Since today has been pretty light in terms of hype, and no stories have excited the internerds enough to truly qualify for an interesting roundup, I’m going with a topic I really enjoy writing about: the state governor training program popularly known as the movie Predator. Ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger took his political seat in California, making him the second cast member from the 1987 sci-fi actioner to be elected governor of a state (Jesse Ventura was the first), I’ve been waiting for the announcement that Carl Weathers, Shane Black, Richard Chavez, Elpidia Carrillo or Bill Duke is campaigning for a similar political position.

Former porn actor Sonny Landham, who played the Navajo soldier “Billy” in the movie, actually ran for Governor of Kentucky back in 2003, but he lost, which leads me to believe no more than one Predator costar can be in the office at any given time (Ventura led Minnesota up until 2003, the year Schwarzenegger took over in California). So, Landham should certainly try again in two years, as the “Governator” will be done with his second term in 2011.

If he wins, who shall be the next in line? I’m really hoping for Duke to run in his home state of New York. But if none of the original actors are interested, we can always depend on a whole new roster of candidates, thanks to the newly confirmed reboot of the Predator franchise, which Robert Rodriguez will be directing at some undetermined time (I’ve got serious doubts that it’ll really be rushed for the reported Summer 2010 release date). Any strapping young actors out there with dreams of a future in politics: tell your agents they need to get you in this movie.

Okay, enough of my own political dreams; and on to the few fresh responses to the reboot (particularly its titular pluralization) after the jump:

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• After moving the film’s release date from 2008 awards season to spring 2009, Paramount has taken The Soloist out of its opening night slot at AFI. The festival is expected to announce a new opening night film today.
• Taylor Hackford’s Love Ranch, starring his wife Helen Mirren as a brothel owner and financed by ThinkFilm sister Capitol Films, is in search of a distributor. The director is shopping it to studios himself in the hopes of repeating the good fortune he found with Ray. “Directors have to be realistic about this process because people are so frightened right now,” he said.
• The 1963 cult film Hitler’s Brain is being adapted into a “sci-fi musical comedy” for the stage.
• Alec Baldwin will replace Rose McGowan as celebrity co-host of The Essentials, the Saturday night showcase of superclassics on TCM. His episodes will start airing in March.

• Variety reports that Disney is making a movie based on the Tomorrowland part of its theme parks, yet the trade also notes the studio denies that the project is based on any such thing. Perhaps Disney is afraid the movie, which I’ll simply refer to as “The Rock in Space,” could be more Haunted Mansion than Pirates of the Caribbean?
• Both Brad Pitt and Rose McGowan are spotlighted in the trades this morning for their oppositional political statements. For Pitt, it’s his donation of $100,000 to the campaign against the proposition to ban same-sex marriage in California. For McGowan, it’s her controversial claim that she’d have joined the IRA had she grown up in Belfast. Yeah, it’s that slow a Hollywood news day, apparently.
• You knew somebody would eventually officially say it this week, and it unsurprisingly comes from Jeffrey Katzenberg: “Our product is recession resistant.” Also, despite the millions of people who’d argue otherwise: “The single greatest price/value entertainment (option) is at your local movie theater.” Interestingly enough, DreamWorks Animation has a direct-to-DVD Kung Fu Panda sequel coming out soon.

Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan answer questions on upcoming Red Sonja with director, Doug Aarniokoski.

Highlights:

• Rodriguez is planning to restart the Conan franchise.
• RR apparently fell for Rose after she called him “Count Fuckula”
• Machete will be made starring Danny Trejo and it will be the first “Mexploitation” flick
• Sin City 2 & 3 have scripts
• Red Sonja will be so bloody, it will introduce the “Double R”

Read the liveblogging transcript after the jump.

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• For all the Sex and the City promotional madness and media hype, says Diane Garrett at Variety, “there’s no escaping the fact that the movie is a chick flick with strong appeal among an older femme demo but questionable interest among others. All the magazine coverage in the world — 63 pages in the May 23 edition of Entertainment Weekly alone — and Sex and the City TV marathons haven’t really moved the needle among men, many of whom suggest they’d rather be shot than sit through the movie.”
• Seemingly determined to try to recreate the relationship of Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda whether or not the Barbarella remake works out, Robert Rodriguez is apparently “shopping around Women in Chains!, a violent drama set at a woman’s prison starring his fiancee, Rose McGowan.” Oh, right––it’s camp, so it’s neither misogynist nor creepy
• IFC continues their Cannes buying spree days after the end of the festival, picking up Grand Prix winner Gomorrah. The Italian mafia flick has done solid business in its homeland since opening last week.
• The CineVegas film festival will honor Anjelica Huston. Don Cheadle, Rosario Dawson, Viggo Mortensen and Sam Rockwell with their Half Life award, while James Caan will be declared a Vegas Icon.
  

The NY Observer says Robert Rodriguez has lost Universal’s backing for his Barbarella remake, over the filmmaker’s insistence that his fiancee, Rose McGowan, play the title role. Rodriguez and McGowan “fell in love” on the set of Planet Terror, which led to the end of Rodriguez’s 16-year marriage to his producer, Elizabeth Avellan. According to the story, when the studio was first informed that Rodriguez intended to cast McGowan over “more famous names [like] Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry and Jessica Alba”, they re-calibrated Barbarella’s budget from $100 million to something “in the double-digit millions.” Rodriguez denies this; he says Universal will give him $60 million to make the film, no questions asked, but he thinks he needs $82 million, so he’s shopping the project around to other studios.

Of note: McGowan face was injured in a car accident earlier this year, leading to actress to obtain major plastic surgery. It’s possible that the studio is worried the 17 Cherry Darling obsessives that might pay to see McGowan in a Barbarella outfit may not even be able to recognize her (see this related rumor about the actress’ reported post-surgery trouble landing work). Also of note: not one of the three “more famous” actresses listed above has proven that she can actually open a movie.

• The Rock will play “a Las Vegas cab driver who picks up a pair of siblings with magical powers” in Witch Mountain, which is set to “advance the storyline” of the Disney’s 70s movies about mystical orphans.
• Owen Wilson has dropped out of Tropic Thunder, an ensemble comedy currently being directed by Ben Stiller in Hawaii, for obvious reasons.
• John Goodman will lend his voice to the role of Paul Bunyan in the CG animated Bunyan & Babe.
• Rob Zombie has signed a two-picture deal with Dimension, which would suggest that Bob Weinstein has faith that Zombie’s Halloween remake is going to do well this weekend.
• Turner Classic Movies is turning their evening programming blocks over to guest programmers for the entire month of November. The guests will include a contest winner, a fictional character (Kermit the Frog), and Rose McGowan, whose “unpredictable” choices include A Place in the Sun and A Touch of Mink.