Jon Turteltaub, the director behind the National Treasure franchise, is taking on Beached, a story about an Olympic swimming champion.  That all sounds well and good until you keep reading and find out that the film’s protagonist was a chubby four-year-old who fell overboard during a family trip and was raised by whales.  So, unless Michael Phelps has an untold childhood story that no one knows about, this makes even less sense than Turteltaub’s Cool Runnings.  Hit the jump for more on Beached.

Hannibal Lecter returns! Kinda. Anthony Hopkins, who won the Oscar for his chilling role in The Silence of the Lambs, is set to return to the serial killer genre with Solace. Variety reports that Hopkins is in final negotiations to star in the film, though this time he’ll be the good guy. The thesp will play a former doctor with psychic abilities who works for the FBI. He gets drawn into a serial killer case where his gift is put to good use (because a psychic doctor/FBI agent is a terrible thing to waste). A director has yet to be set, but the script has a nice pedigree. Sean Bailey and Ted Griffin wrote the first draft, which was subsequently rewritten by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man). Peter Morgan (The Queen) made the most recent pass, and production is now set to begin sometime early next year.

David Fincher is panicking.  He previously directed Panic Room, he recently set up the company Panic Pictures (which is under Media Rights Capital), and now he’s optioned the rights to Jason Starr’s 2009 crime novel Panic Attack.  Per Vulture, the book is “about a New York shrink who shoots and kills a home intruder, then faces a media frenzy and the victim’s vengeful accomplice.”  Starr says about his book, “And the thing about Panic Attack is that there’s a really compelling antihero in this guy Johnny Long [the revenge-minded cohort stalking the psychiatrist and his family].  He’s a very clever, Ripley-esque psychopath.”  Ted Griffin (Ocean’s Eleven) will write the script.

While Fincher has picked up the option, this doesn’t necessarily mean he’s directing.  He could simply be serving as a producer as he’s doing on the potential adaptation of the comic book series The Goon.  Hit the jump for a list of Fincher’s other upcoming potential projects as well as the official synopsis of the novel.

Terriers is a comedic, edgy, original new FX series that centers on Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue), an ex-cop who partners with his best friend Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James) in an unlicensed private investigation business. The 13 episodes from creator/executive producer Ted Griffin (Ocean’s 11), and executive producers Shawn Ryan (The Shield) and Tim Minear (Angel), will follow the two men as they solve cases for new clients on a weekly basis, while also promising a bigger storyline that will run throughout.

During a recent interview, co-stars Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James talked about developing their off-screen friendship, which is reflected in their on screen chemistry, shooting in San Diego and having the artistic freedom of doing a cable series. Check out what they had to say after the jump: