TV
Amy Schatz, A Child's Garden Of Poetry

Commercials
Noam Murro

Charlie Kaufman's been assembling a nicely eclectic cast for his latest writing / directing effort, the musical satire on Hollywood Frank Or Francis. And now he's locked in one extra name: Elizabeth Banks.

Francis' main plot strand finds Frank (Steve Carell), an intellectual director locked in a battle of wills with Francis (Jack Black), an online blogger stereotype who still lives with his parents and takes glee in attacking Frank's movies.

Recent Empire webchat victim participant Nicolas Cage will star as an actor famous for starring in big, high concept films (sound familiar?), while Kevin Kline will appear in two roles; one,  the world's top-grossing director and another as the man's brother, a typically Kaufman style character who turns into an animatronic head. Because why not?

Banks, meanwhile, is signing on to play a well-regarded actress whose career is largely made up of formulaic comedy bombs. She's also having an affair with Carell. In her own career, Banks will next be seen in Man On A Ledge (due here February 3) and then in the very slightly anticipated first Hunger Games film, which is out on March 23.

John Lee Hancock has been taking a while to set up the film he uses to follow up The Blind Side. He's already dancing around the idea of making crime drama Highwaymen, but he's added John Grisham adaptation The Partner to his list of possible new films.

New Regency is backing the project, which is not a shock since the company's head Arnon Milchan has a Grisham file the length of his arm. He produced the likes of A Time To Kill, The Client and Runaway Jury, so you can see why Grisham might be happy handing one of his printed babies over to him.

The Partner, which first hit bookshelves in 2005, follows young lawyer (surprise!) Patrick Lanigan, who has made partner in a Biloxi law firm. Though he's seemingly got it made with a good job, a beautiful wife and a newborn daughter, he's disillusioned with his legal calling and fakes his own death in a burning car so he can steal $90 million from his bosses. There's just one catch: he has to hope nobody finds out and hunts him down. Good luck, mate...

Hancock will write and direct the movie, though it might have to take second place to Highwaymen (which finds two veteran cops pulled from retirement to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde), depending on which film strikes his fancy first.

America can relax. Its long national nightmare period in which Liam Neeson failed to punch anyone or anything is over for now. Yes, The Grey, which finds Neeson and a group of other oil rig workers surviving an air crach in harsh Alaskan wilderness only to face down a pack of hungry, hunt-happy wolves, stalked to the top of the US box office this weekend, earning $20 million.

Last week's champ, Underworld: Awakening, still held strong, seeing off other new competitors to take second place and $12.5 million. Katherine Heigl's latest, Janet Evanovich adaptation One For The Money, had to be content with third despite a strong Friday showing, and made $11.7 million. George Lucas' Red Tails was fourth with $10.4 million and new arrival Man On A Ledge was a little lower than everyone had hoped, with the thriller launching in fifth with $8.3 million.

Stephen Daldry's 9/11-influenced drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close jumped a couple of places, likely helped by taking a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and earned $7.1 million. That put it ahead of fellow Best Picture nom The Descendants, which took $6.5 million after adding 1,441 cinemas and jumping up the charts from 16. At eighth we find Contraband which also made $6.5 million, while Beauty And The Beast's 3D re-release was ninth with $5.3 million. Rounding out the top 10 is Haywire, which made $4 million.

To hit wolves and run in the snowy charts, head over to Box Office Mojo. 

While we're bringing you Luc Besson / Europacorp trailers, here's another one, although it might be slightly further below your radar than Lock-Out. This one's for the French-language À l'aveugle (The Blind Man), starring Lambert Wilson and Jacques Gamblin, and directed by Xavier Palud.

Need a translation? We think we can just about cope. Gamblin is detective Lassalle, who's investigating a cold case that doesn't seem quite so cold anymore. There's been a new murder, and the killer always uses the same method, which is to cut his victim into small pieces. The police bring in everyone who appeared on surveillance cameras in the time preceding the murder, among whom is Wilson's blind Narvik. He's asked if he saw anything when he was with the murdered woman. He says he saw nothing. Well duh.

Lassalle has unshakeable faith that Narvik is the killer, but can't prove it. Narvik says he's flattered that most people consider him an invalid but Lassalle thinks he's a criminal: "It's a promotion!". In the courtroom at the end of the trailer, Lassalle asks "Why are you doing this?", and Narvik says he and the detective have more in common than Lassalle would like to admit. There's the sense of a bigger conspiracy afoot, and the tag-line is "Sometimes appearances can be deceptive."

There's a definite flavour of giallo about all this, by which we mean the slasher-whodunnit genre, not the hapless Dario Argento farrago from a couple of years ago. Palud directed the excellent Ils (Them) in 2006, and then decamped to Hollywood to remake The Eye. On this evidence, it's good to see him back on home turf. And it's also always a pleasure to see The Merovingian.

Besson, natch, wrote the screenplay, and the French release date is March 7. There are no dates so far for the UK or elsewhere. We're liking the poster's tagline too: "In the kingdom of the killers, the blind man is king."

Universal Studio's Argentine arm has tweeted a new still from Oliver Stone's Savages, a first look at a film that we're plenty intrigued about. It's a crime drama that will hopefully mark a return to form for a director who, even his greatest fans would cede, has been a little off the boil lately.

Adapted from Don Winslow's novel, Savages follows two low-scale marijuana growers — uni grad Ben (Aaron Johnson) and ex-Navy SEAL Chon (Taylor Kitsch) — and their attempts to rescue their (shared) girlfriend O (Blake Lively) from a Mexican drug cartel boasting the henchman power of Benicio Del Toro.

Throw into that heady mix Uma Thurman as O's mother and John Travolta as a DEA agent and you've got all the hallmarks of a film Kitsch recently described to Empire as "Pulp Fiction meets GoodFellas". If so, we're guessing that this scene either ends with a dance-off or Del Toro dangling in a frozen meat wagon. Click on the pic for a closer look.

"This is right in Stone's wheelhouse," Kitsch told us when we caught up with him at the John Carter junket. So would the finished Savages be a Hard-R Stone experience? "It's gotta be," Kitsch said, "Uma Thurman and John Travolta wouldn't sign up for anything wishy-washy."

Check back from more from Kitsch on the film next week. Savages is out on September 28.
 

Yesterday was an epic day at Empire. In case you weren't one of the throng squeezed sardine-like onto the internet for the great man's webchat, Nicolas Cage was here to field all manner of questions, from the wise to the plain wacky, and all things in between.

When he wasn't elucidating on his experiences in a haunted Romanian forest or talking us through his Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance prep in Stanislavskian detail, he was sharing his favourite movie lines ("Vive la fucking France, man!") and joining the ongoing Best Sandwich Ever debate with a roast lamb, tomato and rocket affair.

Along the way, there were a couple of interesting Cage titbits worth sharing. The first was that he's open to the idea of a Wicker Man sequel. Now before you run screaming "Not the bees! Not the bees!" (if it's not too late), this was delivered with half a smile and a wryness that suggests it could be nothing more than a pipe-dream. But still, can you imagine?

Us neither. Cage can, though. "I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made Ringu, and take The Wicker Man to Japan," Cage grinned, "except this time he's a ghost." If Hideo Nakata is reading this, the bees.

Cage also mentioned how he turned down roles in not one but two major franchises over the past decade. "There were two movies that asked me to go to Australia or New Zealand for long periods of time. One was Lord Of The Rings and one was the Matrix. But I was actively involved at that time raising my family and I couldn't really take that time out."

As Ghost Rider's fiery Romanian sojourn proves, he's happy to travel again. So would he be open to revisit the National Treasure franchise for a third time? "I would, but I've not heard any news about a third one at this time, and it would be interesting to take National Treasure into South America."

Considering the first two movies grossed nearly $800m between them, don't discount Benjamin Gates learning Spanish for National Treasure 3: The Merciless Peppers of Quetzalacatenango.

For the full webchat transcript, including the best story about staff-whittling ever, click here.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is out on 17 February.
 

Eran Creevy's second feature, Welcome To The Punch, looks set to establish him as a filmmaker to watch. Upscaling from smart Brit thriller Shifty, Creevy's latest unleashes the greatest maestrom of gangster mayhem on London's docklands since The Long Good Friday. Screen Daily has laid its mitts on a first look at the film's protagonist, copper Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy), on the trail of a cabal of high-level villains.

Welcome To The Punch pitches McAvoy and ex-con Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong), recently returned from his Icelandic hideout, into a very uneasy alliance as they try to expose a high-level conspiracy. That's right: it's the carnage-happy stars of Wanted and Green Lantern unleashed on the streets of East London. Remember the olympics, lads.

Creevy and his crew took time out of last summer's Canary Wharf shoot to tell Big Screen about the film. "I want to do a French Connection, or a Heat, an Infernal Affairs, Hard Boiled-style film, but set in London," the director told The 02 crowd. "I wanted it to be aspirational, make London slick – make it all glass chrome, skyscrapers, and nuanced performances.”

Judging by the new still, Creevy has nailed that sharp, neon-tinged aesthetic. This is the most Michael Mann-like thing you'll see this side of Long Beach.

Co-starring with McAvoy and Strong are actress-of-the-moment Andrea Riseborough, Shifty's Daniel Mays, and Peter Mullan. There should be a credit for one Ridley Scott, too. He took time out from Prometheus to lend a hand in the editing suite.

Welcome To The Punch is out in the UK later this year.
 

Neal McDonough played Cap's bowler-hatted, majestically-mustachioed comrade-in-arms Dum Dum Dugan in last year's Captain America: The First Avenger... and it looks like he'll play him again in the sequel, set to go into production later this year.

Confirming what Tom Hiddleston already told us a couple of weeks ago - i.e. that Thor 2 is set to shoot first this year - McDonough mentioned a few more details to IMDB.com during a chat about his TV show, Justified.

"Yeah, they’re planning (to go into production for) Captain America 2 for the end of this year, because Marvel does one film at a time. So they’re going to do Thor 2 and as soon as Thor 2 has wrapped, they’ll do Cap 2."

So that's good news. But the even better news is that Nick Fury's potentially '70s-set feature film, provisionally titled, um, Nick Fury, is set to start up after Cap 2 has wrapped.

"Hopefully right after that, we’ll jump into Nick Fury because that’s the one I’m looking forward to more than anything... it’ll be me and Sam Jackson. In the real Marvel universe, Dum Dum Dugan is Nick Fury’s right hand man."

But as we say, the '70s setting is not confirmed, with McDonough still hoping that's how things will pan out.

"I just pray that they have a 1970s setting, because I want to see Sam Jackson with lambchops kicking people’s asses for Marvel universe. It would just be awesome. And to work with Sam would be a treat."

It's an incredible thought - though as this is just an off-hand remark from an actor being interviewed about another topic entirely, we're going to take this one with a punch of salt.

After all, without official say-so from Marvel HQ, it's hard to believe that a movie two films down the line is set in stone, but we can dream, we can but dream...

It does make you wonder though: how will the timelines work? How will actors look old enough and young enough? How will Cap go back in time? All with be revealed - okay, a little bit more will be revealed - come April 27, when The Avengers hits cinemas.

Though she’s got a few films under her belt, Jennifer Lynch hasn’t exactly enjoyed the easiest time of it in her career. Boxing Helena didn't exactly set the world alight, and her last film, snake-woman horror Hisss, vanished off the radar with little success and barely got released over here. While she has the thriller Rabbit awaiting release, she’s ploughing on to the next, setting up A Fall From Grace.

The script, which Lynch wrote with Eric Wilkinson, follows a detective tracking a serial killer who burns his victims along the Mississippi River. It’s partly based on Wilkinson’s trip to the abandoned Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which stretches over the river near St Louis, and which was the site for a grisly double murder.

“It has been an incredible process, writing this piece,” says Lynch in a statement, which got sucked into the Hollywood Reporter’s news hoover. “I’m not sure what demons of my own I may have been exorcising, or if I simply felt more challenged by such a darkness. But I truly feel something intense and different was at work here.”

Wilkinson also plans to produce the film and has set up backing via Apothecary Films. They’ll all be hoping this one works out a little more successfully than, say, Boxing Helena.

If you were secretly hoping that the surviving members of Monty Python might someday make nice and get back together to collaborate on a film, you should feel happy: they’re doing just that. But if you hoped to see them on screen, you’ll have to be satisfied with just hearing their voices, as they’re providing the vocals for CG/live-action sci-fi farce Absolutely Anything.

Terry Jones will be directing the film, which will be based on a script he developed with Gavin Scott across the last 20 years. It finds a group of aliens – voiced by Jones, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese and Michael Palin – who decide to give a human the power to do anything as a lark to see what a cock-up he’ll make of the whole thing. Cue madness and a talking dog named Dennis (to be voiced by Robin Williams) who understands more about what’s going on than anyone else.

If you noticed that there’s a name missing from that list, you’re spot on: Eric Idle has been approached, but has yet to sign on the dotted. "Terry and Gavin have crafted a classic farce - something I feel I know a little bit about after all the Pink Panther pictures we did with Blake Edwards at United Artists," producer Mike Medavoy says. "In fact, the movie even has a pompous Frenchman reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau – but there the similarity ends. Like all projects originated by any of the Monty Python guys, Absolutely Anything delightfully defies a logline." Except, you know, the one they released already about the aliens and the talking dog and so on…

Just don’t go expecting the next Holy Grail or Life Of Brian. "It's not a Monty Python picture, but it certainly has that sensibility," Jones told Variety. While we’re excited to see the majority of the Monty men back in one film, it remains to be seen if a CG/live-action comedy is the way to do it…

Now that shooting is set to kick off shortly in Italy, director Carlo Carlei is filling out the rest of the cast for his new adaptation of Romeo And Juliet. And the latest actor to step aboard? Paul Giamatti.

The Barney's Version actor will appear as Friar Lawrence, a key advisor to both Romeo and Juliet in the play, who likely regrets helping them get together given their tragic end. Kids back in those days, eh?

Douglas Booth, most recently seen in the Beeb’s Great Expectations, is on as Romeo, while True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld will be Juliet. Ed Westwick and Kodi Smit-McPhee have signed on to play Tybalt and Benvolio.

With a script by Downton Abbey supremo Julian Fellowes (adapting work originally created by some bloke called Will, or possibly by Rhys Ifans if Roland Emmerich was right all along - kidding!), Carlei is set to film in Mantua, which just so happens to be the city Romeo is banished to in the play. There’ll also be some set work done at Rome’s famous Cinecitta Studios.

Giamatti, meanwhile, was last seen in The Ides Of March. He has Rock Of Ages and Cosmopolis set to arrive this year and has been in Sundance promoting Don Coscarelli’s new horror comedy John Dies At The End.

UPDATE: The flurry of speculation yesterday has caused Eric Powell to update his blog with some rumour control. "The Goon film is still on the table," he insists. "David Fincher and Blur still have the option and are still looking for funding. We have not run out of money... because we never had any money to run out of."

Powell yesterday received a heartening missive from David Fincher: "The things that make The Goon so completely unique are, unfortunately, more than mere concerns to corporate Hollywood... But I am undeterred - this atom can be split."

And Powell has also had an email from Paul Giamatti, apologising for being the spark for the whole story in the first place. "He said I could declare him full of crap and a nuisance," says Powell, "which would only make him more suited to play Franky, but is completely untrue..."

Sad news for all those looking forward to David Fincher's CG slapstick supernatural noir: it looks very much as if The Goon is no longer happening. Fincher always said "adult animation" was a hard sell...

Not to be confused with Seann William Scott's hockey movie (which is still just about playing in cinemas), this Goon, based on the comics by Eric Powell, has been in development for some time, and has been a regular fixture at the last few Comic-Cons. It was to be the story of the titular mob enforcer, his short-arse sidekick Franky (short for Francesca), and the villainous Priest with his army of the undead. Blur Studios were animating, Clancy Brown and Paul Giamatti were on board for the voices, and the test footage was looking awesome.

Last we heard about this time last year, Fincher was hopeful that a studio would shortly step in and stump up the necessary $50m. "Hopefully this is the year that people go 'Wait a minute! We don't all have to be trying to imitate Pixar!'" he said.

Optimistic. Speaking yesterday at Sundance (where he's promoting John Dies At The End, which Clancy Brown is also in), Paul Giamatti opined, "I have no idea what the hell happened. I asked and no one knows. I guess they just ran out of money."

Eric Powell though, has taken to Twitter to insist that, as far as he's aware, there's still hope. "Last I spoke with Fincher and Blur, they were gearing up for more meetings to try and find financing for the film," he said (although he didn't say how recent those meetings were). "It's not dead until Fincher and Blur come to me and say they are done."

Reports of The Goon's death, etc? Watch this space...

Just before Christmas we saw the international trailer, in which the film was going by the moniker of MS One: Maximum Security. And now here's the "domestic" trailer, where the title is Lock-Out. Back when we first reported on its development in February 2010, it was called Section Eight. But whatever the name, it stars Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace, and looks like a blast.

Grace is the daughter of president Peter Stormare, who's on some sort of diplomatic visit to a maximum security space prison for dangerous lunatics, orbiting miles above the Earth. Unluckily for her, she's the catalyst for a mass break-out, despite the fortress' whole suposed "impregnable" thing. And the only man who can get her to safety? Pearce's wise-ass badass Snake Plissken Snow, that's who.

"Don't get me wrong," he says. "It's a dream vacation. I go into space, I get inside the maximum security nuthouse, get past all the psychos, save the president's daughter if she's not dead already... I'm thrilled that you would think of me."

The last clip was big on the action inside the prison, but this one gives more of a glimpse of the carnage outside, with space battles and a destructive-looking bike / car freeway chase. 

Lock-Out, as it shall henceforth be known here, is co-written by Luc Besson, and reaches us through his Europacorp (Taken, the Transporter films, last year's Colombiana). The directors are James Mather and Stephen St Leger. If you've not yet seen their fantastic short film Prey Alone, now would be the time, ahead of Lock-Out's UK release (a week earlier than the States) on April 13.

It must feel pretty good to be Max Landis right about now. Not only does he have buzzed-about script Chronicle set to hit cinemas next month, but he’s been winning one high profile writing job after another and selling pitches like they come with coupons for world domination attached. Now Disney is the latest studio to snap up one of his ideas, nabbing a new adventure pic.

While the title remains a mystery (or has yet to be decided, at least), what we know of the basic plot finds a brother and sister setting out on an epic adventure.

Landis has script pitches sitting at several studios, including a Frankenstein tale and a new take on the Pied Piper at Fox (which is releasing Chronicle) and adventure thriller Amnesty at Universal, which Ron Howard is attached to direct once he’s finished working on Rush. Then there’s action comedy Good Time Gang, which has Mark Wahlberg and Jonah Hill on board to play mercenaries.

As we mentioned above, he’s been drawing plenty of acclaim for super-powered teen drama Chronicle, which will touch down here on February 1.

An elf helps to save Santa’s reputation when something goes badly wrong at the North Pole... No, we haven’t been watching ace Aardman comedy Arthur Christmas in a desperate attempt to recreate the festive season. That’s the plot for Saving Santa, a new ‘toon set to feature the voices of Martin Freeman, Noel Clarke, Joan Collins and Tim Curry.

While you might wonder why someone else wants to tackle a Christmas cartoon so soon after Aardman’s effort, that doesn’t seem to be bothering the team from Adulthood / Shank producers Gateway Films, which is using the new movie to launch its animated output.

Freeman will be playing a clumsy elf who has to rescue Santa’s HQ when its location is discovered by a nasty villain. Ricky Roxburgh has written the script and Leon Joosen is directing.

The voice cast also boasts the likes of Pam Ferris, Craig Fairbass and Chris Barrie, and Gateway is now looking for a studio partner to take on the world distribution rights. There’s no word on when it’ll be ready for release.

When the first trailer for Snow White tale Mirror Mirror arrived, it’s fair to say that we weren’t exactly knocked off our feet. And though some of the comic tone still comes across as a little too wacky here, this second promo is a definite improvement. Take a look below.

Directed by Immortals’ Tarsem Singh, Mirror Mirror is aiming to be the light, bubbly, family-friendly alternative to the doom-laden action of Snow White And The Huntsman. The plot here follows more along the familiar lines of the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale, with Snow (Lily Collins) as the young princess whose claim to the throne is usurped by the evil enchantress Queen (Julia Roberts).

Things definitely take a turn for the worse when Snow catches the eye of the handsome Prince Andrew Alcott (Armie Hammer), and the Queen banishes her to the forest, where a nasty beast awaits. But our heroine discovers that all is not quite what it seems, and she’s befriended by seven resourceful, pint-sized rebels (led by Danny Woodburn and Martin Klebba) who agree to help her retake her kingdom.

With Singh giving everything his typically stylistic sheen, there are moments that still feel a little bit too much like a panto (but then it is Snow White) and we could do without the comedy sound effects / Three Stooges slapstick. We're still not convinced by the “puppy love” scene, though full marks to Roberts and Hammer for commitment to the idea. Overall, though, we’re much more confident about the movie’s chances after this. Mirror Mirror was set to arrive on March 16, though the US release date was recently pushed back to March 30…