CARRIE May Be Found Footage; Could Sam Raimi Direct POLTERGEIST? [UPDATE: Raimi Will Produce POLTERGEIST; Julianne Moore Offered Role in CARRIE]

We’ve got a couple of horror related stories to share with you this afternoon.  Roger Birnbaum, CEO of MGM, recently gave talks at the University of Denver and he dropped some nuggets of info about a few remakes in the MGM pipeline.  Furthest along is the redo of Carrie.  Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) is set to direct and Chloe Moretz is officially onboard in the lead role, first played by Sissy Spacek in the 1976 adaptation of the Stephen King novel.  Moreover, Julianne Moore is reportedly in talks to take on the crazy mother role.  During the talk at the University of Denver, Birnbaum revealed that some of the film may be done in the found footage style.  Hit the jump for more. [Update: Moore has recently been offered the role for Carrie. Sam Raimi will reportedly produce Poltergeist, but won't direct. More after the jump.]

The updates on the project come from a Reddit recap of the event (via Movies.com), and Birnbaum apparently let slip that Carrie will be, at least partially, found footage.  I loathe this genre with a passion, but Movies.com points out that King’s original novel is interspersed with “official” documents recounting the events of Carrie’s prom night.

We had heard that Peirce planned to return to the source material for this adaptation, so this found footage aspect would actually be keeping in step with how King’s novel is laid out.  This is the kind of found footage that I think actually works well when done right, so hopefully we’ll just be given bits and pieces of the technique throughout the film (or possibly as an opening sequence?).

Moving on, Birnbaum also dropped another slightly less solid piece of information.  When someone mentioned the Poltergeist remake that’s in development in the studio, Birnbaum apparently mentioned that Sam Raimi is in talks to direct.  The director wouldn’t be an entirely out of left field choice, but given how he’s been working in much larger studio fare as of late (he’s currently directing Oz, The Great and Powerful), I find it a bit hard to believe that he’d actually direct a remake of Poltergeist.  It’s more likely that Raimi will come onboard as a producer and shepherd the project through development, as he’s doing with the Evil Dead remake.

It’s important to note that all of this information comes from a Reddit post, so some or all of the aforementioned details could be inaccurate.  I don’t have a hard time seeing Carrie featuring some sort of found-footage aspect (especially since the genre is all the rage), but the “Raimi directing Poltergeist” story is probably less likely to happen.

Update: (Dave here.) Right you are, Adam! Heat Vision reports that Raimi has come on board Poltergeist to produce but has no plans to direct the remake. He will, however, oversee the search for a helmer. In other convenient update news, Deadline is reporting that MGM has indeed offered Moore the role of religious fanatic mother to Moretz’s title character.  Moore should have the script in hand as part of a pay-or-play deal for the role that landed Piper Laurie an Oscar nod.