Ryan Gosling is making moves behind the camera.  It was announced today that Gosling will be making his directorial debut with the “modern day fairy tale” How to Catch a Monster.  Gosling also wrote the script for the pic, which will star Drive and Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks in the lead role.  The story apparently weaves elements of fantasy noir and suspense and centers on a single mother of two and her teenage son who stumble upon a road leading to an underwater town.

This is certainly ambitious material for Gosling to cut his directing teeth on, and it’ll be interesting to see how the immensely talented actor fares behind the camera.  Hendricks is superb on AMC’s Mad Men, so it’ll also be great to see her shine in a leading role.  Hit the jump for more, including the full logline for the film.

Though we’ll see her as Catwoman in this summer’s The Dark Knight Rises and she performs a chill-inducing rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” in the Les Miserables trailer, Anne Hathaway is lining up a more smaller scale project to tackle in the near future.  Variety reports that the actress is in early talks to produce and star in the indie drama Song One.  The pic would reunite Hathaway with her Rachel Getting Married producers Marc Platt and Jonathan Demme.

Kate Barker-Froyland will be making her feature directorial debut with the film in which “Hathaway would play a young woman who returns home after her brother is injured and romantically connects with his favorite musician, who draws inspiration from the siblings.”  The actress has yet to fully commit to the project, but Variety notes that she has a fairly open schedule for the rest of the year.  With an Oscar nomination under her belt and two high profile roles, her schedule likely won’t stay open for long.

There is no way that Joseph Gordon-Levitt sleeps.  In between running his own multimedia website, prepping his feature directorial debut, and starring in films from Christopher Nolan, Rian Johnson, and Steven Spielberg, the actor is now developing a remake of Little Shop of Horrors for Warner Bros.  The 1960 Roger Corman movie was turned into an off-Broadway musical, which then led to another feature film adaptation in 1986 from director Frank Oz and starring Rick Moranis and Steve Martin.  Hit the jump for more on the redo.

The best premise for a horror movie is unique, but once heard, it’s surpising nobody has ever tried it before.  In my opinion, that’s what Brandon Bestenheider and Allen Bey did with their spec script Grim Night.  The premise: “Grim Night takes place once a year, where Grim Reapers come to Earth to collect souls.”  I didn’t fully comprehend until I saw the eerie promo trailer that producers Bryan Bertino, Adrienne Biddle, and Marc Platt put together to spark interest it from the studios.  It worked on me, fully tapping into my fear of the personification of death.  More importantly, it worked on the studios.  After a bidding war, Universal landed Grim Night with a deal in the high-six figure range (against seven figures).  Watch the million dollar trailer after the jump.

The last time Reese Witherspoon brought the life of an iconic female singer to the screen — playing June Carter in 2005′s Walk the Line — she was rewarded with an Oscar.  Sensible, then, that Witherspoon has signed on to produce and star in a biopic centered around jazz/pop singer Peggy Lee.  Witherspoon is reportedly the driving force behind the Fox 2000 project: the actress secured the rights to Lee’s story, pitched the idea to her former Legally Blonde producer Marc Platt, then sought the services of writer/director Nora Ephron (Julie & Julia).

As Ephron is fan of Lee’s work, she agreed to pen the script and is attached to direct.  Hit the jump for background information on Lee’s career.

Universal has released six movie clips from director Edgar Wright’s (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  Based on the awesome graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley, the movie has an amazing cast featuring Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Alison Pill, Brandon Routh, and Jason Schwartzman.  I caught a screening at Comic-Con a few days ago and am happy to report the film is brilliant. Wright has somehow managed to do the impossible as he’s brought the universe and characters of Scott Pilgrim to life and it feels real and perfect.  Trust me, if you’re a fan of the comic, you’re not going to believe how awesome it is.  And even if you know nothing about Scott Pilgrim, don’t worry, you’re still going to love this film. It’s that good.

Anyway, for a taste of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, hit the jump and watch 6 clips!  Scott Pilgrim gets released August 13.

The creative minds of the wildly successful Broadway show Wicked — producer Marc Platt, playwright Winnie Holzman, and songwriter Stephen Schwartz — have been meeting with some of Hollywood’s premier musical directors… and J.J. Abrams.  The play, itself an adaptation of the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum’s classic Wizard of Oz and casts the emerald-skinned enchantress in a far more heroic light than the original story.

While Abrams’ composition of the 17-second opening theme to LOST may not qualify him as a musical director, the other candidates (James Mangold, Ryan Murphy, and Rob Marshall) have much stronger resumes.  Mangold provided deft directing to Walk the Line, Murphy created Glee (but also Nip/Tuck), and Marshall was behind the camera for Chicago, the film often cited (along with Moulin Rouge!) for bringing musicals back into Hollywood’s good graces.  For more, hit the jump.