Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) has signed on to direct the paranormal police thriller Beware the Night.  According to The Wrap, Derrickson will also rewrite the script: “The story is set in a paranormal world and follows a New York police officer investigating real life demon possessions, exorcisms and werewolves after dark.”  The project is housed at Screen Gems, but The Wrap hears producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Carribbean) and Disney are involved in some capacity, Beware the Night could be a much bigger production than your typical supernatural flick.  The lead role was reportedly offered to Mark Wahlberg, but he passed.  [Update: The Wrap updated their report.  Paul Boardman will co-write the screenplay.  Bruckheimer's name is now omitted from the report, and the edited text states Screen Gems is in negotiations with Disney for the rights.]

Derrickson followed up the low-budget Emily Rose with would-be tentpole The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Derrickson returned to small-scale horror for his latest film, Sinister, which hits theaters on October 5.

Though 2012 has already seen its fair share of box office hits, one of the bigger surprises was the April comedy Think Like a Man.  The film opened at number one at the box office with an impressive take of $33.6 million, ending the four-week run of The Hunger Games and besting new releases The Lucky One and Chimpanzee.  The pic went on to make over $91 million during its run, and now Screen Gems has officially announced that they’re moving forward with a sequel.

No story details are known, but Keith Merryman and David A. Newman will be returning to write the screenplay.  The first film was based on the best selling book by Steve Harvey and featured an ensemble cast dealing with relationships.  No release date has been set either, but expect Think Harder Like a Man to be in front of cameras sooner rather than later.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer for the first film and to check out the press release.

Sony Pictures’ genre arm Screen Gems has acquired the Harold Zwart‘s adaptation of The Mortal Instruments starring Lily Collins.  Based on the first book in Cassandra Clare‘s young adult novel series, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Collins will play Clary Fray, “a young woman who discovers she is the descendant of a line of secret cadre of half-angel warriors locked in an ancient battle to protect the world from demons.”  Sony had been circling Mortal Instruments back in February, but decided to pass.  According to Deadline, Constantin Film has come on board to partner on the movie, so it now has the financing to move forward.  We previously reported that filming was set to begin August 15th in Toronto.

According to Box Office Mojo, Screen Gems will release the film on August 23, 2013.  The movie currently has no competition on that date.  Hit the jump for the official synopsis.

WonderCon 2012 has announced its programming schedule and attendees are in for some good stuff.  In addition to the wide variety of panels devoted to comic artists and writers, beloved genre figures, and career tips, there are some exciting movie and TV presentations lined up.  On the film side, there will be presentations for Resident Evil: Retribution (along with other Screen Gems films) Sound of My Voice (very cool that a Sundance indie flick is making an appearance), Battleship, Snow White and the Huntsman, Lockout, plus surprise presentations for upcoming films from 20th Century Fox (if there’s a sneak peek of Prometheus, the price of your WonderCon pass was worth it).

On the TV side, there will be presentations for Community, Fringe, Alcatraz, Person of Interest, The Secret Circle, Once Upon a Time, and more.  WonderCon, you had me at “Community”.  Hit the jump for the dates and times of the convention’s major highlights.  WonderCon 2012 will be at the Anaheim Convention Center and runs from March 16 – 18th.

While it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about the planned remake of Carrie, the project seems to be moving forward as MGM and Screen Gems have settled on a director. Deadline reports that Boys Don’t Cry helmer Kimberly Peirce is in talks to get behind the camera on the Stephen King adaptation. Brian De Palma famously adapted the material in 1976 with Sissy Spacek in the career-defining lead role. This new version is said to be more faithful to King’s source material, though I’m assuming a fair amount of telekinetic carnage will still ensue.

Playwright/screenwriter/comic-book writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Big Love, Glee, The Stand comic) penned the screenplay, and with Peirce now onboard the project seems to be moving toward casting. The critically acclaimed Boys Don’t Cry marked Peirce’s directorial debut in 1999, and the 2008 Iraq War drama Stop-Loss acted as her follow-up feature. The director’s experience with off-kilter coming-of-age stories should bode well for her work on Carrie, and I’m intrigued to see what her take entails. Hit the jump to read a synopsis of the novel.

There was a lot of buzz for The Raid at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, eventually earning it the Cadillac People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award. The original Indonesian film by director Gareth Evans (Merantau) has had its domestic distribution rights picked up by Sony Pictures Worldwide. It was assumed that sister company Screen Gems would pursue the rights to the remake and, for once, assumptions have proven correct.

Screen Gems has officially acquired the remake rights for The Raid, an action movie that tells the story of an elite SWAT team that gets pinned down in a tenement building controlled by a dangerous drug lord. On his side are two vicious martial arts experts, his own personal militia and a vast assortment of weapons. The SWAT team has only their wits, their weapons and the will to survive The Raid. Hit the jump to check out the original trailer.

The Indonesian action movie The Raid was a big hit at the Toronto International Film Festival, and writer/director Gareth Evans has the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award to prove it.  You can sample the crazy action in the trailer, and see why Sony Pictures Worldwide picked up the North American distribution rights months ago.  Despite the universal appeal of SWAT teams and martial arts, The Raid still has one major commercial hindrance: it’s pretty Indonesian.  Now that The Raid is in the Sony family, the logical move is for sister label Screen Gems to pursue a remake.  The Americanization process will be interesting, and perhaps doomed—the original relies on the Indonesian martial art silat to flavor the action.  It will be difficult to return the lightning to the bottle, especially since Evans has preemptively declined the job to focus on a shooting a sequel next February.  It is not yet clear what Screen Gems has planned, though Heat Vision reassures the studio is “aware the unique fighting style is one of the movie’s strengths.”  Awareness!  That’s not not encouraging.  Screen Gems is currently on the lookout for a director.

The Raid rode a wave of TIFF buzz to sell remaining worldwide distribution rights to Celluloid Nightmares, so you should be able to see the silat for yourself soon enough, no matter where you live.  Hit the jump for the trailer and official synopsis.

As Frosty loves to say, when it has a release date, it’s going to be made. For Sony’s Underworld: Awakening, Warner Bros. Seventh Son, Lionsgate’s The Possession, and Universal’s The Five-Year Engagement, things are looking bright. Briefly, Kate Beckinsale will return for the fourth film in the Underworld franchise, this time in 3D. Seventh Son is an adaptation of a popular young adult wizardry novel series that stars Ben Barnes, Jeff Bridges, and Julianne Moore. Sam Raimi’s upcoming horror film The Possession (formerly known as Dibbuk Box) stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick. Finally, we have The Five-Year Engagement, which reunites Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller from their great partnership on Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Here is when you can pencil (release dates shift… a lot) each of these films into your calendar:

• Underworld: Awakening – 1/20/12 – Stars Kate Beckinsale and Michael Ealy
• Seventh Son - 02/15/13 – Stars Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, and Ben Barnes
• The Possession – 1/6/12 – Stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick
• The Five-Year Engagement - 4/27/12 – Stars Jason Segel and Emily Blunt

For more on the pics, hit the jump.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of months, you know that Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block has some serious, serious buzz. The flick premiered at SXSW to wildly enthusiastic reviews, then a couple of LA screenings had those in attendance gushing about the imaginative action-thriller. Steve saw the film and loved it, and Matt’s a fan as well. And now, audiences all over the country will finally get a chance to see the film everyone’s talking about, and soon! Sony/Screen Gems has just announced (via Box Office Mojo) that Attack the Block will open in limited release on July 29^th.

Written and directed by Cornish, and co-produced by Edgar Wright, the film stars Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, and Nick Frost. After hearing for months how fantastic it is, I personally cannot wait to see this thing.

Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block received rave reviews coming out of this year’s SXSW Film Festival and went on the hunt for a U.S. distributor.  Screen Gems has now sent out a press release announcing they will distribute the film.  For those unfamiliar with the flick, it’s about a group of street tough kids who fight off alien invaders.

Hit the jump to check out the press release.  Click here for Scott’s positive review from SXSW and click here for all of our Attack the Block coverage.  A U.S. release date hasn’t been announced yet, but the film opens in the UK on May 11th.

As audiences continue to disagree with my wishes and see Resident Evil movies, it only makes sense that Screen Gems will continue to make new ones.  The fourth installment in the series, Resident Evil: Afterlife grossed almost $300 million worldwide and last September, star Milla Jovovich said they were seeking fan input, which is always a good idea because producers need to know that @RE5NotRacist thinks the series needs “mur bewbs”.

Whether or not the film will in fact have “mur bewbs”, Exhibitor Relations’ Facebook page reports that Resident Evil 5 (tentative title) will be released in “eye-gouging 3D” on September 14, 2012.  The September box office has been kind to the Resident Evil franchise and clearly Screen Gems sees no reason to mess with a “good” thing.  There are currently no other films set for release that weekend.

The Resident Evil series has been good to Screen Gems.  The four films have collectively grossed more than $580 million.  Resident Evil: Afterlife is the studio’s highest grossing production at $296 million worldwide.  There are plans for another sequel (obviously).  And if things go according to plan, the Resident Evil universe will have inspired another lucrative franchise at Screen Gems.

Capcom initially developed video game Devil May Cry as the third Resident Evil game.  But Devil May Cry wound up bearing no particular resemblance to Resident Evil, so Capcom launched the former as an original property.  Now the five Devil May Cry games have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.  Variety reports Screen Gems has picked up the feature film rights to Devil May Cry.  Kyle Ward, who also adapted the video game Kane & Lynch, will write the script.

The games center around Dante, a man who slaughters demons to avenge his mother’s death.  Watch a trailer for one of the more recent installments to get a sense of the visuals at play.

A few days ago, Vulture reported that an offer went out to 20-year-old British actor Alex Pettyfer, star of the upcoming I Am Number Four and Beastly, for the role of Jace Wayland, the male lead in the film adaptation of the Mortal Instruments book series. Screen Gems President Clint Culpepper apparently even said that he feels so strongly about the actor that he only wants to greenlight the film, if he signs on.

At this weekend’s press day for I Am Number Four, we got the opportunity to ask the actor (who was paired with director D.J. Caruso for the interview) if he is, indeed, interested in signing on for the fantasy film, based on the best-selling novel City of Bones (the first book in the series) by author Cassandra Clare. For what he had to say, hit the jump:

Writer/director Will Gluck solidified his stature as a comedic voice to watch with last year’s Easy A, one of 2010′s funniest true comedies.  So you can be sure I’m watching closely as Variety reports Gluck is attached to produce a remake of the 1986 Brat Pack romantic comedy About Last Night… The original threw Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Jim Belushi, and Elizabeth Perkins together for an adaptation of the 1974 David Mamet play Sexual Perversity, about “a couple who start a romantic affair despite their friends’ disapproval.”

For now, Gluck is only on board as producer, though he’ll help Screen Gems select a writer and director for the project.  As a director, Gluck has the Justin Timberlake/Mila Kunis comedy Friends with Benefits due July 22, and will reunite with Easy A star Emma Stone for an untitled comedy.  Hit the jump for a trailer and synopsis for the original About Last Night.

With Country Strong opening in limited release  December 22 and everywhere Friday, January 7th, Screen Gems has released 8 clips which showcase the characters and the music.  If you haven’t heard of Country Strong (watch the trailer here), it was written and directed by Shana Feste and it stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Leighton Meester, and Garrett Hedlund. Here’s the synopsis:

Soon after a rising young singer-songwriter (Hedlund) gets involved with a fallen, emotionally unstable country star (Paltrow), the pair embarks on a career resurrection tour helmed by her husband/manager (McGraw) and featuring a beauty-queen-turned-singer (Meester).  Between concerts, romantic entanglements and old demons threaten to derail them all.

Something that surprised me about the film is that everyone who sings is really singing.  Meaning when Paltrow, Hedlund and Meester are on stage, you’re really hearing their voices  And they’re all pretty good.  Hit the jump for more – including 8 clips: