Eric Lavallée

After much ink was spilled on who would be cast as Lisbeth Salander, Mara beat out some European and Aussie talents for what is a three picture paycheck type of deal. If Mara isn't already hitting the gym, she might want to follow the regiment that Noomi Rapace followed for her work on the trilogy. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo begins production this fall, with a release date of Dec. 21, 2011

Dana Adam Shapiro blasted onto the scene with Murderball, a Sundance doc about fear-less wheelchair warriors consumed by a modified full-contact sport of rugby. His first narrative feature film Monogamy, which just got picked up by Oscilloscope Laboratories, is described as a cautionary tale about sex, photography, and fear of marriage.

It's another "Cannes heavy" selection this year for the 48th edition of the NYFF. With the majority of the titles coming from the Croisette (look out for some personal faves in Cristi Puiu's Aurora and Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro Volte) and the Lido (Abdellatif Kechiche's Black Venus, Kelly Reichardt's Meek’s Cutoff, Hong Sang-soo's Oki’s Movie, Pablo Larrain's Post Mortem, Patrick Keiller's Robinson in Ruins, Alexei Fedorchenko's Silent Souls, plus Raul Ruiz's miniseries Mysteries of Lisbon), I figure it be fun to take a closer look at the non-Cannes/Venice offerings.

We often hear about the Sundance Labs for screenwriters and directors, but don't worry folks, producers aren't being neglected, in fact the Sundance Institute have a pretty good initiative for the next generation of producers. The Sundance Institute announced a series of initiatives designed to support independent producers in feature film and documentary.

U.K based Ecosse Films' Douglas Rae and Robert Bernstein are teaming with Silverwood Films's Lynette Howell (Blue Valentine) on the book-to-film, 20-million dollar adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' On Green Dolphin Street.