Even though the trailer for Richard LaGravenese‘ Beautiful Creatures is online, I decided to go into the New York Comic-Con panel cold.  This approach worked well for The Conjuring, and I’m always ready to be pleasantly surprised by a film.  LaGravenese’s film certainly has a cast worthy of our attention: Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Jeremy Irons, and Emmy Rossum star alongside up-and-coming lead actors Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich.  But as for what the movie is about, that’s a bit harder to explain.

Hit the jump for my recap of the Beautiful Creatures panel, and click here for all of our New York Comic-Con coverage.

Following on the heels of his feature directorial debut, 2009′s Harry Brown, Daniel Barber is now negotiating a deal that would hand him the reins to another thriller entitled Substitution. If talks go through, Barber would helm the pic for Alcon Entertainment and producers Broderick Johnson, Andrew Kosove, Kevin McCormick, and Steve Crystal. THR describes Substitution as Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train meets the rigors of high school.

Ian Shorr (Splinter) is currently penning the script which will see a substitute teacher coerce one of his students into a murderous scheme. I’ve yet to check out Harry Brown, so I’ll refrain from commenting on Barber’s capabilities as a filmmaker. That said, his short film The Tonto Woman was nominated for an Oscar for best live action short in 2008. That has to count for something, right?