For the moment, it looks like “Moon” writer-director Duncan Jones is hitting the pause button on development for his upcoming film, “Mute”.  The film is currently struggling through the financial phase because it’s going to be a sci-fi film with a higher budget than the critically acclaimed “Moon” and since it’s an original idea that may not appeal to every single demographic, “Mute” is in a holding pattern.  Thankfully, we won’t have to wait for Jones to make a return to directing as he’s signed on to helm “The Source Code” written by Ben Ripley, revisions by Billy Ray, and starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

In addition to this great news, Jones has announced that he will auction off around 70 items from “Moon” starting tomorrow at noon Eastern/9am Pacific.  Hit the jump for details on both endeavors.

The Academy can–and often does–neglect obvious choices in the major Oscar categories.  Studios throw their weight behind certain films and actors and it usually turns out that the biggest marketing budget wins.  Then there’s the obstacle of how the Academy turns away from performances in genre films in favor of hot actresses going ugly or actors doing a perfect impression of a recently deceased legend.  Throw all this together and it looks like the people are going to have to rally if Sam Rockwell is going to get the Oscar nomination he deserves for his performance in Duncan Jones’ “Moon”.  Hit the jump to find out how you can support a worthy cause.

Did you happen to see Duncan Jones’ quiet little sci-fi picture “Moon” when it played in limited release over the summer?  Did you love it? Did you hope it won some awards when you walked out (little gold men even)?  Well, it still might.  However, it did receive handsome kudos from the Sitges Film Festival taking home the prizes for film, best actor for Sam Rockwell, and the screenplay award for Nathan Parker.   More of the “Moon” accomplishments after the jump, one of which is the conclusive evidence that there is no cheese on its surface.

I am so happy I interviewed Sam Rockwell at this year’s Sundance for “Moon” and “The Wining Season“. It’s because of those two interviews (and a random meeting at the Park City Einstein’s Bagels) that Sam remembered who I was when I ran into him backstage at this year’s Comic-Con. So even though I wasn’t scheduled to talk with him about “Iron Man 2″, he asked his publicist to give me some time and that’s why you can watch an exclusive interview with this great actor.

During the interview we talked about the critical and commercial success of “Moon”, what was making “Iron Man 2″ like, what can fans expect in the movie, and he reveals he still uses an acting coach to help him prepare for each role. If you’re a fan of this great actor, I promise you’ll love the interview! Take a look after the jump:

Duncan Jones is going from his great flick “Moon” (which opens next Friday) all the way to the ocean floor with “Escape from the Deep”.  Reading Variety’s synopsis already makes me excited for this flick:

Project is an adaptation of Alex Kershaw’s book about the real-life WW2 story of the U.S. Navy submarine USS Tang, which was hit by one of its own torpedoes and sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The crew members then had to escape from their iron coffin while enemy depth charges were being dropped from above and swim 180 feet to the surface.

You had me a “USS Tang”.  I’m not exactly sure how one gets hit by their own torpedo (those things tend to go AWAY from the submarine and I don’t think they circle back because they don’t have homing beacons; you can trust my non-existent expertise on World War II underwater weaponry).  But it sounds like a tense script and I’m always on board for submarine movies (those movies are tense even when nothing is happening because no matter the circumstances, it’s always a group of guys about five seconds from drowning because they’re in a tiny pipe miles beneath the ocean surface).