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And I thought this project was dead! Deadline is reporting that British director Rupert Wyatt is Fox’s top choice to direct the Planet of the Apes prequel. Wait – there’s a Planet of the Apes prequel? We’ve been reporting various rumors and rumblings about a new Apes movie for years, but it never got off the ground. Now this hits almost out of nowhere. Deadline’s report is also suspiciously brief, stating: “No start date, but Wyatt’s come aboard to develop to direct .” They also say the script they’re using was written by Rick Jaffa ( The Relic ) and Amanda Silver ( The Hand That Rocks the Cradle ). So who is this Rupert Wyatt guy anyway? Wyatt is a British filmmaker who got his start directing a few short films. He then directed his first feature called The Escapist in 2008, which was one of my favorite movies of that year. He hasn’t directed anything since then, but if you’ve seen The Escapist (and not many people have), you will agree with me about how much potential this guy has, especially if they give him a huge project like Planet of the Apes . Speaking of which, I have a feeling Fox wants to keep this grounded and low budget, so that it can’t potentially flop big like Tim Burton’s Planets of the Apes . But details are sparse at the moment and it’s too early to tell anyway. The last time we wrote about Planet of the Apes was back in December of 2008 and it was only to provide an update on an Apes prequel called Caesar written (and to be directed) by Scott Frank . However, it looks like that project was thrown out and Fox may be going a different route, but then again Deadline never mentions the name of the project that Wyatt is now developing (it could be Caesar ). I did a quick search and found an article from January this year on CHUD that confirms that Frank left the prequel, which explains why Wyatt is now on-board instead. We’ll let you know if we hear anything else about this, so stay tuned. Thoughts? Discover More: Movie News , Opinions , Rumors

Between Alex Meraz and Jodelle Ferland , someone may need to put on a gallery showing of ” Twilight ” actor artwork. While Ferland was busy drawing Taylor Lautner , Meraz was hard at work with his paints, and he TwitPic’d a shot of his project today. Elsewhere in Twitter-Wood , birthdays were the hot thing today. Kim Kardashian revealed what she did for Reggie Bush in honor of his special day, and birthday boy Justin Bieber pretty much took over trending with the birthday wishes he commanded. Check out all of that below, along with Mandy Moore ’s fondness for the late Jay Reatard, which I share, and James Gunn ’s affinity for David Mazzucchelli’s graphic novel “Asterios Poly,” which I also share. I’m @brianwarmoth , and this is Twitter-Wood for March 2nd, 2010. Twitter Pic of the Day: @TheAlexMeraz http://www.twitpic.com/168sq7 The late nights of painting are nearly over! -Alex Meraz, Actor (“New Moon,” “Eclipse”) @steveagee is there any chance Carson could claw his way out of the ground and take the Tonight Show back from Leno? -Steve Agee, Actor (”The Sarah Silverman Program,” “Stay”) @KimKardashian Happy birthday babe! I’m letting u beat me in cards bc its your birthday -Kim Kardashian, Actress (“Disaster Movie,” “Beyond the Break”) Justin Bieber pt. 1: @davidpressman Happy Bday, Justin Beiber! I want to lock u in a golden cage, remove your shirt, put a baby bonnet on u and take u out when its hump time. -David Pressman, Actor (“Blades of Glory,” “Tropic Thunder”) Justin Bieber pt. 2: @selenagomez Thank you for tonight @justinbieber Happy birthday!! Have fun! -Selena Gomez, Actress/Musician (“Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie,” “Ramona and Beezus”) Justin Bieber pt. 3: @mindykaling This 3 year old weeping inconsolably over Justin Bieber is the single best thing on the internet. http://tinyurl.com/ylcxl68 -Mindy Kaling, Actress/Writer (“The Office,” “The 40 Year Old Virgin”) @kevin_nealon Just my opinion… but if the Catholic Church can drop the Latin masses why can’t yoga teachers lose the Indian references??? -Kevin Nealon, Actor (“Anger Management,” “Weeds”) @TheMandyMoore Album of the day, “watch me fall” jay reatard. Brilliant! Sigh..it’s such a loss. Was looking forward to much more music from him. -Mandy Moore, Actress/Singer (“Saved!,” “Southland Tales”) @james_gunn Just finished David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp: heartbreaking: one of the greatest graphic novels in many, many years. -James Gunn, Writer/Director/Actor (“Slither,” “Super”) Don’t forget to follow @MTVMoviesBlog on Twitter for all the latest updates and colorful commentary from the world of movies.

In December of 2008, shortly after receiving a Golden Globe nomination for his turn as hirsute studio chief Les Grossman in ” Tropic Thunder ,” Tom Cruise revealed that he and the film’s writer/director/star Ben Stiller were kicking around ideas to do another project with the Grossman character. “Ben and I are always talking about what we can do with Les,” Cruise told MTV News at the time. “Do we do some viral video with Les?” We haven’t heard any movement on this possibility, so when we had a chance to speak with Stiller while he was promoting his upcoming indie, “Greenberg,” we put the question to him. Anything shaking with the Grossman project? “We’re playing around with ideas for a Les Grossman something,” Stiller said. “Maybe a movie, maybe some Internet stuff. I love that character and Tom, I think, is just insanely funny doing that guy. And I think he’s game for it too.” Is this just idle talk from Stiller? Or have their ideas for Grossman morphed from a few Internet shorts to an actual theatrical spin-off? We’ll remain cautiously optimistic and simply be happy knowing that Stiller and Cruise are still keeping alive the idea of resurrecting the classically pompous and foul-mouthed Grossman character a year and a half after “Tropic Thunder” opened.

Angelina Jolie is keeping everybody guessing these days. First, it was revealed that she would be a part of ” Wanted 2 ,” despite her character’s fate in the first film making this a nearly impossible task. Most recently, she reportedly abandoned that film in favor of “Gravity,” a space-set science fiction movie directed by ” Children of Men ” director Alfonso Cuaron . Now, it appears that she’s heading to 1920s North Carolina with murder in her heart and director Darren Aronofsky by her side. According to The Hollywood Reporter , Jolie and Aronofsky are currently in discussions for to adapt Ron Rash’s 2008 period piece “Serena: A Novel” for the big screen. The screenplay comes from “The Weight of Water” scribe Chris Kyle, though retooling on the script is necessary before Jolie and Aronofsky can move forward. Nick Weschler of ” The Road ” and ” The Time Traveler’s Wife ” is producing. “Serena: A Novel” focuses on the creation of a timber empire in 1929 North Carolina. Jolie would play Serena, the ruthless wife of businessman George Pemberton. After it becomes clear that she can’t bear a child, Serena takes off with a plan to murder George’s illegitimate son in retaliation. Clearly, this is a very dark idea. THR even compares “Serena” to Paul Thomas Anderson’s ” There Will Be Blood .” In my mind, Jolie isn’t exactly an equal with Daniel Day-Lewis — very few people are, really — but she’s still one of the great actresses currently working in the filmmaking business, so seeing her in this tormented tormentor role is something I’m totally up for, especially at the very capably twisted hands of Aronofsky. But what does this mean for ” Gravity ,” Jolie’s rumored collaboration with Alfonso Cuaron? I’m not sure that this project effects things at all, as there’s still much work to be done on “Serena.” Hopefully, we’ll be able to have our cake and eat it on this one — but if Jolie has to choose between “Serena” and “Gravity,” at least she’ll be at the forefront of an interesting project in either case. Tell us what you think of the news in the comments and on Twitter !

It’s possible that you’ve been reading reports of Microsoft’s body-capturing Project Natal with some skepticism, wondering, “how well can this cockamamie setup possibly work?” Well, going by this video of it perfectly tracking a guy breakdancing, pretty damn well. As best we can guess, Natal will be making its way to Xboxes sometime this fall . That’s still a good deal of waiting we’ve got ahead of us, so every once in a while it’s nice to have a reminder of why we’re so excited. February’s reminder: this video of Natal perfectly tracking a dude dancing during the requisite playground ball demo game. We’ll have to wait and see how Natal’s 1/10th second lag affects game play, but as seen here, the motion capture itself, even in low light situations, is undeniably smooth. [ Project Natal Games - Thanks, Jordan! ]

Quake 3 has been ported to Android. It looks slick, too (see video demo below). The project is called “kwaak3” and is based on Quake 3 ports to the iPhone and Nokia N900. The developer got everything up and running on a Motorola Milestone (a GSM Motorola Droid with multi-touch, basically) and makes use of the phone’s keyboard, “so it won’t work on your Nexus One or other phone at this point,” according to the project page.

A little while back there were some rumblings that either Bradley Cooper or Jason Segel were in talks to play the object of two women’s affection in the upcoming raunchy comedy Bad Teacher starring Cameron Diaz as a foul-mouthed, gold-digging seventh-grade teacher who, after being dumped by her boyfriend, sets her sights on a colleague ( Lucy Punch ) who is dating the school’s model teacher. But it looks like the hot new teacher on the block is still yet to be cast as THR reports that Segel has simply been cast as the school’s gym teacher while frequent Christopher Guest collaborator John Michael Higgins will play the principal. This doesn’t necessarily mean Bradley Cooper is out, but if it’s taking this long to close the deal, producer might have already moved on to find a new leading man. Directed by Jake Kasdan (of Walk Hard , Orange County ) and written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (of Year One and the upcoming Ghostbusters 3 ), it sounds like this comedy could have the flare that once made the Farrelly Brothers a hot commodity and coming from Apatow collaborator Jimmy Miller, this has plenty of potential. We’ll keep you updated on this project as they continue casting, as there should be a few more actors. What do you guys think so far? Discover More: Casting News , Movie News , Opinions

In the summer of 2009 MySpace hired Katie Germinder , Facebook’s Director of User Experience and Design, as an SVP. Her primary job was to assemble a “swat team” of leading outside designers and user interface experts and re-imagine MySpace from the ground up. That team was made up of four people – including two former Apple designers and one ex-Facebooker – and worked out of a conference room in MySpace’s San Francisco offices for six months. They were creating a new site, located at remakingmyspace.com, and it was going to launch sometime right about now. RemakingMySpace was going to be a new version of MySpace with every piece of legacy stuff thrown out the door. Users and employees would be solicited for input – to get new ideas and vote on already submitted ones – to rebuild the service brick by brick. Most of the work over the last six months was spent reimagining the design in various ways that would be shown to users, and building tools for the submission and consideration of new ideas. And “users” was broadly defined to include input from artists and bands, advertisers, etc. It was bold, controversial and progressive. And now it’s also very, very dead. Germinder left MySpace last week . And the guy who hired her, former CEO Owen Van Natta , was terminated the week before . So what happened? The project was trouble from the start. Germinder was strongly pushing the project, obviously, and had the support of Van Natta. But she was working outside of Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn’s organization. Hirschhorn hated the idea from the start, say multiple sources, and constantly worked to undermine it. He favored a much more straightforward redesign effort. And, sources say, VP Product Mike Macadaan was also an outsider to the project, and strongly disapproved say of the whole process. None of that mattered as long as Van Natta was CEO and was able to push the project along. But once he was gone and Mike Jones and Hirschhorn took over as co-presidents, remakingmyspace was history. Within a day the team was dissolved and moved back into the product organization. The Apple designers, there as consultants, will likely be leaving shortly as their contracts expire. We’ve spoken with sources on both sides of this. Some say that the the consultants were way too expensive and Hirschhorn and Jones thought the pace of the project was too slow. But others who knew about the project (the site was live for some MySpace employees) thought it was brilliant, and noted that six months wasn’t all that long for a project of this scope. There was genuine excitement within MySpace over remakingmyspace.com, and some are disgusted that it was all thrown away. One thing that strikes us as odd is the fact that the chief complaints – expense and time – were no longer relevant. The project was effectively done and the expense of it was behind them. “This was killed out of pure vindictiveness,” says one source. Another said that Hirschhorn never even bothered to really understand it, he just wanted it killed. So what comes next? A straightforward redesign that won’t rock the boat, says one source. Another says that many of the ideas from remakingmyspace will eventually make their way into whatever MySpace launches. Officially, all MySpace will say is “The reimagination of MySpace’s user interface is a top priority. Under Jason Hirschhorn, VP of Product Mike Macadaan and his team are leading the charge to redesign the site and create a beautiful new and exciting environment for our users.” We’re now trying to track down and verify screen shots and the new logo for remakingmyspace.com. Stay tuned for updates. CrunchBase Information MySpace Information provided by CrunchBase

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting pretty tired of writing about all the different hands this script has gone through. Aaron Guzikowski’s script Prisoners was first unleashed upon Hollywood back in March of last year . At one point Bryan Singer was set to direct with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, but that never happened. Then they attached Training Day’s Antoine Fuqua late last year to direct a “lower budget” version, eventually hooking Hugh Jackman as well. But now apparently both of them have fallen off and Leonardo DiCaprio is now the latest to to be “taken” by the script. Now he’s setting it up at Warner Bros. Deadline Hollywood is reporting that DiCaprio is interested, but will only star in it if they attach the right director. He apparently only works with top notch directors like Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, Sam Mendes, and so on. Prisoners has a Mystic River -meets- Taken storyline, and DiCaprio wants to play the lead role, a small-town carpenter who takes matters into his own hands when his daughter and her friend are kidnapped. “In the 12 years we’ve run this company, this is the most interesting, morally complex thriller we’ve ever gotten, and we can’t wait to make the movie,” Alcon exec Andrew Kosove said. So if this script is as incredible as it sounds like (I haven’t read it yet), then why the heck is it taking so long to get made? Shouldn’t some actor or producer or director scoop this up and do whatever it takes to get it made, if it’s so damn good? I don’t understand. Why did Fuqua drop out? While he wasn’t the perfect choice, I thought he would’ve done a great job with this. This project has gone from exciting to annoying, and I hope they figure out their plans soon before I lose all interest. I want to see Prisoners with a great cast and a great director, but every time they get someone good attached, it falls apart. Wonder what will happen this time. Discover More: Casting News , Movie News , Rumors

We might have finally found out information about Pixar’s mystery boy and his dinosaur film. An anonymous source responded to our story last night and confirmed that is is a Pixar short film called “ Night And Day “. Teddy Newton , a storyboard artist on The Iron Giant , Character Designer for The Incredibles and Presto , makes his Pixar directorial debut.If so, this might be the short film attached to Toy Story 3 . He is a Cal Arts guy, very respected, considered one of the most influential visual development artists in the field of animation. I did some internet searches, and found it listed on composer Michael Giacchino ’s unofficial website. Giacchino has been working with Pixar for some time, providing the score for The Incredibles, Ratatoille, Up , and short films Lifted and Partly Cloudy , so it makes sense that he might also be working on the company’s next animated short as well. In the late 1990’s, Teddy formed a partnership with Giacchino to make animated films, but they apparently couldn’t come up with the capital to make it happen. Of course, we are unable to confirm any of this information, as Pixar never seems to respond to our emails — but it seems highly likely. Anyone have any more information? Shoot me an E-mail! Previously: You might recall that last August, Pixar fans spotted some concept artwork featuring a boy and his dinosaur , on sculptor Greg Dykstra ’s wall in behind the scenes b-roll footage for Pete Docter’s Up . Someone asked Pixar story supervisor Ronnie del Carmen about the artwork on Twitter, and he responded saying that he does know what the art is from “But not telling. Nothing to do with anything Toy Story, tell you that.” Someone also noticed some interesting postings made by Pixar animator and paleontology buff Austin Madison on his personal blog recounting a trip taken by a group of Pixar dino enthusiasts, including Dykstra, to the badlands of South Dakota. Anyone who follows Pixar’s development process probably knows that the animation studio’s artists usually take research field trips while developing new films. For Ratatouille , they took a trip to Paris to study the city and eat in some of the fine restaurants. For Up , they took a trip to South America to study the the strange wilderness of the region. And it certainly looks like Pixar is doing some research on dinosaurs, and the concept art of Dykstra’s wall is definitely part of this upcoming project. And yesterday, PixarTalk has been sent a photo showing Up production designer Ricky Nierva standing in front of even more concept art from the project, showing the boy, a brontosaurus, a prehistoric alligator, a pterodactyl, and a mosquito. New Toy Story 3 Character; John Lasseter Talks About Totoro’s Cameo in the Film International Toy Story 3 Movie Trailer Contains a Little Bit of New Footage Toy Story 3 Trailer Easter Eggs Revealed Toy Story 3 Trailer #2: So Many Toys! 30-Second Preview of the New Toy Story 3 Trailer – First Look At Some of the New Toys New Toy Story 3 Characters Revealed; Final Trailer Tomorrow