Friday is here once more and we begin the weekend with a look back at the previous 7 days and pick out a few of the more interesting news stories that broke in the film world.  We have a few films gaining directors, some Avengers and a raider of tombs.

First all let’s look at Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, these two directors were behind one of my favourite films of 2010 Catfish and they’ve signed onto their next project as they take on Paranormal Activity 3.  Many seem to have been quick to scoff at and criticise the move of the two new directors but I honestly think it’s one of the brightest moves they could have made.

Catfish was sort of a big deal last year for film fans, as an independent documentary it didn’t really let them get the credit that I believe they deserved and in a general public sense they are still relatively unknown.  In my opinion signing on to a guaranteed hit, that’s easily going to break the $100 million mark worldwide is the best thing they can do to increase their profile.  Together the Paranormal Activity films cost just over $3 million to make but their combined box office gross is over $350 million, there is no way this film is going to flop.  And another thing it’s not like their signing on to a terrible franchise, the first film is a great horror flick and the second added a sense of mythology to the story that could mean their film has the potential to go to some very interesting places.

Also, let’s not write off these guys’ creativity.  Yeah, I agree that stylistically you really can’t get the most out of a documentary but I’m super intrigued to find out what these guys can do with a fictional narrative, what do they have to offer that the lead Paramount to hire them?  I believe it’s a well thought out decision for building their career, people will think it’s a waste of their talents but let the two young guys build up their name first and then see if they have the chops to make it in the big leagues.

Now we have another director announcement and it seems that Scott Mann, a man who’s only feature film credit is for fun B-Movie The Tournament will be taking on the challenge of bringing a remake of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai to the screen.  Sadly, this film is in my ‘shame pile’ and I’ve never got round to seeing it but I couldn’t help but try to fathom what the Weinstein’s are thinking of letting a rather untested director control a remake of a film that is seen as one of the greatest in cinema history.

I’ve seen The Tournament and there was nothing about the direction that jumped out at me saying that this guy is talented enough to tackle a film of such magnitude.  The whole story just has a musky smell of bad idea.

Next we move onto the somewhat seemingly obligated Superhero movie news story and that’s the rumour that Marvel Studios could be thinking of making single films for Black Widow and Hawkeye.  If this news came out two weeks ago I would have quashed any idea of making stand-alone movies for the two aforementioned characters because their brand would not be bankable enough, but saying that I thought the same about Thor and the general public proved me wrong.  You’ve two good actors in the roles, actually thinking about it a two time Academy Award nominee and new Bourne star playing Hawkeye.  So the ‘big name’ crowd pleasing stars in the lead roles wouldn’t be a problem.

I’m thinking any future plans for these flicks will wait to see how audiences react to the two in the upcoming The Avengers; if they go down a treat then I would say it would be a definite yes that we would see these movies hitting theatres.

The last news story getting that I feel worth discussing is that Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby have been hired to write the new Tomb Raider reboot; together their credits include Iron Man, Children of Men and one of the biggest films of the summer Cowboys and Aliens.  The two previous titles I’m huge fans of but what interests me more is that they are also very different films therefore showing the versatility of their style.  I’m guessing the new Tomb Raider will be more Iron Man than Children of Men but if you can get the same comedy and wit of Iron Man in the script you could be onto winner.

Now onto the trailer and this week it’s for the Sundance hit Martha Marcy May Marlene, take a look at it below.

I heard the buzz for this film after its screening in Sundance, it seemed like it struck a chord with critics and bloggers a like and the mostly positive reviews flooded the net.  So what’s the film about? IMDB sums it up as follows – Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to re-assimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

It seems interesting, dark and well it has John Hawkes in it.  It also has the new up and coming Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister to those twins who were big in the nineties.  She really seems to be getting a few very decent roles early on in her career and is sure becoming one to watch.

More next week.