Thursday Link-A-Mania

Super 8, Djinn, The Secret Circle, Doctor Who, Your Highness

Super 8 Footage Screened
Coming Soon has seen footage of the highly-anticipated Spielberg/JJ Abrams collaboration Super 8 – the monster movie set in the late ’70s – and seems mightily impressed. Yes, there is a lot of lens flare, but the site also describes the train crash that unleashes the creature at the heart of the story as, “WAY bigger than anything you can imagine with train cars flying everywhere as the kids scramble to get out of its path.” The site also has a brief interview with Abrams in which he reveals, “There’s more tension and suspense over the course of the film and it’s not a constant action movie, but that was partly because I wanted the film to feel of the era. Movies that bombard you to death with action can be really fun, but I wanted to make a movie that was as much about the characters as possible and had some action in it.”

Dollhouse Writers Quit The Secret Circle
Former Angel and Dollhouse writers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain have quit as executive producers on the CW drama pilot The Secret Circle, according to Deadline. That’s the new pilot for a series about witches based on the another series of books by The Vampire Diaries author LJ Smith which is being showrun by The Vampire Diaries’ TV boss, Kevin Williamson. Apparently Craft and Fain felt that, “there was duplication of showrunner duties and too many bosses on Secret Circle. Realising that with Williamson on board, they were no longer needed as showrunners, Fain and Craft opted to move on and focus on development under their deal at WBTV in what was described as an amicable departure.”

Tobe Hooper’s Arabian Adventure
Poltergeist and Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper is currently in the United Arab Emirates calling the shots on Djinn, an Arabian horror film which will be shot half in English and half in Arabic. Website The National (which, not so coincidentally, is owned by the same media outlet that owns the film’s production company, Imagenation) has an exclusive on-set report which reveals the plot of the movie: “The film is set in 2015 and follows the story of Khaled and Salama, a couple who return home from America to discover their apartment in a luxury high-rise, built on the site of the deserted fishing village, is also home to malevolent beings.” Apparently, no-one on set is allowed to use the word Djinn: “The measure has been taken out of respect and because it is thought that speaking their name could conjure one up. ‘The myths and folklore surrounding the djinn are entrenched in local culture,’ says the film’s consultant Mr al Otaiba. ‘Belief in their presence depends on your level of faith.’”