Adam Sandler joins vampire cartoon

Steve Buscemi and Moly Shannon play a pair of werewolves. Cee Lo Green is a mummy. And Andy Samberg is a 21-year-old regular guy who is staying at the hotel. The movie is slated to release on September 21,2012.

Sandler voices a monkey in James’ Zookeeper,which Sony opened last week. His animation credits include the 2002 feature Eight Crazy Nights.

Adrianne Palicki is G.I. Joe’s Lady Jaye

GI Joe is looking better than Wonder Woman for Adrianne Palicki. The Friday Night Lights actress will play Lady Jaye,the female lead in Paramount Pictures’ GI Joe: Cobra Strikes.

Palicki had been cast as Wonder Woman,but NBC did not pick up the show.

Channing Tatum and Dwayne Johnson also star in the film,which is being directed by Jon Chu. Ray Park and Byung-hun Lee are expected back from the first G.I. Joe as Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Paramount did reasonably well with the first G.I. Joe. 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra grossed $302 million at the worldwide box-office. Its budget was estimated at $175 million. The sequel is slated to release on August 10,2012.

Thor 2 headed to theatres in July 2013

Disney and Marvel Studios are moving ahead with a sequel to the hit superhero movie Thor,setting a July 26,2013 release date. Kenneth Branagh will not return to direct,though he will serve as a producer. According to sources,Branagh had an option to direct the sequel and there were talks,but a ‘mutual parting of ways’ happened.

No writers have been hired for the sequel although Chris Hemsworth,who plays Thor,is slated to reprise his role. Thor made $437 million at the worldwide box-office.

Twilight director to shoot Swedish movie

Twilight filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke will direct Swedish actress Noomi Rapace (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) in a biopic about ’60s Swedish diva and pop culture icon Anita Lindblom.

Rapace,who next appears alongside Robert Downey,Jr. and Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows,will play Lindblom while her husband actor Ola Rapace takes the role of Bosse Hogberg,the Swedish and European boxing champion whose turbulent marriage to Lindblom were fodder for European tabloids for years.

The Rapaces have been developing the Lindblom project for several years,well before The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo actress became an international star. Ola Rapace has been training for the past four years to be fit enough to play the boxing champ. Shooting is set to start in Sweden this autumn,ahead of a Scandinavian release in 2012.

Chaplin film fails to find buyer at auction

A forgotten short film featuring footage of comic legend Charlie Chaplin failed to sell at a London auction despite expectations that it could raise a “significant six-figure sum”. The reserve price on the reel at a recent sale was 100,000 pounds ($160,000) at Bonhams auctioneers,but apparently it was too high.

Charlie Chaplin In Zepped,believed to be a propaganda film made in Britain during World War One,was discovered inside a battered old film reel tin which collector Morace Park bought for 3.20 pounds on the online auction site eBay.

The seven-minute film which shows Chaplin taking on a German Zeppelin aircraft,features some of the earliest animation in cinema history. “At first I had no idea what I had,” Park said. “I visited film experts in Europe and the USA and … one comment was common: none of them had ever seen this type of film before.”

Chaplin probably never knew of the movie’s existence,said film critic and Chaplin biographer David Robinson.

He said the anonymous maker had put together out-takes from three earlier Chaplin pictures — His New Profession (1914),A Jitney Elopement (1915) and The Tramp (1915) — and included sequences of stop-motion animation and other effects. Although Chaplin played no part in the production of Zepped,he famously satirised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the 1940 movie The Great Dictator.