Recently, M. Night Shyamalan landed a put-pilot series at SyFy and now it looks as if he’s doubled up with some network television support.  NBC has reportedly agreed to another put-pilot drama series from Shyamalan and writer John Glenn (Eagle Eye).  The series, titled Lost Horizon, draws inspiration from Herman Melville’s classic whale tale, Moby Dick (which seems to be a popular source lately). The premise of the series is under wraps, but Deadline reports that it centers on a small East Coast fishing village and deals with themes of obsession and the unknown.  Shyamalan is attached to direct the potential pilot, which will be written by Glenn.

If you’ve ever wanted to see “Moby Dick” in space, well Ahab, today is your day!  Lynne Ramsay is set to direct Mobius, a sci-fi take on the Herman Melville classic.  Ramsay is currently writing the treatment along with her We Need to Talk About Kevin co-writer and spouse, Rory Kinnear.  Heat Vision reports that Mobius has been pitched as a “psychological action thriller set in deep space, [where] a captain consumed by revenge takes his crew on a death mission fueled by his own ego and will to control an enigmatic alien.”  The title of the picture may change, because writer/director Eric Rochant (Love Without Pity) currently has a picture titled Mobius in post.  That story follows an FSB officer who falls in love with an American woman who works at a Russian bank.  Then again, that movie title has an umlaut in it (or is it a diaeresis?), so it’s obviously completely different…

Some writer news recaps for you today.  Here they are in brief:

• Warner Bros. has tapped I Am Legend 2 screen writer,  Arash Amel, to do a page-one rewrite of director James Watkin’s Methuselah draft.
• Universal Pictures is looking to Contraband scribe Aaron Guzikowski to turn in a new draft of Evan Spiliotopoulos’s treatment of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

Hit the jump for more details on each project.

Director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) is a busy man and now he’s about to become even busier.  Bekmambetov has announced that in addition to co-producing (with Tim Burton) an adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, he will also direct the movie.  Here’s what Bekmambetov said he was going for with the book (which you can see a trailer for by clicking here):

It is not a comedy at all – it is a very entertaining, epic history lesson for millions and millions of teenagers. If you remember Night Watch, it is maybe in the vein of that kind of movie. We are keeping the traditional look of Lincoln – the big hat and the beard. He has to be historically correct, but with a few special weapons. There is only one book, but there will be many opportunities to develop and explore this world if we get to do sequels. I hope we will start this winter. We are shooting in America.”

Hit the jump for updates on Bekmambetov’s other projects including Wanted 2, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Moby Dick, and more.

The 1956 Cecil B. DeMille classic “The Ten Commandments” is fantastic but it could have been so much better if it had used speed-ramping and buckets of blood.  Oh, and maybe a Jewish actor as Moses.  It now looks like we might get two out of three as 20^th Century Fox has just made a pre-emptive acquisition of a pitch to tell the story of Moses in the style of Zach Snyder’s “300″.  Hit the jump to murder some firstborn sons but in a really cool way.

The Tele Munchen Group, one of Germany’s largest media corporations has decided that Herman Melville’s classic tale of Man vs. Wild vs. Self needs to be adapted yet again. The book already been made into four English-language films (five if you count the “lost” Orson Welles adaptation) but, hey, why not one more? William Hurt will star as the tortured Captain Ahab and Ethan Hawke will portray Starbuck, the first officer of the ship and the only crew member to oppose Ahab’s obsession. Hit the jump to find out why TMG is sparing no expense in producing the movie after the jump.