It would be nice if Brad Dourif's legacy could be his Oscar-nominated performance as Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but it's far more likely that people will most remember him as the voice of Chucky, the killer doll from the Child's Play movies. So far, Dourif has lent his voice to the doll in five installments, and he's heading for a sixth. According to Bloody-Disgusting.com, who got it straight from the mouth of Child's Play creator Don Mancini, the remake/reboot of the 1988 original (which Scott first told us about a year ago) will feature a slightly redesigned Chucky, but the character will still have the voice of Dourif. The actor will also return in person to re-play serial killer Charles Lee Ray (aka "the Lake Shore Strangler"), who transfers his soul into the plastic body of a "Good Guys" doll.

Mancini also confessed again to Bloody-Disgusting that his reason to restart the franchise is to make Child's Play scary again; he claims the fans pretty much asked for this after seeing the series go too far in absurdly camp directions with the last installment, Seed of Chucky. Well, they didn't necessarily ask for a remake, but Mancini claims the only way to scare the fans again is to begin anew. Or, he could have asked us to forget the horror-comedy sequels and simply title it Child's Play 4. But anyway. The new film will be written and directed by Mancini, who singularly wrote all five of the previous Chucky movies and made his directorial debut with Seed.

The water surrounding Edge of Darkness was already rather tepid -- I'm going by the comments here on Cinematical, and the dutiful, but unenthusiastic reporting it's attracted. Were it 1996, and Mel Gibson was still everyone's favorite action star, the buzz would be something else.

But now, the rumors might really start flying. Variety reports that Robert DeNiro has abruptly left the production, which has been shooting since August 18th, though this was his first week on set. The only word came from his spokesperson, and it was good and curt. "Sometimes things don't work out; it's called creative differences." The Boston Herald has a little gossipy tidbit about DeNiro shooting a golf scene, which hardly seems big enough to have led to such unworkable tension. Was it the delay caused by excavating the sand pit? (I'm being sarcastic, of course, because I hate not knowing the truth behind a dry label like "creative differences.") We can speculate all day as to why -- is it actually worse than Analyze That, or what?

Shooting will continue, obviously filming around scenes of DeNiro's character as they run around recasting. Frankly, this could work out for the best -- many last minute casting changes do. But this film hardly needs the hint of scandal, not when the beleaguered Gibson is involved.

Though nothing has been made official yet, Nikki Finke over at Deadline Hollywood says the deal is done to bring both Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi back for Spider-Man 4 and 5. Not only that, but Finke also claims the exclusive on a story we broke right here at Cinematical months ago (thanks for the credit Nikki) -- that Sony plans to shoot both films back to back, not just because it's cheaper, but also because we were informed that James Vanderbilt's (Zodiac) script included a story arc that encompassed two films, not one.

As far as Kirsten Dunst goes, she currently does not have a deal, but Finke claims her character will return and Sony is not interested in recasting her. Villains? While there's been no announcement yet, a source claims that "once you find out who the villain is, you'll know who's playing him." Naturally, that leads everyone to believe that Dylan Baker will reprise his role and ultimately become The Lizard. Should they continue along the same path Spider-Man 3 went down, one imagines another villain (or two) will show up, perhaps as a way to tease us into the fifth film. I'm sure more will arrive online soon, so until then ... are you happy about Maguire and Raimi returning to the franchise?

Spider-Man 4 is currently scheduled to arrive in May, 2011.

UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter confirms the Spidey story today.

Acting couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly must have decided that life would be too calm after November 2008 -- so they have signed to play Charles and Emma Darwin in Creation. Yes, the Darwins. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be directed by Jon Amiel, from a script penned by John Collee, and based on Randal Keynes' book Annie's Box. (Keynes is Darwin's great-great grandson.) The film will portray Charles Darwin as a man torn between his love for his deeply religious wife, and his growing belief in a world where God has no place.

I hope that they explore Darwin's personal struggles and belief more deeply than the plot description suggests. To sell him as an athiest smacks of wanting to stir up controversy -- Darwin always called himself an agonostic, and his rejection of Christianity stemmed as much from the tragic death of his daughter, Annie, as his research. It's a complex and fascinating biography, one that, as a lover of science and the history of it, I would love to see done with real justice.

The cast is certainly more than capable -- Bettany and Connelly are both wonderful, and they'll be joined by Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Annie Darwin has yet to be cast. (I can't help but be amused by the fact that Bettany and Northam have played Darwin-inspired characters before, in Master and Commander and Possession, respectively. Pet interest, perhaps?)

I know the merest mention of Charles Darwin is enough to cause an epic flame war in the comments. If it's possible, try to keep discussion only to the film, the actors, the book, and Darwin's biography. That may be too much to hope for, but I beg you to remain respectful and tolerant of one another.

A double Academy Award winner is going back to the future. Denzel Washington will star in the post-apocalyptic drama Book of Eli, to be directed by Albert and Allen Hughes, according to Variety. He will play "a lone hero in a not-too-distant apocalyptic future who must fight across America to bring society the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption." Sounds like the best of all possible worlds, doesn't it? Denzel as an intellectual action hero of the future.

Denzel has been resolutely dealing with modern-day problems for the last decade, so maybe he felt like a change of pace. As far as I can tell, the only time that Denzel's tipped his toe into future waters was back in 1995 with Brett Leonard's Virtuosity. In that movie, set just four years into the future, he faced off against a virtual reality Russell Crowe. How far into the future will Book of Eli be set? Who gets the blame for the apocalypse? Will this be a tale of weary, wary survivors or vengeful warriors? And what's in that book, anyway?

Amazingly, this will be the first feature from The Hughes Brothers since 2001's graphic novel adapatation From Hell. They'll be working from a script originally written by Gary Whitta (the two new Akira films) and re-written by Anthony Peckham (Clint Eastwood's upcoming The Human Factor and Sherlock Holmes for Warner Bros). Joel Silver is on board as one of the producers. Filming begins in January.

I bet when you woke up this morning, you thought the same thing I did: "When are we going to get to see Tom Cruise viciously murder a whole bunch of people on the big screen ... again?" Right? We're SO on the same wavelength here, like internet, movie-related soul mates from outer space! That said, fellow soul mate, Variety tells us that Cruise and United Artists have acquired rights to The Monster of Florence, based on the book by Douglas Preston. Cruise will produce and possibly star, though there's no word on whether he'd play the killer or one of the men trying to crack the case.

This is actually a pretty crazy story, and I believe it was the subject of a recent 48 Hours Mystery (or Dateline) where these two guys -- Preston and Italian journalist Mario Spezi -- were on an intense search to find out who exactly committed eight gruesome double homicides between the years of 1968 and 1985. Both men claimed to have found the guy, but then -- since they knew so much about the case -- both became actual suspects themselves. It's a pretty wild story and one that's ripe for the big-screen treatment. Only problem is it kinda suffers from "the Zodiac issue" where no one currently knows who the killer is, and so they won't be able to tie a nice, shiny bow around this puppy. Regardless, it's a good story and I'm curious to see what they do with it. You?

In what is shaping up to be either a colossal train wreck or an inspired piece of lunacy, Southern belle Ashley Judd has joined the cast of the upcoming comedy Tooth Fairy as the titular character's girlfriend. Before (some of) you get your hopes up that a major studio production will feature a lesbian relationship, read on to learn how the superb dramatic actress figures into the story.

Dwayne Johnson was signed by 20th Century Fox for Tooth Fairy back in February, as Monika reported. He was to play "an ordinary man who's brought in to try to save the tooth fairy kingdom," though I prefer the unofficial synopsis that has found its way onto IMDb: "Tess is a 6-years-old girl who is very dissapointed when Derek (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) tells her that the tooth fairy isn't real." (Misspellings not mine.) Talk about high concept!

Variety now clarifies that Johnson will be playing a minor league hockey player nicknamed The Tooth Fairy, no doubt because he has a habit of knocking out opponents' teeth with his rough play. Judd will be playing his girlfriend, a single mother of two children, no doubt a romantic relationship that will help tame the Tooth Fairy's violent ways, especially when one of Ashley's children loses a tooth (just guessing here). You can probably write the rest of the story as predictably as two of the credited writers. Production starts in October under the direction of sitcom vet Michael Lembeck.

One man to not truly break through the 1980s stigma and revamp his career is Eric Stoltz. James Spader did a heck of a job with it, now being smarmy fun on Boston Legal, as did the likes of Jon Cryer, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and more. But then again, even Stoltz's '80s classics, Mask and Some Kind of Wonderful, were drowned by the likes of Molly Ringwald and her swarm of teen romances, so it's not like he ever had a bit spotlight.

Stoltz remains a bit on the outside, but still working as hard as ever. He's got a bit of a role in Milk, and now Variety reports that he's joining a wartime indie drama called Fort McCoy. Along with the likes of Brendan Fehr, Camryn Manheim, Lyndsy Fonseca, Seymour Cassel, and Kate Connor, Stoltz is nestled in Wisconsin shooting the true story, based on a script from Connor.

McCoy centers on "a barber who moves with his family during WWII to a POW camp in Wisconsin, where the children are the sole youngsters on the base -- save for a German teenager who forges an alliance that crosses language barriers with the barber's little girl." I imagine we can see how this plays out sometime during next year's festival season, with hopefully a release after that.

Good lord, Tim Roth is doing a lot of morphing lately. He de-aged himself in Youth Without Youth, became a weird ol' monster in The Incredible Hulk, and now he's getting his wings.

Variety reports that Roth is taking the title role in Skellig -- a UK production that will hit television screens next spring before getting a theatrical release. Based on the novel by David Almond, Skellig focuses on a boy in northern England who makes a surprising discovery. His parents have just bought a rundown house, and while investigating the shed out back, he finds a man/creature lying in the darkness who he decides to help. "Feeding him Chinese food and beer, the boy nurses the creature, who possesses magical powers, back to health."

It definitely sounds like an interesting story (read more about it here), and it's hard not to get intrigued at the thought of Roth as an angel, alongside the likes of Kelly MacDonald, Bill Milner (the cutie from Son of Rambow), and John Simm. The film has just started shooting in Cardiff.

If you are a fan of Chuck Palahniuk then today might be your lucky day, because it looks like audiences could be getting more Palahniuk (and his merry band of screw-ups) on the big screen than they can shake a stick at. Before you get too excited, keep in mind that Mr. Palahniuk loves to mess with people, so we should probably take this news with an enormous grain of salt. The latest chatter to hit the net is that the feature film version of Palahniuk's 2002 novel, Lullaby, has begun the casting process. But that's not all! According to The Cult (the official fan site for the author), Rant (a great 50's sci-fi inspired tale) has also been optioned by an unnamed producer.

The news about Lullaby comes from Film School Rejects, who claim that they got their scoop from the man himself. According to Rejects, "Lullaby, an adaptation that hasn't been tracked nearly as closely as his other works, is already at the casting stage. The financing is in place, and even though the production won't tell Palahniuk who they are looking to cast, he believes they are waiting for a concrete production start day to make the announcement." I don't mean to be cynical, but don't you think if this was the real deal, Palahniuk would have been told that information?