Poltergeist

That Poltergeist remake is still chugging along.  Today brings word of a director being attached: Gil Kenan.  He's the cat that directed Monster House, which I suppose sort of makes him the right man for the job.  

Deadline broke the story, however, it does not mention when the film will shoot or at what stage the script is at.  Something I'd like to know, personally, as the remake has seen writers and directors come and go over the years.  Will Kenan stick?

Mondo, the collectible art division of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, is excited to announce the release of Jerry Goldsmith’s Poltergeist score on limited edition vinyl.

Combining a love for film music and beautiful artistic renderings, Mondo commissioned original cover art from We Buy YourKids, the duo of Australian illustrators Sonny Day and Biddy Maroney.  The Poltergeist 2-disc vinyl will be available for purchase for $25 on February 22nd via MondoTees.com andwill include a small portion of randomly inserted clear vinyl copies.  The full track list appears inside and includes 5 tracks never before released on vinyl.

The Internet loses this week.  Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter ran a piece stating Sam Raimi was not only going to produce a remake of Poltergeist (which is true) but going to direct it as well.  Naturally, this fired up a storm of news items across major websites spreading the word that Raimi was pinned as the director.

But that is not the case.

We caught up with writer David Lindsay-Abaire earlier this evening after a screening of DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians, which he wrote (plus it was exec. produced by Guillermo del Toro!) and while you can read more about that on ComingSoon.net, when we asked him what he had been up to, we were surprised to learn he was busy writing Poltergeist. 

Now, this isn't the first time you may have heard Lindsay-Abaire's name mentioned with the project as 15 months ago there was a rumor about him being approached, though at that time, he said he didn't know if he wanted to do it. Earlier this year, Sam Raimi signed up to produce the remake and that may have been what clinched the deal for Lindsay-Abaire, and you can find out more why that might be after the jump. 

Following rumors earlier today that he might direct the project, The Hollywood Reporter has now confirmed that Sam Raimi has, indeed, boarded MGM's upcoming remake of Poltergeist, but is doing so in a producer-only capacity alongide Nathan Kahane and Roy Lee.

The original film was directed by Tobe Hooper and released in 1982 with Steven Spielberg producing and told the story of a malevolent spectral force that tries to take daughter of a Californian family. It spawned two sequels, Poltergeist II: The Other Side in 1986 and Poltergeist III in 1988.