If you were a movie producer looking to make a lot of money, and you had the chance to do this with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, would you put the project in the hands of the people who made the first film, which was not successful in any way, shape or form, or would you put it in the hands of the guy who wrote the first, crappy film but who later redeemed himself with an enormously popular, long-running TV series adapated from that film?

Obviously, most of us would choose the latter, but then I guess we just don’t know something Roy Lee and Doug Davison (of the Asian-horror-remake factory Vertigo Entertainment) know. The duo is teaming up with Fran Rubel Kuzui, who hasn’t directed a film since Buffy but who “served” as an exec producer on the TV show, and her husband, Kaz Kuzui (producer of the original movie), to relaunch the franchise with a new, darker, event-sized Vampire Slayer movie, which will have nothing to do with the show, and which, as of yet, has no involvement from Joss Whedon.

Due to the success of Twilight and True Blood, I can see why someone would want to kick start another vampire franchise, especially one with name recognition, but is there anyone who would look forward to anything Buffy without Whedon? And even with him, would anyone accept a new actress in the title role after Sarah Michelle Gellar made it iconically her own? Let’s check out the film blog reactions to this ridiculous announcement after the jump:
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The vampires of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight novels are described as impossibly beautiful. But it’s one vampire, “Edward Cullen,” who is written as having such appealing details that it would seem impossible for a girl not to fall in love with him. In actuality, that’s what has happened to most females, young and old, who have read the books. And while his cinematic portrayer, Robert Pattinson, doesn’t quite resemble a marble statue of Adonis, the actor is still getting his fair share of seven-year-old suitors asking to be bitten.

Cullen is hardly the first vampire to so strongly attract the hearts (and necks) of mortals. But what is it about the bloodsucking undead that turns us on so much? Is it truly their stone-white skin and chiseled features? Or perhaps it’s their ability to go all night long? Let us take a look at the many vampire love interests that literature and cinema have given us over the years in an attempt to find out their sexy secret.

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Most vampire movies suck like most porn, the pleasures of the flesh drained of all life. Fortunately there’s Daughters of Darkness, starring the intoxicating Delphine Seyrig as the blonde, femme fatale Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Harry Kümel’s very-70s flick is a sexy roundelay akin to Radley Metzger’s 1973 soft-core Score, only in this case the hungry horny couple are the blood lusty Countess and her secretary/lover/protégé Ilona Harczy played by Andrea Rau (with lips to rival Angelina Jolie’s – someone get Brangelina a vampire movie already!), looking like a knockoff Lulu with her flapper haircut. The objects of their carnal obsession, newlyweds Stefan (John Karlen, resembling a cross between Michael J. Fox and Andrew McCarthy but, alas, born a decade too early for a John Hughes film) and Valerie (Danielle Ouimet — think Elke Sommer with a French accent) may be unwitting, but Stefan especially is far from innocent. Which gives the standard vampire set up of Daughters of Darkness a compelling mystery twist.

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I knew from the recent Hollywood Reporter feature on Twilight that Summit Entertainment planned to release a new trailer more geared toward a male audience, but I never would have guessed they’d do such a damn good job of it. I’ve been hating on this movie from the beginning, but now part of me is actually thinking I’d like to see it. And I bet a lot of teenage boys will be thinking the same, only more so.

This is pure genius marketing, and it would have been in Summit’s favor to have gone this route all along. What with superheroes so huge right now, why hadn’t they already tried to sell this thing as being like a comic book movie rather than a sappy adaptation of goth chick lit? Wasn’t that bit of dialogue referencing Spider-Man and Superman in the film the whole time? Such a line needs to be exploited, and it’s a shame the fledgling studio took so long to employ it. This trailer is seriously what Summit should have shown at Comic-Con.

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• Johnny Depp has officially confirmed he’ll be returning as Captain Jack in a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean installment. Additionally, at a special Disney event, in which the studio showcased it’s slate for exhibitors, Depp confirmed his role as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s 3-D performance capture Alice in Wonderland and announced that he’ll play Tonto in Disney/Bruckheimer’s The Lone Ranger. Hopefully he’ll still have some room for more mature roles throughout his commitment to the Mouse House.
• Other announcements at the Disney event included the moving up of Cars 2 from 2012 to 2011, at which time “Cars Land” will open in part of Disney’s California Adventure amusement park. Also, Nic Cage is on board for National Treasure 3 and Oprah Winfrey is voicing the mother of “the first black Disney princess” in The Princess and the Frog.
• More returning franchises: Warner Bros. has officially announced the I Am Legend prequel, which will detail the “last days of humanity” section that you wished had just been in the first film.
• I’m beginning to think Guillermo Del Toro has cloned himself. In additon to having literally a million film projects on his slate, he’s also found time to co-write a trilogy of vampire novels for HarperCollins.
• At least Del Toro’s not also signed on to write and direct the remake of Tomas Alfredson’s new Swedish vampire pic Let the Right One In for returning horror producers Hammer Films. That would be Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves. By the way, Hollywood: can we take a break from the bloodsuckers soon? Vampires are starting to seem more over-employed than superheroes.
• Oh, and finally, speaking of overdoing things, Steven Spielberg will possibly direct another movie about a boy and his alien friend. This one will be based on the 1968 sci-fi novel Chocky and sounds more Drop Dead Fred than E.T.

• According to Variety, four new films are competing for the attention of adult moviegoers this weekend, with The Women attracting the +25 ladies and Righteous Kill, Burn After Reading and Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys attracting the men, I guess. The prediction is that Perry’s film will win the box office, because it will attract the black audience while Righteous and Burn are expected to split their (white?) demo. And, well, women don’t actually go to the movies. Right?
• Universal and Focus have made a deal to invest in and co-produce the latest from Oldboy director Chan-wook Park. The new film, a risque vampire pic titled Thirst, is apparently the first Korean production financed and picked up for distribution by a U.S. studio prior to its being completed and released locally.
• In case you want to know more about the Gore Verbinski-Johnny Depp motion capture film, Rango, Variety has a short follow-up, which spotlights the involvement of ILM. Though it doesn’t really add much to the original news, I’m a little more intrigued now about the future of animated features and whether or not mo-cap companies like ILM, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Animal Logic (none of which, it’s noted, develop their own projects) could soon give Pixar and DreamWorks a run for their money.
• Ray Winstone will replace walk-off Robert De Niro in Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness, which will apparently actually be good and so doesn’t fit with De Niro’s career goals of late.