Fanboys and girls everywhere perked up their ears when talk of a live action adaptation of the hit anime series Cowboy Bebop began brewing in the nerd community at large. Oh the joy. Oh the horror. This will be awesome until it becomes terrible.

We fans are fickle, irrational creatures when it comes to the furthering of our favorite franchises. For the cult surrounding some particular novel or comic or video game, there are few diversions as engrossing as speculating about how the masterpiece could be adapted to film — fantasizing about dream casts, bickering about worthy directors, and bitching about the inevitable ways that the precious material would be most unavoidably and completely f*cked up.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the ’90s, rumors persisted that Martin Scorsese came close to adapting Nick Tosches’ brilliant biography of Dean Martin with an all-star cast headed by Tom Hanks and John Travolta. Lucky for us all, Cinematical is reporting that the greatest living American director may be rekindling a Rat Pack project.

Now the fun part - playing casting agent! How about Leonardo DiCaprio as the Chairman of the Board, Ryan Gosling as Dino, and Edward Norton as Jerry Lewis? Chiwetel Ejiofer would be a perfect Sammy Davis Jr. And Kate Beckinsale could play Ava Gardner for the second time in a Scorsese movie.

The latest addition to a motley club consisting of several angry Romanian villagers, an offended etiquette teacher, two misguided frat boys (and a partridge in a pear tree) is none other than acclaimed director and alleged ruiner of fun, Steven Spielberg. Unlike his company, Spielberg isn’t interested in suing Sacha Baron Cohen, but his actions may lead to the end of Borat all the same. The director has signed a $6 million dollar deal with Cohen, who has reportedly agreed to play the role of Abbie Hoffman in The Trial of the Chicago Seven. Though the film, which follows the events leading up to a violent anti-Vietnam protest, has the potential to make polite society uncomfortable, it’s a far cry from letting chickens loose on a New York subway train and stirring up trouble in a traditional American rodeo. Will we see Borat wreak havoc throughout the U S and A while rocking a mean mustache after reaching legitimate actorhood? Only time will tell.

When word came earlier this week that a big-screen A-Team movie might be in the works, it got the old brain-juice flowing around the AMG offices. So much so that they overflowed and spilled all over the carpet. It actually made quite a mess, but we were able to put together the following dream casts.

Enjoy, and be sure to share your own choices in the comments.

Read the rest of this entry »